CHAPTER 3

The air outside was biting. Aria was caught up in the rush of having made the decision to leave them before they abandoned her. It made her feel like she was finally part of the outside world. She was out in it, instead of looking at it through a pane of glass. The darkness swallowed her up and she welcomed it. She felt a stronger sense of belonging in the shadowy spaces, between where the light from the street lamps could reach, than she had ever felt in the façade of that cinnamon-smelling shitshow called a home.

She let the fury of her rejection of that life fuel her movements forward. It seemed to allow her to run further and faster than normal. It was empowering. But beneath the fever of that empowerment, Aria was terrified. She was terrified of the feeling of arriving wherever it was that she was going. She knew that once she got there, there would be nothing but silence and nothing but stillness. There would be nothing but space to second-guess herself.

A few times Aria stopped to check on Clifford, whose still demeanor beneath her coat owed more to his state of confusion than it did to pleasure. She felt guilty that he was along for the ride to suit her best interests rather than to suit his own. “It’s OK,” she said down to him, cradling him closer in an attempt to soothe away the anxiety, which was so obviously telegraphed by the agitated swivel of his ears.

Aria had run away without a specific destination in mind and that no longer made sense. No matter how hard she tried to search for a great idea, the corridors of her mind would only offer up a slideshow of familiar places. She decided on the one she felt most suited the current situation: the bleachers flanking her high school football field. She had spent time there on several occasions while skipping school, feeling exactly like she did now, like a fugitive. A fugitive intent on biding as much time as possible before making the next move.