Snowflakes & Fire Escapes

by Darhower, J. M.

  I was finishing up a worksheet for history when Cody ripped a piece of paper out of one of my notebooks. From the corner of my eye, I saw him fold it into a small triangle before fishing around in my school bag, pulling out a pair of scissors. Smiling, I watched as he started cutting it, randomly making jagged edges and patterns along the sides of it. He unfolded it when he finished, opening it up to reveal an elaborate snowflake.

  He made them all the time when we were kids. He’d write along the edges and slip them to me, little presents of love whenever he could tell I was feeling sad. It had been years since he’d made one, though. That was before he began to sneak out at night, back before he learned the art of scaling fire escapes and tapping on windows.

  I used to try to return the gesture, try to make him one, but mine were always an utter mess. I accidentally cut them in half most of the time.

  Reaching over, Cody grabbed a pen from my bag. I wondered what he was writing, what sort of secret he was spilling along the edges of the paper.

  When he was finished, he handed it to me. I took it carefully, regarding him for a moment before glancing down at the snowflake, reading his writing.

  I really want to touch your boob.

  Laughter burst from me. I shoved him playfully, and he wrapped his arms around me, knocking my homework onto the floor. The sky outside was starting to darken while in the living room his hands started to roam. He groped and touched me through my clothes, getting exactly what he wanted, before his hand ran beneath the fabric of my skirt, slipping into my underwear.

  I didn’t stop him.

  His lips met mine, his kiss frenzied. Discarded bottles surrounded us, scattering when I accidentally kicked some trying to take off my tights. I started to fully undress but he stopped me, whispering against my mouth. “Keep the uniform on.”

  My cheeks burned from blush, but he didn’t see. It was dark and he was too occupied with other parts of me. He rubbed and rubbed and rubbed between my thighs as he sucked on my neck, teeth nipping the skin. He was going to leave a mark, but I didn’t care.

  That was why they invented turtlenecks.

  The pressure inside of me built and built, like nothing I’d ever felt before, until it built so much I couldn’t contain it anymore. I cried out when pleasure rushed through me. Before I could even get a grip on what I was feeling, Cody unbuckled his pants and pulled me onto his lap.

  Panic seized me for a split second as I slid down on him. It was uncomfortable again, not as much as last time, but I still wasn’t used to the feeling of him being inside of me. I didn’t know what I was doing, so I just moved my hips, hoping he was getting something out of it. His lips parted and he let out a soft sigh as he closed his eyes, leaning his head back on the couch.

  “Just like that, Gracie,” he whispered. “Fucking perfect.”

  It didn’t take long again until he grunted, gripping my hips tightly and thrusting up a few times, finishing. Afterward, we lay on the couch, me in his arms, as that word echoed through my head.

  Perfect.

  Fucking perfect.

  Except … it wasn’t.

  Perfect would have been us not having to sneak around. Perfect would have been him without a black eye. Perfect would have been my wish coming true.

  “Did you get suspended again?” I asked curiously after a while. We were both dressed, for the most part. “Did they kick you out for fighting?”

  “No, this didn’t happen at school.”

  “Oh, so school is still going okay?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I haven’t been.”

  I pulled back to look at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I stopped going.”

  I gaped at him. “But you’re so close to graduating. How are you going to find another school to take you now?”

  “I’m not,” he said. “There’s no point. A degree isn’t going to do shit for me in these streets, Gracie.”

  “But you didn’t want—”

  “I know,” he said, cutting me off. I didn’t have to finish because he knew what I was thinking. “But sometimes we have to make choices we fucking hate to get what we want out of life. A little compromise never hurt anybody.”

  As he said that, all I could do was stare at his battered face. Whatever this compromise was, it certainly hurt him. I was trying to wrap my head around it, trying to makes sense of what he was saying. I was trying to think of the words to explain what I was feeling, but I never got a chance.

  Because my dreams?

  They went right up in flames.

  It started when I heard a key in the door, the lock turning, the clicking echoing through the living room.

  Cody heard it, too.

  He was on his feet instantly.

  Panicked, I jumped up, trying to clean up the empty beer bottles but there wasn’t enough time.

  “Get out of here,” I hissed, pushing Cody toward the window. He shoved it open, and I cringed at the loud groan of old wood. The sound was deafening. He was slipping out, the metal banging when he scaled the fire escape, just as the last lock clicked and the door shoved open.

  My father appeared.

  He looked right at me as I stood in front of the open window, visibly trembling, with an empty beer bottle in my hand that I was trying to conceal. It only took him a second to put the pieces together as his eyes swept along the living room.

  Before I knew it, he was running, disappearing back out the door. Shit. I hoped Cody made it, that he was gone before he could get caught, and climbed out onto the fire escape to try to warn him before it was too late.

  My breath caught as I look down. Busted.

  Cormac Moran stood on the sidewalk near his town car. Cody was beside his father, shivering his ass off in the cold evening air. He wasn’t wearing his hoodie. My gaze darted behind me, toward the couch in the apartment. His hoodie was still on the floor along with some other discarded clothes.

