My new parents expect me to forget everything about myself

Isolation and Escape

She doesn’t say anything at first. She just looks at me with this expression I can’t read. Then she starts walking toward me slowly. Each step feels like it takes forever. She stops right in front of me and looks down.

Her voice when she speaks is quiet and controlled. She tells me to get in the car. Not yelling, not angry sounding, just flat and cold. That voice is worse than screaming.

I walk to her car on legs that don’t feel like mine. I get in the passenger seat. She gets in the driver’s side and starts the engine. The drive home is silent and terrifying. Patricia’s hands are wrapped around the steering wheel so tight her knuckles are white. I can see her jaw clenching over and over. A muscle twitches in her cheek.

She doesn’t look at me once. She doesn’t say a single word. The silence fills the car like something physical pressing down on me. I want to explain or apologize or something, but I’m too scared to make a sound.

We pull into the driveway and she cuts the engine. We sit there for a moment in the quiet. Then she gets out and I follow because what else can I do?. Inside the house, she walks straight past the kitchen and up the stairs to my room. I follow her trying to understand what’s happening.

She goes to my backpack and dumps everything out onto my bed. Books and papers and pencils scatter everywhere. She picks through it all searching. She checks the pockets of the backpack. She opens my pencil case and shakes it. Coins fall out onto the bed.

She moves to my desk and pulls open drawers. Then she kneels down and picks up one of my shoes from the floor. She pulls out the inner soul and there’s the paper, the phone number I wrote down.

She holds it up and looks at it. Then she looks at me. She asks if I think I’m smart. She asks if I think I can go behind her back. Her voice is still quiet and controlled, and that scares me more than anything.

She walks toward me, holding the paper. Then she grabs my arm, the same one she grabbed yesterday, right over the bruises. I gasp from the pain. She drags me out of my room and down the stairs.

I try to pull away, but she’s too strong. We get to the kitchen, and Doug is standing there by the counter. He’s home early from work. He sees Patricia dragging me, and his eyes go wide, but he doesn’t move. I scream at him in rush in to help me.

The words pour out in my own language because I’m too scared to think about English. I beg him to stop her, but he just stands there frozen like he always does.

Patricia pulls me past him toward the door that leads to the garage. She opens it and shoves me through. I stumble down the two steps into the cold concrete space. She follows me in and I back away until I hit Doug’s workbench. She stands in the doorway looking at me. Then she steps back into the house and slams the door. I hear the lock click into place.

I bang on the door with both fists and scream for help in Russian and then English and then Russian again because I forget which language I’m supposed to use. Nobody comes and I keep banging until my hands hurt and my throat feels raw. I try the door knob even though I heard the lock click and it doesn’t move at all. The garage is dark except for a little light coming under the door from the house.

I can see my breath in the air already. It’s November and freezing and I’m only wearing my thin school shirt because Patricia grabbed me so fast I didn’t have time to get my jacket. I bang on the door some more and yell Doug’s name because maybe he’ll help me. But there’s just silence from inside the house.

My hands are starting to go numb from hitting the cold metal door, and I finally give up and slide down to sit on the concrete floor. The floor is so cold it hurts to sit on it, and I pull my knees up to my chest, trying to keep warm. I look around the garage, and it’s full of Doug’s tools and boxes in the car, but nothing that can help me get out.

There’s a small window way up high near the ceiling, but it’s too far up for me to reach and probably locked anyway. Hours go by and it gets darker as the sun goes down outside. The little bit of light under the door disappears and I’m sitting in complete darkness.

I can’t see anything at all and the cold is getting worse and worse. My whole body is shaking and my teeth are chattering so hard it hurts my jaw. I stand up and try to do jumping jacks to stay warm like I learned in gym class, but my legs are so stiff from the cold that I can barely move.

I pace back and forth in the dark, bumping into things and trying not to think about how cold I am. But after a while, I’m too tired to keep moving, and I just curl up in the corner where two walls meet. I tuck my hands under my arms and pull my knees up as tight as I can and try to make myself as small as possible to keep any warmth in.

I think about my grandmother, Katya, who I’m named after, and wonder if she can see me now from wherever dead people go. I wonder if this is really how I’m going to die. Frozen in an American garage because I tried to ask someone for help.

