Snowflakes & Fire Escapes by J. M. Darhower Page A

disappear from my life?”
    “Impossible,” he said. “Just because you won’t see me doesn’t mean I’m gone.”
    “That’s easy for you to say.”
    “Yeah, it is. It’s easy to say, because it’s true. You can break people apart, but you can’t rob them of what’s them . You’ll never be without me, because I’ll always be part of you, just like you’re in me, Gracie. You’re my soul, love.”
    My tears started falling harder.
    He gave it ten seconds then.
    Ten seconds before he turned around and walked away.
    I collapsed as it all purged from me, my body viciously shaking as every part of me hurt. The cold filtered into the apartment from the open window, the heater no match for the icy air. It infused into everything around me, freezing my world as I fell to pieces on the floor.
    “Gracie!”
    Cody’s voice held a hint of emotion as he shouted my name from the street somewhere. I forced myself to my feet, my vision blurred from my tears, and climbed out onto the icy fire escape. The moment I stepped out, I felt the coldness hit my face, wetness that had nothing to do with crying.
    My first thought was maybe he changed his mind, maybe he saw how wrong this was, but no … I knew that couldn’t be so. He wouldn’t have done this, wouldn’t have said those words, if he weren’t sure. I blinked away more tears as I glanced down, seeing Cody standing along the curb staring up at me. White specks fell down around him from the sky, sporadic snowflakes, just enough to make out in the darkness.
    “Look, Gracie,” he called out. “Your wish came true.”
    No, I thought, as he walked away.
    It hadn’t come true at all.
    ***
    Hours pass after Holden leaves.
    Hours that mean nothing.
    Hours that don’t matter to me.
    Because eighteen looks exactly like seventeen, and it certainly doesn’t feel any different. I don’t feel older or wiser or any more mature. It’s not magic, like Cinderella’s carriage transforming at midnight because of some spell.
    The only difference is I’m not a minor anymore.
    My decisions are my own now. Nobody can stop me from making my own choices. They don’t have to like them, but I’m the one who had to live with whatever happens.
    Me, not them.
    So I give myself those hours.
    Before I find myself walking out the front door.
    I’m not sure what possesses me to do it, what lights the fire under my ass that makes me put on real clothes and actually fix my hair. I don’t know what possesses me to leave the house, to get in that piece of shit car and start to drive. I don’t know what possesses me to speed right by that Snowflake city limit sign again.
    I don’t know, but I do it.
    And this time, I keep going.
    I packed one bag before I left the house.
    Just one.
    That’s it.
    It’s easy to condense this life into one bag, because there hasn’t really been much to it.
    I drive to Phoenix.
    It’s a three-hour trip. It’s dark, and the Chevy is spewing smoke again by the time I get there, the repairs just a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. It barely holds on until I reach my destination.
    The airport.
    Using some of the money Holden left, I buy a ticket on the first flight out of Arizona. Maybe it’s irrational, and maybe it’s stupid, making this decision on a whim, but I’m tired of thinking. I’m tired of suffocating. I’m tired of being alone.
    This isn’t my life.
    And I’m not going to live it anymore.
    ***
    I wore Cody’s hoodie to class.
    Sister Abigail singled me out for breaking the dress code the moment I stepped into Calculus, ignoring the fifteen other girls in class with too short skirts and a hell of a lot of unapproved hair ‘dos. I ignored her, refusing to take it off, for the first time in my life talking back to a nun. She sent me straight to the principal’s office for reprimanding, but I didn’t care.
    I was tired of caring when nobody else seems to anymore.
    “You know the rules,” the principal said as I sat across from him in the lavish