  Oh God.

  Oh no.

  My knees went weak.

  I had to grip onto the railing.

  I watched down below as my father burst outside, his voice booming like thunder as he lunged right for Cody. “You little son of a bitch! You think you can come into my house? You think you can violate my daughter? You think you can do that and get away with it?”

  Cormac intervened before my father could throw any punches, stepping between the two of them. I couldn’t hear what the man said, but whatever it was silenced my father … at least temporarily. The men talked heatedly for a minute before my father turned away from them and stormed back inside. I watched, frozen, as Cormac roughly grabbed Cody by his shirt, throwing him against the passenger side of the town car, so hard it left a dent. Cody raised his hands in a sign of surrender as Cormac verbally laid into him. After shoving him back against it again, Cormac finally let go to walk around to the driver’s side.

  Cody paused briefly, glancing up at me on the fire escape, before getting in the car.

  They hadn’t even yet pulled away from the curb when my father returned to the apartment. I heard the front door close and heard his footsteps along the wooden floor. I braced myself for his rage. I was prepared for disgust, even ready to feel the man’s hatred.

  What I got was far, far worse.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Grace Callaghan,” he said, his voice laced with dejection. “I thought you were better than this.”

  ***

  “Grace.” My father’s voice is always gruff, like he’s constantly fighting to keep his emotions in check, but I know that’s just his natural tone. “It’s great to hear your voice again.”

  Closing my eyes, I swallow thickly. “Dad.”

  I love my father.

  I do.

  But he made this bed that I’m forced to lie in, day in and day out, all alone in this ironic little town, so it’s hard not to feel some resentment. He gave me life, sure, but I also blame him for taking my life away. I always knew he did bad things, alwa
ys knew he hung around bad people, but I never knew the scope of it until the day Holden let me read the thirty-page indictment against him.

  My father was linked to a body count higher than Ted Bundy’s.

  It’s hard to reconcile that fact with the man who raised me.

  My father was Dr. Jekyll.

  The man on the phone is the evil Mr. Hyde.

  Connor Callaghan.

  He got to keep his last name.

  “How are you?” he asks. “You staying safe? How’s school?”

  He fires questions at me, innocently enough, but I have to think through every answer before saying anything at all. Something as simple as conversation about the weather could lead the wrong person right to my front door.

  I say I’m fine, people are nice, school’s great, but the truth is I stopped going months ago and I haven’t made a single friend in this place. Holden leans against the counter and listens in on the conversation, knowing I’m lying my ass off.

  Maybe I’m better at being dishonest than I think.

  I absently scribble in the margins of the manual as my father babbles on and on, doing what I always do—signing my name.

  My fake name.

  Over and over, practicing until it practically bleeds from my fingertips.

  Ten minutes isn’t that long, not when you haven’t spoken to someone in over a year, but there’s a lot of awkward silence when you have nothing to say. I’m ashamed by the relief I feel when Holden pushes away from the counter, tapping two fingers against the face of his watch, telling me time is up.

  “I have to go,” I say, interrupting my father as he’s talking about something. I don’t know. I stopped paying attention.

  He lets out a deep sigh. “Just a few more years, Grace, and I’ll be out of this mess. A few more years and we can start over as a family.”

  I don’t respond to that.

  I’ve faced reality.

  There’s no starting over for him and I.

  “Goodbye, Dad.”

  I pull the phone away from my ear and hit the button to end the call before holding it out to Holden. I drop the pen after he takes the phone, leaning back in the chair and running my hands down my face. “Please don’t ever do that to me again.”

  Holden pulls out the chair across from me and sits. He’s quiet for a moment, and I glance over, meeting his eyes, seeing the frown on his lips. He thought he was doing me a favor, that talking to someone I knew in that other world would pacify me, but hearing my father’s voice again only made these feelings worse.

  I haven’t seen the man in a year, yet he’s still controlling my life.

  I’ve never felt so smothered.

  “You wanted it to be somebody else on the phone, didn’t you?”

  I scoff. “What makes you say that?”

  Holden motions toward the manual I’d been doodling in. One glance at it gives me my answer. I’d absently scribbled Cody’s name more than once without thinking. Picking up the pen again, I quickly scratch out every instance of it, knowing there’s a rule against leaving shit like that around. There are ways, of course, of communicating with the past … these untraceable phone calls, letters hand delivered by Marshals that are burned after reading.

  But in my case, it wasn’t possible.

  I look around the kitchen, looking at everything except for Holden. We’ve had this conversation about Cody before, and I’m not in the mood to have it again. “Can I ask you something, inspector?”

  From the corner of my eye, I see him grimace. He hates being called that about as much as he hates being deemed a handler.

  ‘Just call me Holden,’ he’d insisted. ‘Not Inspector, not Marshal … just Holden.’

  Holden is his last name, technically. I didn’t even know that until I spotted it on some paperwork a few months back. United States Marshals Service Inspector Brian Holden.

  I’ve never called him Brian.

  He probably doesn’t even realize I know that’s his name.

