In the middle of the night as the moon lays perfectly in the sky, just above the tree branches that hang down because the leaves are growing heavy with color, I silently open up my front door and step one foot into the darkness. I glance back at the door as I leave, making sure that it hasn’t opened. It hasn’t.
I start running. Running as fast as I can keeping my eyes down and my hands in my pockets. I slow down when I’m halfway there so that by the time I get there I’m not out of breath or sweaty. After I stop running the paranoia sets in. I’m afraid that I’ll be caught walking in the opposite direction of my home, and in the direction of somewhere I’m not supposed to be. To calm the paranoia I come up with cover stories as I walk.
“I was babysitting officer, I’m on my way home,” I say softly to myself trying to make it sound convincing enough to fool an officer of law. But somewhere deep down I know that if was ever to be seen I would be royally screwed.
I run my fingers along the fence as I walk, listening to the noise it makes. When I take my hand off the fence the night feels empty, so I put my hand back and cry softly to myself. I let out just a few tears only because I know that no one is watching and even if someone was watching they’re probably doing the same thing that I am.
I steady myself by looking at the moon as I walk the last few feet to my forbidden destination.
“Just a few more feet,” I whisper, “ only a few more steps.”
When I arrive there I don’t go inside. I just sit. I sit in the grass outside. I rest my back on the big tree that he used to rest his back on while he read out loud to me, as I lay in his lap. I grasp the grass with my fingers and toes and pull its roots out of the ground. I silently apologize to the grass for killing it. I silently apologize to him for not having the courage to enter. I stare at the light that comes from underneath the front door. I glare at the garage door that has three windows. I curse the window that I know he sleeps behind.
I cry to myself. I cry to myself because it’s cold, and I have a 2 houses that I could go into but both of them seem too familiar. They both remind me of him. I start crying bigger, hotter, and heavier tears. I start crying less silently. I gasp for air loudly, and I moan for help. I know that this is dangerous because his window is slightly cracked.
Unanticipatedly the curtain that I had been laying my eyes on as I cried opened slightly and my favorite face popped out. I felt like  a deer in headlights. I felt trapped. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t stop crying loudly, and I couldn’t say anything.