Aria rode the first wave of adrenaline across the room to fetch her school backpack. She emptied out the books onto her bed and proceeded to fill her backpack with all the things she could not leave behind: her journal, a change of clothes, her toothbrush and toothpaste, a hairbrush, the blankie she had slept with for eight years and the snow globe beside her bed. The abrasive rip of the zipper jolted her into feeling again. She was terrified. Glancing around the room one last time, to make sure she had not left anything she could not live without, her eyes settled on Clifford. He was patiently sitting on the desk in her room, watching her intently as if he could sense what she had planned. Aria was leveled by the surge of grief she felt when she noticed him. For a minute, she entertained the notion that she would be leaving him and, with him, the only real sense of connection she had ever had. But when she thought of taking him with her, the gush of relief she felt was enough to convince her to do it. She would make it work, no matter what. She picked up her coat that was heaped on the floor and zipped it halfway while she walked toward the cat. Lifting him into her coat, she kissed his head and made cooing sounds. As docile as he was, he made no protest. She felt guilty, realizing that her siblings would wake to find the family pet missing, but she zipped up her coat anyway, concealing Clifford inside.

Aria bent down to swing her backpack onto her back. She turned off the light in the room she was about to abandon. It felt empty already, even though everything was still in its proper place. She walked down the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible, and crossed the floor to the doorway. She did not look back when she reached the door. As far as she was concerned, she did not have the option to second-guess herself. She unlocked the door and cracked it open with delicate movements, maneuvering her body past it. In the heat of the moment, she could not feel the cold of the air when it received her. She turned around to close the door as quietly as she could. The familiar wooden plaque on the door rattled a bit when she closed it.

She looked briefly at the house she was leaving forever. Surprisingly, she felt a fondness that she could not recall feeling before. But this was no time to turn back, so she spun around and tiptoed down the steps. When she reached the sidewalk, she began to walk swiftly, looking back over her shoulder only once to make sure that she hadn’t woken anyone in the house. When she saw that the lights were still off, she held Clifford tight to her chest and began running.