• I kicked open the door and stomped out of the house, trying to block out the yelling and screaming. It was severely muted when the door slammed shut, rocking on its hinges, but I didn’t pay any attention. My breath misted in the air as I tromped through the flawless snow, and for once, I didn’t care about ruining its beautiful perfection. I screamed in anger and viciously kicked the snow, sending up the fine powder to sparkle in the light of the gorgeous sunrise that I witnessed every morning.
    My backpack felt even heavier than normal as I carried the burdens of my dysfunctional family with me to school. I labored all the way to the bus stop, and then rested against the bent, rusty sign. As I was catching my breath, I heard the screeching of the bus stopping at my stop. It made all the sounds of a dying, exhausted animal, and I felt pity for the metal as I climbed shakily on and walked to my seat.
    I plopped down with a huge sigh, and, after putting in my headphones of my iPod and turning the volume up loud, rested my head against the misting window where Jack Frost had painted his most precious pictures.
    I didn’t even bother to open my eyes to look at them.
    Songs and melodies played through my mind, and for a brief half hour, I was able to block out the echoing shrieks of insults that had struck home. I was able to escape the layers of troubling chains pinning me to the meaningless shred of misery that was my life. I was able to begin to try and heal the inevitable bruises on my heart.
    But then the bus squealed to a stop and someone yelled at me to get off. It was routine—a daily one that I had done for years and years: wake up to screaming and yet another fight, try to stay neutral until I had a chance to flee, find out again and again I was trapped, having to suffer the miserable hour of endless beatings on my soul, finally was allowed to walk to the bus stop, had to drag my overburdened frame onto the dying bus, and then was able to escape for what seemed a few moments to absolute paradise—only to be jolted to reality and open my eyes to the world yet again.
    Today, though, I felt something needed to be changed.
    I couldn’t do it.
    I couldn’t open my eyes.

    I wouldn’t open my eyes.

    The voices persisted, louder and louder, telling me to get up and go.

    I didn’t respond.

    I felt their presence for about 30 seconds longer, and then they left, in their first show of mercy.
    I smiled and ignored the cold permeating my head through the frozen window. I felt the bus groan as its burden ceased to decrease, and then felt its tires slowly, tiredly beginning to move.
    I stretched slightly and imagined I was on a train, going far, far away from here, leaving my troubles wandering behind in that churning snow. I gripped that image as tight as I could and refrained from laughing aloud as I felt my heart lighten with each second that I put between me and what was behind me.
    My insignificant 30 minutes had turned to an hour before the bus halted. I scrunched down into my seat in case the bus driver had seen me, but he wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention. I heard heavy breathing and footsteps, and then the familiar squeak of someone who exceeded the weight limit descending the stairs.
    I waited.
    The squeaks quieted, and I heard the footsteps receding into the howling wind. When they were totally gone, my eyes flashed open. I saw neon lights and blinked dizzily for a few seconds before realizing I was at a gas station. I immediately vaulted up and fairly pelted off of the bus. I looked around me to see if anyone was watching—no one was; the bus driver was inside buying a coffee.
    In that instant, a thousand thoughts streamed through my head.
    In that instant, I made my final decision on all of them.
    In that instant, I turned around to face the never-ending, dilapidated, snow-covered highway.
    In that instant, I ran.

    Snow whirled around me and I huddled against my jacket, my iPod still in my pocket. Once I was a safe distance away from the gas station, I stopped running and began to walk alongside the road, following it off into oblivion.
    With each step, I felt a bit more of my burden slide slowly down my back and hit the snow with an echoing silence. My iPod kept blaring and blaring as well, switching songs as I switched scenarios.
    The train scenario was gone now. Instead, there was a scenario of me, hand-in-hand with an unknown figure, trying to teach that figure how to dance. The candles around us flickered in time with the music as I tried to teach him how to waltz, which steps to try, where to put his feet. We were laughing together, so much so that I had to rest myself against his shoulder as I giggled until it hurt and I began to cry.
    The song switched and in the briefest moment of silence from that switch, I snapped out of the dancing lesson, finding real tears in my eyes from the sharpness of the bitter wind and from the realization that I did not have him with me in reality, that I didn’t have his gentle warmth.
    But then a new beat captured me back up again. This time, I was crying, but talking to that same unknown figure again and spilling out my problems to him. I imagined reaching hysteria and just before I broke down, he gathered me into his arms and told me it was okay, that I did have them in my life, I just needed to look for—
    Silence.
    The tears were still there, as I reached the epiphany that I did not have someone who would listen to me and tell me it was okay when it wasn’t and still be right.
    Switch.
    I was drawing a picture by the light of the moon when the moon suddenly moved and wandered into my room through my open window and landed on my palm, sharing with me its secrets to why it could always become so small and die for a night, but yet become so big again and shine to its fullest a little later. It bounced upwards to reach my head and give me that ability when—
    —The song suddenly stopped and I looked forwards to see the sign announcing that I was leaving my hometown with a plea to come back again faded to almost illegibility. I let out a little gasp and then ran towards the sign to touch it, wondering if it could be true, if I was leaving—
    I was! I was leaving! I was LEAVING! I started breaking down into hysterical laughter, the tears become more and more apparent. They froze to my cheeks as the day progressed and grew colder, the sun obscured by clouds. I danced and laughed and cried and wailed and danced some more around that sign until I could not dance or laugh anymore, until I could only cry.
    A car passed me.
    It didn’t pause.

    I readied myself to start walking again and suddenly realized that there was no music coming from my iPod. I blinked and pulled it out of my pocket, only to find it black and dead.
    Empty.
    I tried the power button.
    Nothing.
    Again.
    Nothing.
    Again! I began to panic.
    Nothing.
    AGAIN!
    Nothing.
    AGAIN!
    I hit the button so hard in such desperation that it crashed to the ground and sank into the snow.
    I stared at it in disbelief until it was covered from the falling flakes. Then I looked up at the sky, which I blamed for the loss of my only incentive to continue onwards, and cried.

    Cried because I didn’t have anyone to be endlessly patient with me.

    Cried because I didn’t have anyone to keep me up and on my feet when I was unable to myself.

    Cried because I didn’t have the power of the moon to bounce back again and again.

    Cried because I didn’t have someone to love me.

    Cried because all of my fantasies were now hollow and simply fantasies once again.

    Cried because the one thing I had always had and never paid any attention to I had walked away from.

    I turned around to shun the sign, and started the long walk back to my family.

    Because even when you’ve got nothing else, you’ve got them.

    And, really, that’s all that matters.