The thought makes me so angry, I almost start crying, but I’m too cold and tired even for that. I just sit there shaking and waiting and hoping Patricia will let me out before I freeze to death.

I don’t know what time it is when I hear footsteps outside the door. The lock clicks and turns and the door opens and light from the house floods into the garage making me squint. Patricia stands in the doorway looking down at me curled up on the floor.

She stares at me for a long moment and then she says in that flat cold voice, “Have you learned your lesson?”. I nod as fast as I can because I’ll say or do anything to get out of this freezing garage.

She steps back and I scramble to my feet and stumble past her into the warm house. My legs barely work and I almost fall on the stairs. Patricia follows me up to my room and I think maybe I can finally get warm under my blankets.

She walks over to my bed and pulls off the blanket and pillow. She tucks them under her arm and walks out without saying anything else. I’m left standing there in my room with just the bare mattress, and I’m still so cold I can’t stop shaking.

I lie down on the mattress and curl up in the same position I was in in the garage. And eventually, I fall asleep from pure exhaustion. When I wake up the next morning, I feel terrible. My throat is sore and I’m coughing and my whole body aches.

I try to get up for school, but I’m so dizzy I have to sit back down on the mattress. Patricia comes to my door and looks at me and I can tell she sees how sick I am. She leaves and I hear her on the phone downstairs and I catch a few words: flu and staying home and few days. I realize she’s calling the school to say I’m sick, which means I can’t go and I can’t see Dmitri or try to get help from anyone.

I’m trapped here in this house with her and I’m too sick to even try to run away. I lie back down on the bare mattress and drift in and out of sleep all day. Every time I wake up, I’m coughing or shivering, even though I’m not cold anymore.

Actually, I think I have a fever. At some point, I hear Patricia downstairs on the phone again, and her voice is cheerful and fake as she says, “Everything’s fine, just a little bug”. I close my eyes and wish I was anywhere else in the world. The second day of being kept home from the school, I wake up feeling a tiny bit better.

The fever is mostly gone, and I’m not coughing as much, but something feels wrong, and I can’t figure out what it is at first. Then, Patricia comes into my room with a tray, and she’s smiling, which she never does.

She sets the tray on my desk and there’s soup and crackers on it. Actual food that looks good. She says in a sweet voice that doesn’t match her face, “I called the school to let them know we’re starting homechool next week”.

My stomach drops so fast I feel sick all over again. Homeschool means I’ll never leave this house, never see other kids, never have any chance of getting help from anyone. Patricia is going to cut me off completely from the outside world. And there’s nothing I can do to stop her.

She leaves the room still smiling that wrong smile. I stare at the soup, but I can’t eat it because I feel like I’m going to throw up. That afternoon, I hear Patricia’s car leave, and I know she’s going to the grocery store like she does every week. As soon as the car is gone, I get out of bed, even though I’m still weak and dizzy. I creep downstairs as quietly as I can and go straight to the phone in the kitchen.

But when I pick it up, there’s no dial tone, just silence. I follow the cord and see that Patricia has completely disconnected it from the wall and taken the cord with her. I check the phone in the living room and it’s the same thing, disconnected, and the cord is gone. Then I notice the windows and I go over to try to open one, but there’s a new lock on it that needs a key.

I check every window on the first floor and they all have the same new locks. The house has become a prison and Patricia has made sure I can’t escape or call for help. My hands are shaking as I realize how carefully she’s planned this, how she’s been preparing to lock me away completely.

I’m standing by the living room window looking out at the street when I hear Patricia’s car pull into the driveway. I freeze because I don’t know if I have time to get back upstairs before she comes in. The front door opens and Patricia walks in carrying grocery bags and she sees me standing there by the window. She sets the bags down slowly and looks at me with this cold smile that makes my blood feel like ice.

She walks over to where I’m standing and says, “I’ve talked to the school and they’ve approved homeschooling starting Monday, so you won’t need to go back”. I feel panic rising up in my chest because school was my only connection to people who might help me and now even that is being taken away.

Patricia picks up her grocery bags and walks to the kitchen and I just stand there by the window feeling like the walls are closing in on me. Monday morning comes and I’m still at home. I hear the phone ring downstairs and Patricia answers it. I creep to the top of the stairs to listen and I can hear it’s Clarissa’s voice on the other end asking to speak with me.

