Chapter 5: The Guest Room

I tried my key anyway.

It didn't even go in.

I rang the bell. Then I knocked. Then I pounded on the door with the side of my fist.

Above me, the balcony doors slid open.

Sadie stepped out into the porch light.

She was wearing my graduation dress.

Pale green silk, bought with two summers of tutoring money. It still had the tag on it.

She did a little turn at the railing.

"Mom said you wouldn't need it. Since you're not coming home."

Dad appeared behind her, holding a glass of wine.

"You embarrassed your mother in front of the Keaton boy today."

"She hit me."

"And you earned it." He leaned on the railing. "You can come back inside when you apologize to your sister. On your knees, on the porch. I'll wait."

The rain was running down the back of my collar.

My thesis binder was still in the gutter.

I walked over, fished it out, and let the water pour off it.

Eight months of drawings, running together in blue streaks.

"Well?" Dad called down.

I didn't answer him.

I picked up a trash bag from the curb and started putting my clothes in it.

Sadie laughed and went back inside.

Dad stayed at the railing, sipping his wine, watching me pick my underwear out of the hedge.

My hands were shaking now. From the cold, I told myself.

I didn't have anywhere to go.

My friends were in dorms. My bank account had four hundred dollars in it.

I took Mitch's card out of my pocket. The ink had smeared, but I could read it.

I stood there in the rain with my thumb over his number for a full minute.

Then I called.

He picked up on the first ring.

"Molly."

"I'm sorry. I know it's late. I just need to know a cheap hotel near campus, and I..."

"Where are you?"

"Outside my parents' house."

"Why are you outside?"

I looked at the lawn.

"They changed the locks."

There was a silence on the line.

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