This story is copyrighted to Adrienne Wolter in 2004 and onwards. It was written on Monday, May 3rd, 2004.

This story is NOT autobiographical.
The girl's decision and name are purposely never fully revealed. That was my main point in writing, actually, to practice being vague (I know that that's really strange, but I need to stop stating the obvious, if that makes any sense at all). And present-tense writing as well. And second person writing... although this is first as well? I'm not sure, we've not really covered anything about 'multiple' tenses in English yet. But whoo. I'm very proud of this one in any case.
Oh, and happy birthday to me... lol.

Warmth

It’s been about seventeen years that I’ve put up with you.
I didn’t consider it bad at first. I was sheltered, perhaps more than I should have. You taught me how to live life as a quiet, intelligent woman. I know you started with good intentions. Teaching me to read and sew and all of the important lessons in life early, and I’m thankful for that early interest in those things now so dear to me. Except sewing. You never understood how much I hated sewing. I guess you couldn’t, anyway, that was just how you yourself were brought up.
You wanted me to start life with all the things you missed as a child. All the resources, all the knowledge, and all the attention. You doted me on little pieces of information, quizzed me during dinner. Made me perfect and told me to get better.
I guess that’s why I’m here now, hesitating and making time as I sit on a concrete bench at the bus station, between two people I don’t know and have given no attention to. The snow’s delayed all the buses for an hour, and in this one room people gather and linger and slowly pace across the room, first to the wide double doors and then to the windows. Everything’s slow. People drag their feet, loiter around the times posted on the large digital monitor across the room. I feel like those little green numbers, lit up from the, to me, incomprehensible inner workings of the screen are the only things in control of my life right now, because I know that neither you nor I am in charge.

So, I guess at some point you just lost any dedication or patience you had for me. I always had one little flaw, no matter how fast I grew up, striving to meet your expectations. I reached for one star and you shook your head, pointing to another one, higher in the sky and almost impossible to reach.
And there was one thing you were always missing. Love. I mean, maybe you had it once. I can’t remember it though.
One bus is destined back into town, twenty minutes away. I feel you pulling at me. By now you’d know I’m late. Would you wonder where I am? Would you come looking for me? I find that I can’t figure that one out. Your health’s been on the downfall for the past three years, and a bit of snow may push you over the edge.

I’m shocked at this realization. I care. I guess I just expected that from the way you treated me, I’d not care if you went to the hospital and they gave me the last call. If they found me. But there it is, that little twinge of guilt and sadness. I can’t imagine you gone, as much as I try.
Do you care?
Somewhere there’s a collective yell, and as I look up I see that the bus back into town has been delayed another ten minutes, and now it matches the other bus I could take.
It would lead me far away. Thirty miles south. Then I’d switch to another bus, and another, until I reach where I decide that it’s warm enough that my sadness may thaw into joy, to see the spring I never lost my grip on, no matter how much you–unknowingly, maybe–tried to send me further into winter.
I do despise the cold.

So now I have a choice to make, and it must be made within the next thirty minutes.
One decision will send me spiraling back to reality, to be scolded for running away from my pain. It is a weakness, after all.
And the other, I don’t know where it will take me.
I put a hand in a pocket. My wallet’s in there. I have a whole hundred dollars to spend or waste on this misadventure. If I decide to go for it. Maybe it’s lucky I didn’t deposit my check to build up for the future like you’ve always taught me to. Something told me to save this month’s part-time wages. I guess I already knew I was running away; maybe someone really can learn common sense.

It’s like opening a box of presents as I look through the various pockets of these pants. They’re the baggy cargo kind with so many pockets you forget where you put something until you’ve unzipped the right one after ten minutes of looking.
In another I find various bangles. That’s where I left my wristband, my watch, and my dragonfly necklace. They’re all tangled up together now, especially the dangly beaded watchband, but it’s nice just holding something familiar for a few moments. I struggle to untangle the watch from everything else, then slip it on a wrist, the weight a comfortable reassurance that everything will be okay, even though I’m not sure why.
By now I’m excited to be looking through all this junk collected in my pockets. I find a single ticket stub to some ferry I rode on six months ago alone in one pocket, and another holds a receipt for groceries that you scolded me for losing a few weeks ago. I unzip another and find some stationary, folded into almost nothing. Too bad I don’t have a pen, but then again I’d have no one to write to. I don’t know the other people living around us, since you taught me yourself and insisted on my staying inside to learn the ways of womanly life.

And I reach the last pocket just as a bell chimes six times, for the hour, and I have fifteen minutes. I inwardly kick myself for putting off my decision in such a childish way.
Then I have ten minutes, and five, and I’ve spent it thinking about nothing and I’m so tired of trying to make these impossible decisions for you, mother.
And for a moment, as I watch people getting up and stretching, and the man next to me winks and sets off on his way to a soon-to-depart bus, I stop weighing the possibilities, just to see what happens.
I shrug and take the hand he offers me to help me up. It’s warm and he’s my age and he’s obviously going to one of the two buses I was considering, since they are the only ones that depart for another fifteen minutes.
No words need to be exchanged. He nods at me and sets off to his bus.
I pause, looking at one exit and then the other.
And with a shrug, I run to catch up with him, change jingling in a pocket I must’ve forgotten, and he intercepts me with a grin and a warm arm around my shoulders.