Patricia’s voice is smooth and calm as she says, “Olivia is sick with the flu. We’ll call when she’s better”. But then Clarissa says something that makes Patricia’s whole body go stiff and her voice gets tight.

I catch words like truency laws and documentation and homeschool withdrawal. Patricia is gripping the phone so hard her knuckles are white and she’s not smiling anymore. She says something short and hangs up fast. Right away, Patricia picks up the phone again and dials a number.

I can tell she’s calling the school office and she’s trying to sound calm, but I can hear the anger underneath. She’s talking about withdrawal paperwork and homeschool approval and she wants it done right now. But then I hear her say, “What do you mean 48 hours?” And her voice gets louder. The person on the other end is saying something and Patricia argues back, but whoever it is isn’t backing down.

Finally, Patricia says, “Fine” in a voice like she’s biting off the word and she hangs up hard. I listen from the stairs and I realize the school is making her wait 2 days to process the withdrawal and I have to go to the school until then. It’s a tiny window of time, but it’s something. It’s a chance.

The next morning, Patricia drives me to the school. The whole way there, she doesn’t say a word, but her hands are tight on the steering wheel. When we get to the school parking lot, she finally speaks and her voice is quiet and dangerous. She says if I say anything to anyone, she’ll make sure I regret it, and I know exactly what she means.

She doesn’t just drop me off at the door like normal. She parks the car and gets out and walks with me all the way into the building and down the hall to my first class. She stops the teacher in the hallway and says in her fake, sweet voice, “Olivia is still recovering. Please send her to the nurse if she seems unwell”.

The teacher nods, and Patricia gives me one last look that’s full of warning before she turns and walks away. I go into the classroom and sit at my desk and I can feel her threat hanging over me like a weight. But I also know I have maybe 2 days, 48 hours to figure out how to get help before she pulls me out of school forever and locks me away in that house where nobody will ever find me.

The next day at the school, I move through the morning in a fog of fear and planning. During lunch, I sit at my usual table alone and pick at the food on my tray without eating much. Across the cafeteria, I spot Dmitri and our eyes meet for just a second. He gets up from his table and walks past mine.

As he goes by, he drops something small onto my tray. I look down and see a folded piece of paper the size of a postage stamp. My hands shake as I unfold it under the table and read the Russian words written in tiny letters. It says, “His parents called the school yesterday and talked to someone named Clarissa”.

My heart jumps because that’s the counselor who tried to help me before. I grab my pencil and write back on the same paper in even tinier letters. I write in Russian that Patricia knows something is happening and she’s trying to pull me out of school and I need help fast.

I fold the paper back up and wait until Dmitri walks past again on his way to dump his tray. I slip the note into his hand as he goes by and he closes his fingers around it without looking at me. A minute later, I see him reading it at the trash can and his whole face goes white like someone punched him. He crumples his lunch bag and throws it away and then walks quickly out of the cafeteria. Probably going to find Clarissa right now.

The afternoon drags by and I can barely focus on anything the teachers are saying. During third period, someone knocks on the classroom door and hands the teacher a note. The teacher reads it and then looks at me and says my name, pointing to the door. My stomach drops because I remember Patricia’s warning this morning about not talking to anyone. I gather my books with shaking hands and walk to the door. Sure that Patricia somehow found out about the note to Dmitri.

The hallway is empty and quiet and my footsteps sound too loud on the tile floor. I find the main office and tell the secretary my name and she points down a hallway to a door that says counselor. I walk to the door and knock softly and a voice inside says something I don’t understand.

I push the door open and see Clarissa sitting at her desk and she smiles at me in a way that seems kind. She points to a chair and I sit down, gripping my backpack in my lap like it might protect me. Clarissa picks up a piece of paper from her desk and I see it’s covered in words written in English letters, but they look like Russian sounds spelled out.

She points to one phrase on the paper and taps it with her finger. I lean forward and read the phonetic Russian and realize it says, “I need interpreter in English”. She’s given me the exact words I need to ask for help in a way people here will understand.

Clarissa makes me practice saying the phrase out loud. I stumble over the English sounds at first because my accent is heavy and the words feel wrong in my mouth. She nods encouragement and I try again and again until the phrase comes out clearer.

