I did not cry when Hannah told me, politely and efficiently, that it would be “simpler for everyone” if I stayed home for Christmas; I cried later, in the kitchen, with the tree already lit and the pie crust chilling in the fridge. That was the moment something inside me shifted, almost audibly, like an old house settling before a storm. By midnight I was on my laptop, hands shaking as I typed in my credit card number for a tour whose details I barely read, only that it left in ten days and went to places with names that sounded far away from Ohio, far away from the small life I had allowed myself to shrink into. When the confirmation email arrived, I stared at it as if it were evidence in a trial about my own existence, and all I could think was: I am actually doing this, I am actually leav… Continues…
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