  “You can ask me anything,” he says, tearing the manual away from me and tossing it across the room, onto the kitchen counter, when I start doodling in it again. “As long as you look at me when you do.”

  I stare at him, still clutching the pen, and defiantly start scribbling right on the top of the kitchen table. He doesn’t stop me, knowing he really can’t. The Marshals Service paid for this table, but it belongs to me. Holden wants to intervene, though. I can see his fingers twitching.

  “Have you ever lost a witness?”

  It’s kind of funny, I think, that I’m considered a witness, considering I haven’t witnessed a fucking thing. Unless the injustice of humanity counts …

  He hesitates. “Define ‘lost’.”

  “As in ‘died’,” I say. “Has anyone ever died on your watch?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “Never,” he says. “No witness has ever died that followed the rules.”

  “And the ones that didn’t follow the rules? How many of them have died?”

  “About thirty.”

  Thirty.

  My father’s personal body count is higher than that.

  “Out of how many?”

  “There are about seventeen thousand people under protection.”

  That momentarily leaves me speechless.

  That’s a lot of people living lives that don’t belong to them. I wonder how many feel like me. I wonder how many leave because of it, how many risk death, risk becoming one of those unlucky thirty, just for the chance to be themselves again.

  “I know thirty doesn’t seem like a lot,” Holden continues. “But it’s thirty lives we tried to save … lives we would’ve saved, if they had just followed the rules. It’s a senseless death, and I pray to God there’s never a thirty-one.”

  I nod, tinkering with the pen, scratching marks into the table until Holden reaches his breaking point. He covers my hand with his own, prying the pen from my grip.

  “The program works, Gracie,” he says, pocketing the pen before I can take it back. “You just have to learn to work with it.”

  Standing, Holden starts gathering his things, and I watch as he pulls himself together to leave. The tie goes on, his badged slipped around his neck, before he puts on his holster to conceal his gun beneath his coat.

  I know he’s still standing in front of me, but I suddenly feel utterly alone.

  “I have some other business to attend to, so it’ll be a while before I make another scheduled visit,” he says. “It’ll probably be closer to Christmas.”

  Christmas.

  It’s only three weeks, but it feels so far away.

  He’s never stayed gone so long before.

  “Call me if you need me,” he says, pulling out an envelope and dropping it on the table. “Here’s your stipend for the month.”

  I grab the envelope, pulling it into my lap, and skim through the cash as he finishes getting ready. There’s fifteen hundred dollars in it. My father used to leave me that much when he left for a weekend.

  Holden strolls around the table to where I’m sitting on his way to the door, placing his hand on my shoulder and squeezing. “Happy Birthday, Gracie. Here’s to many more …”

  ***

  The sound of tapping glass was so faint I felt like it had to be a figment of my imagination, a phantom echo from somewhere deep down in my soul. My head turned, slowly, the sense of disappointment already brewing in my gut, preparing for the let down.

  It had been two weeks.

  Two weeks since Cody scurried out that window only to get caught on the way down. He hadn’t been hanging around the neighborhood with his friends. He didn’t show up at the diner while I was having breakfast. He certainly hadn’t come here.

  I expected to see nothing, but my eyes caught a sliver of green in the moonlight. He was there, crouched on the fire escape, peering in the window at me. His face was cast in shadows from the darkness, but I could make out bruising on his face,
the marks moving down his jawline, toward a freshly busted lip that lined up almost perfectly with the scar that runs down his chin.

  A scar his father caused the first time he hurt him, back when we were just little kids. ‘He’s going to be a man someday,’ Cormac used to say. ‘Might as well start treating him like one.’ By treating, he’d meant beating. And by a man, he meant one of his guys that run the streets. Cody was never a son to him. Cody was just flesh and blood … the pieces that make up a person. Cormac never cared what else existed inside of the boy.

  He never cared Cody wanted more than his neighborhood.

  But looking at Cody at that moment, I knew the neighborhood had finally gotten its claws into him. There wouldn’t be any secret smiles from him this time. No more whispered promises of ‘soon’.

  Standing up, I gave a look around the quiet apartment out of pure instinct before walking over to the window and shoving it open, not caring about the noise it made. There was nobody there with me. I pushed it open as far as it would go, a blast of cold air hitting me right away. Two weeks were all it took for the warmth to move out and the cold to seep in, like his absence made more than just me mourn. The temperature finally dipped below freezing, the air damp and sky covered in clouds. I can tell the metal railing is slick, the steps icy.

  I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself right away. I was wearing his hoodie. He never came back for it. I started to climb out to join him but his hands grasped my arms, stopping me before I could come through the window.

  “It’s too cold,” he said. “Don’t come out here. You’ll freeze.”

  “Do you … ?” I paused. “Do you want to come in?”

  He didn’t answer that question.

  He didn’t have to.

  His ten second hesitation returned, turning to twenty … thirty … forty …

  A minute later, after nothing from him, I knelt down on the floor, knowing he wasn’t going to move. He stared at me like he was looking through me, studying me, looking for answers to an equation he was desperate to solve.