My voice shakes but the meaning is there. “I need interpreter”. Three words that might save my life. Clarissa writes something in a notebook while I sit there. I can tell she’s building something, collecting pieces of evidence or proof. She pulls out a calendar and flips to this week and points to a date 3 days from now, which would be Friday.

She makes a phone gesture with her hand up to her ear and then points to the word interpreter written on the paper. I think she’s telling me an interpreter is coming in 3 days. I nod to show I understand and try to look hopeful, but inside I’m panicking because 3 days feels like forever.

Patricia is planning to pull me out of school in 2 days and I don’t know if I can last that long. Clarissa must see something in my face because she writes another number on the calendar and circles it. It’s the day after tomorrow. She holds up two fingers and then makes a stopping gesture with her hand. I think she’s saying Patricia has to wait two days before she can take me out.

Two days until the interpreter. Two days to survive. That night at dinner, Patricia is in an unusually good mood. She serves meatloaf and mashed potatoes and talks about church while Doug nods along.

She looks at me and says something about Sunday and a special service. I catch the words adoption and honor, and I understand enough to know she’s being recognized at church for adopting me. My stomach turns because I know what this means. She’s going to parade me in front of everyone as proof of what a good person she is.

The thought makes me feel sick. If she’s being honored on Sunday, that means she has to keep me looking okay until then. She can’t let me show up bruised or starving in front of all her church friends. It buys me a few more days of relative safety.

I force myself to eat the meatloaf, even though it tastes like cardboard in my mouth. Patricia watches me clean my plate and smiles like she’s won something. Sunday morning comes and I wake up to Patricia standing over my bed holding clothes. She drops them on my mattress and points to them and then to me, making it clear I need to put them on.

The dress is pale pink with white flowers, colors I would never choose. It has a collar that’s too tight and sleeves that itch. Patricia comes back after I’m dressed and does my hair, pulling it into a style with clips and spray that makes my head hurt.

She steps back and looks at me like I’m a doll she’s arranging and nods with satisfaction. At church, people crowd around us in the parking lot. They speak to me in loud, slow English, like I’m deaf or stupid, asking how I like America and if I’m happy here. Patricia keeps her hand on my shoulder the whole time, squeezing whenever I take too long to respond.

Inside the church, the pastor talks about Patricia’s charitable work, and everyone claps. Patricia stands up and waves and pulls me up next to her. People stare at me and smile, and I stand there being displayed like a rescued pet while rage builds hot in my chest.

Patricia gives a little speech about saving me from a terrible life in Russia and giving me opportunities I never would have had. I understand maybe half the words, but I get the meaning. She’s the hero of this story, and I’m supposed to be grateful.

After the service, a woman with gray hair and kind eyes approaches us. She bends down a little to look at me directly and asks in simple English if I’m happy here. I understand the question perfectly.

Patricia’s hand tightens on my shoulder and I can feel her watching me, waiting for me to say yes like a good rescued orphan. But I remember the phrase Clarissa taught me. I look at the woman and say carefully, my accent thick but the words clear: “I need interpreter”.

The woman’s face scrunches up in confusion. Patricia laughs this fake bright laugh and says something fast about how I’m still learning, how I mean I need practice interpreting American culture, how sweet it is that I’m trying so hard. The woman nods and smiles and pats my head like I’m a puppy and moves on.

Patricia’s fingers dig into my shoulder hard enough to bruise, but she keeps smiling until we’re back in the car. The drive home is silent and cold, and I know I’ll pay for that later. Monday morning, I’m back at the school and my shoulder still hurts from Patricia’s grip yesterday.

Second period is English and I’m sitting at my desk trying to understand the teacher when suddenly a loud alarm starts blaring. The fire alarm. Everyone jumps up and the teacher starts directing us toward the door in a line. Kids are laughing and talking because everyone knows it’s probably just a drill or someone pulled it as a prank. We file out into the hallway and it’s chaos with students from every classroom crowding toward the exits.

Teachers are trying to keep everyone organized, but there are too many people and too much noise. I see my chance. Instead of following my class outside, I slip sideways through the crowd and push against the flow of students.

I head toward the main office, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. The hallways near the office are almost empty because everyone is evacuating. I find Clarissa’s door and burst through it without knocking. She looks up startled from her desk and I hold out the paper she gave me, the one with the Russian phrases.

I point to the words, “I need interpreter”. I say them out loud over and over, my voice getting louder and more desperate. “I need interpreter. I need interpreter. Please understand, this is urgent”.

