could go to school and we could all finally live like a family with a new beginning. “A do-over,” I told Miles and Cora when we had finished. It was a word they constantly used when we had played games a lifetime ago. “How does that sound to you guys?” They looked at each other passing unspoken words in a way that only siblings can do and then they faced me with huge grins on their faces. “That sounds absolutely fantastic,” Cora told me and I smiled as I heard those words come out of her little nine year old mouth. “Okay then,” I said spreading my hands across the table. “We’ll leave first thing tomorrow.” *** That night, I lie awake reassured by the steady sounds of Cora and Miles’ breathing. My gaze traveled around the room one last time. I had never thought it would be a home, but in some odd way it had become one. Cora and Miles had grown up here doodling on the floorboards while I read them books that now collected dust in a corner. I had poured my thoughts and feelings onto the wall by the window and read every single one of the books that lay discarded around the armchair. We had spent nearly four years of our lives in the city and the apartment and even if they would never be the highlights of our lives, they were still part of our past. I wanted to remember, and that meant remembering everything. It meant remembering what had caused me pain and what I was ashamed of, but it also meant remembering the good times and the laughs. You can’t have one without the other I thought absently as I remembered Walden saying that you can’t have right without wrong. I would never change anything that had shaped my life. I would live with it and that meant having regrets and shame and guilt and sadness that would never completely go away, but it also meant moving on to somewhere brighter and safer. No, I would never forget the time I spent in that apartment, I wouldn’t try to because it had become part of me. You can’t expect to move on only accepting part of the past. If we were meant to forget, then why do we remember? I nodded off into a dreamless sleep on the armchair by the window reading the words until my eyes were too heavy to be kept open. I knew it was risky to try and step away from the Black Market, but the day I just lived, a lifetime of those days, was worth anything. We were all going to disappear, we barely existed in the first place. None of us had passports. There were no records of us even being In the country. I had always been terrified to leave the Market, but as I thought about it, I realized how nearly impossible it would be to track us. You don't have to do it alone I told myself. That was all that mattered. Before we left the next morning, I checked the mail and one last time and discovered a letter. A simple thank you letter from Walden. I couldn’t write back, not for some time, but maybe one day I could reply and tell him that I ended up somewhere safe thanks to him.
Chapter 9 When someone dies, it breaks the heart pretty badly. Sure relatives of mine have died before but I didn’t really care for them all that much for I have never met a whole lot of family members before. This sounds bad I know but my mom didn’t allow me interacting with our family other than my brother of course and she sure as hell would not allow me near dad’s family