2

Maria

"I don't want you to get hurt, Maria."

Dad opens the passenger's side door when we get home. He stares at me, and I sit there with my arms folded as if I could defy him. But slowly, my resolve crumbles, and I leap out of the truck, running past him to the front door. It's pathetic. I have to wait for him to open the door because I don't have a key.

"There are things I need to protect you from," he replies, unlocking the door. "Things you don't know about."

"Then tell me!" I demand. "You can't keep me in the dark forever! It's my life you're ruining, not yours!"

"You're like your mother," he says quietly, taking in a ragged breath. "Maybe I wouldn't worry about losing you if she was still here."

He always wins our arguments when he mentions her. He told me that she passed away from cancer when I was still a baby, long before I could even form any memories. But whenever I ask for any details, he never goes into it.

Almost as if he can't bear to.

Dad has raised me by himself my entire life. He's handsome in his own way, and I've seen more than a few women checking him out throughout the years. But he's never even so much as spared them a second look.

I guess he will never get over Mom. I think about her and wonder how different he must have been when she was alive. I've never even seen a photo of her. Dad said he destroyed them during a fit of grief—an act that still fills him with regret, or so he's told me about a thousand times.

But that doesn't give him the right to keep me from the world!

I hurry into our claustrophobic colonial-style house as soon as he opens the front door. Our quiet house is pretty to the eye but filled with tense silence. I turn on all the lights on the first floor; otherwise the darkness will feel like it will press down on me until I don't exist.

My knees tremble before I toss myself into a chair in the living room, and Dad sits down in a chair across from me.

We don't need to speak to keep on fighting. I refuse to look at him, but I feel the storm of emotions—anger, concern, and something else—radiating off him. I feel trapped and smothered by his love. Did Mom ever feel trapped too?

I refuse to be the first one to break the silence. It's not entirely from spite. I can hardly breathe, much less say a word.

Finally, he speaks, and his voice is strained.

"I'm just trying to keep you safe, Maria."

"You didn't have to embarrass me in front of all my friends," I mutter, staring at the empty fireplace. The overstuffed plaid furniture looks new despite being almost as old as me.

Dad never invites anyone, and I'm never allowed to bring any friends over either.

"Embarrass you?" He scowls. "Is that what you think?"

I turn to look at him and see worry lines etched deep into his rugged face. What is wrong? What is he afraid of? It can't be me.

"What else would it be?" I demand.

Dad does everything he can to keep me from having any kind of contact with the outside world, even my cousin Mercy. Hell, with the outside world in general. I'm eighteen years old and still don't have a phone or any social media profiles.

It's like he wants to keep me hidden from the world. But he never tells me why. And the longer the two of us sit here, stewing in each other's anger, the more curious I become.

I deserve to know why. I'm an adult now, aren't I?

"Dad." My anger dissolves into a mild headache. "Why do you keep me locked up like some princess in a castle? What are you so afraid of?"

"Maria ..." he starts, but then stops himself, swallowing hard. The shadow of some secret hidden pain passes over him. And then he blinks, and the emotions are erased in an instant.

I hate it when he does that.

"You won't allow me anything! Why don't you trust me? You never even give me a chance to screw up." I look away and whisper. "Who else do you have to trust but me?"

I can almost hear his mind turning behind his skull. But he refuses to answer my question, leaving us with nothing. Our chance is lost. No. His chance is lost. I won't let go of mine. I know that something has to change—for my sake.

"Fine, keep your secrets." I jump up. "I'm going to bed."

"Maria!" he calls after me, but I hurry past him, running up the stairs.

I slam the door shut, rattling the frame and letting the sound echo through the house. The silence that follows is deafening—both of us too stubborn to say anything else. As soon as I hear his footsteps pass by my door to his bedroom, my anger and frustration boil over, spilling out in hot, angry tears.

I scream into my pillow, battering it with my tight fists. My dad loves me, that much I know. But his past has a hold on him. I can't believe my mother would have wanted this life for him, for us.

What can he possibly be scared of?

I pace around my room and my thoughts fuel my need to escape. And something catches my eye. My graduation congratulations card from my cousin Mercy, adorned in the art deco style of the Empire State Building.

But most importantly, there's a return address on it.

New York ...

I can disappear, live my own life in New York, and crash on Mercy's couch for a few days as I figure life out. A fresh start, far away from Dad.

I reach for a small wooden box hidden beneath my bed—an old family heirloom that holds my secret stash of cash. Over the past year, I've been saving cash from my allowance. I thought one day I would just announce to my father that I was moving out.

I just never thought that day would be coming so soon.

Slowly, I count every dollar, and count again, just so I'm sure. Less than three hundred dollars ... It's not much, but even I know it's more than enough to pay for a bus ticket out of Holtsville forever.

I can start a new life.

A better life.

One without someone like Dad keeping me on a tight leash, locked up in a tower that I can never escape from.

I start grabbing things to put into my backpack. A couple of shirts, a few pairs of socks and underwear, a toothbrush. My eyes settle on the massive book of What Great Paintings Say—my sixteenth birthday present from Dad in happier times and one of my most treasured possessions. It's huge and heavy, but I can't bear leaving it behind, so I stuff it into my backpack.

I take one last look around my room—the hot pink walls, the neatly arranged art books, and the plush stuffed animals on my twin bed since childhood. It's a cage, a pretty one, but a cage that I have to leave.

The moonlight casts a pale glow on my bedroom wall. I pull the covers up to my chin and nervously glance at the clock—almost midnight. My gaze is fixed on my bedroom door as I wait for a sound, any sound. The soft sound of the clock in my room seems to slow with each tick until I'm sure that no one is awake but me.

Now or never.

I ignore the gnawing guilt in my stomach and open my bedroom window quietly. I hoist myself onto the ledge, gripping the ivy trellis for dear life. My ankle wiggles as I secure my balance, and I inhale sharply, not daring to look down.

I used to do this so effortlessly as a kid, but tonight, the ground seems farther away. Thick ivy presses hard against my face as I gradually climb down.

Finally, I make it to the ground, panting and slightly disheveled, but otherwise free.

Looking up at the second-floor windows, I'm relieved when no lights come on. Darkness shields me from view as I run from the driveway to the street. A few neighbors have their lights on, but I know no one will be interested in what I'm doing except my dad. When I reach the corner, I peek behind me to make sure no one is coming, and then I race down Hill view Road toward the last bus into New York.

I hope he won't miss me too much, even though I know he will.

And it's only after I step on the bus that I realize it's the first night I never told him I love him.