Clarissa stands up fast and comes around her desk. She guides me to a chair and picks up her phone, dialing numbers while keeping eye contact with me like she’s trying to tell me it’s going to be okay. I hear her talking fast to someone on the phone, and she says the word interpreter multiple times.

She pulls out her calendar again and writes something down and shows it to me. Wednesday, the day after tomorrow, she’s gotten the interpreter moved up. I can see the name Boris written next to Wednesday morning with a time, two days.

I just have to survive two more days. Then Clarissa writes something else on a piece of paper and shows me. It’s in simple English words I can understand. “School can delay withdrawal for assessment”. I think she’s saying the school has rules that let them keep me here until after the interpreter talks to me. Patricia can’t pull me out yet.

The fire alarm finally stops and I can hear announcements telling everyone to return to class. Clarissa walks me to the door and squeezes my shoulder gently, the opposite of how Patricia did it yesterday. She’s trying to tell me to hold on just a little longer.

I go home that afternoon knowing Patricia is going to be furious. The school must have called about the fire alarm and me being late getting back to class. When I walk through the front door, Patricia is standing in the kitchen with the phone pressed to her ear. Her face is red and her jaw is clenched tight. She sees me and her eyes go cold.

She says something short into the phone and hangs up hard. Then she turns to me and I can see she’s trying to control her anger. She says in that fake calm voice that the school is refusing to process my withdrawal until some kind of assessment is done.

She says I’m still going to have to go to that school for two more days. The way she says it makes those two days sound like a threat. Doug is sitting at the kitchen table pretending to read the newspaper, but I can see his hands shaking a little. Patricia tells me to go to my room and I do, walking fast before she changes her mind.

That night, Patricia doesn’t call me down for dinner. I sit in my room listening to the sounds of her and Doug eating downstairs, and my stomach growls, but I don’t dare go down. Hours pass, and it gets dark outside. I hear Doug go upstairs to their bedroom, and the house gets quiet. Then I hear footsteps in the hallway, and my door opens. Patricia stands there in the doorway, backlit by the hall light.

Her voice when she speaks is different from before, colder and more dangerous than her usual anger. She doesn’t yell or threaten loudly. She just says in this quiet, deadly voice that if I think I’m going to embarrass her with whatever I’m planning, I’m wrong.

She says, “Tomorrow night, I’m sleeping in the garage again, and this time she doesn’t care if I freeze”. Then she closes the door and I hear the lock click from outside. I lie in bed in the dark, knowing she means it, and knowing that Wednesday morning with the interpreter is my only chance. I have to survive one more night in the garage and then maybe finally someone will hear my story in my own words,. And believe me.

I lie in bed staring at the ceiling and listening to the house settle around me. Every creek makes my heart jump because I keep thinking Patricia is coming back. My eyes won’t close even though I’m so tired my whole body aches. I keep playing her words over and over in my head about the garage and not caring if I freeze.

The way she said it was so cold and flat, like she was talking about throwing out old food instead of locking a person outside in November. I count the hours until morning by watching the numbers on the digital clock next to my bed change. 3:00 a.m. becomes 4:00 a.m. becomes 5:00 a.m. and I still haven’t slept at all.

When the sun finally starts coming up, I feel like I’ve been awake for days instead of just one night. Patricia makes breakfast like nothing happened and tells me to hurry up or I’ll miss the bus. I eat the oatmeal she puts in front of me even though my stomach feels sick. Doug reads his newspaper and doesn’t look at me once. I grab my backpack and walk to the bus stop and the whole ride to the school, I’m shaking, but not from the cold.

At the school, I go through my morning classes like I’m watching myself from far away. Teachers talk and write on boards, and I just sit there understanding almost nothing. During the break between second and third period, I’m standing by my locker when Clarissa walks past and stops. She looks at my face for a long time, and I know I must look terrible because I can feel how puffy my eyes are from not sleeping.

She says something in English that I don’t understand, but her voice sounds worried. She points at her office and makes a gesture like she wants me to come with her, but I’m too scared. If Patricia finds out I talk to Clarissa again, she’ll do something worse than the garage. I shake my head fast and look down at my shoes.

Clarissa stands there for another minute and I can feel her watching me, but I don’t look up. Finally, she walks away and I feel relief and disappointment at the same time. In third period, I put my head down on my desk because I’m so tired I can’t keep my eyes open. The teacher says something sharp and I jerk my head back up.

I try to focus on the board, but the letters swim around and don’t make sense. I keep looking at the clock and counting. Wednesday is tomorrow. Boris the interpreter will be at the school tomorrow morning. I just have to survive tonight in the garage and then tomorrow I can finally tell someone everything in Russian. That thought is the only thing keeping me going.

Lunch comes and I see Dmitri across the cafeteria, but we’re not allowed to talk anymore. He looks at me and mouths something in Russian that I think is asking if I’m okay. I want to tell him about tonight and about Patricia’s threat, but there are teachers watching, so I just look away and eat my lunch alone.

The afternoon drags on forever. Each class feels like it takes 3 hours instead of one. By the time the final bell rings, I’m so exhausted and nervous. I feel sick. The bus ride home feels too short. I keep hoping it will break down or get stuck in traffic. Anything to delay getting back to that house.

But it pulls up to my stop right on time and I have to get off. I walk up the driveway and my legs feel heavy like I’m walking through water. Inside, Patricia is making dinner and the smell of meat cooking makes my stomach turn. She doesn’t say anything to me when I come in, just points at the stairs.

I go up to my room and sit on my bed and wait. Hours pass. I hear Doug come home from work. I hear them eating dinner downstairs and talking in low voices. Nobody calls me down to eat. The sun sets outside my window and the room gets dark. I don’t turn on the light because I don’t want to draw attention to myself. I just sit there in the dark and wait for what I know is coming.

Around 8:00, I hear footsteps on the stairs. My whole body goes stiff and cold. The footsteps stop outside my door. The handle turns and Patricia opens the door.

She doesn’t say anything at first, just stands there looking at me in the dark. Then she says to come downstairs. Her voice is calm, but I can hear something dangerous underneath it. I follow her down the stairs and through the kitchen. Doug is sitting at the table with his newspaper, and he doesn’t look up when we walk past.

Patricia opens the door that leads to the garage, and cold air rushes in. She points at the dark space beyond the door. I don’t move because my body won’t obey me. She grabs my shoulder hard enough to hurt and pushes me forward. I stumble through the doorway and hear the door slam behind me. The lock clicks and I’m alone in the pitch black.

It’s so much colder than last time. The concrete floor feels like ice through my thin socks. I can’t see anything at first, but my eyes slowly adjust, and I can make out shapes in the darkness. Doug’s workbench, shelves with tools and paint cans, the outline of the garage door.

My breath comes out in white clouds. I start walking back and forth to try to stay warm, but I’m already shivering hard. I count my steps. 10 steps to the garage door. Turn around. 10 steps back to the inside door. Turn around. 10 steps to the garage door. I do this over and over until my legs ache.

The cold seeps through my clothes and into my skin. My fingers start going numb. An hour passes, maybe two. I lose track of time. The cold gets worse and worse until I can’t feel my toes anymore. I keep walking, but I’m stumbling now.

My teeth chatter so hard my jaw hurts. I think about tomorrow and Boris, the interpreter. I think about finally being able to tell someone what’s happening in my own language. That thought makes me angry instead of hopeful. I’m angry at Patricia for doing this.

I’m angry at Doug for letting her. I’m angry at myself for not running away or fighting back. The anger warms me up a little bit and I use it to keep moving. I will not freeze to death in this garage. I will survive tonight and tomorrow I will tell Boris everything.

More time passes. I don’t know how much. My whole body is shaking now and I can’t make it stop. I trip over something and fall hard on the concrete. The impact knocks the wind out of me and I lie there for a minute trying to breathe. Getting up takes all my strength.

I’m so tired. I just want to lie down and sleep, but I know if I do that, I might not wake up. I force myself to keep walking. 10 steps, turn around. 10 steps, turn around. My brain feels foggy and slow. I can’t think straight anymore.

I bump into Doug’s workbench and something falls off and clatters on the floor. I bend down and my frozen fingers close around it. A screwdriver. I stare at it in the darkness and an idea forms slowly in my confused mind. I stumble over to the door that leads into the house.

I can barely hold the screwdriver because my hands are so numb. I jam it into the crack between the door and the frame near the lock. I push and pry and nothing happens. I try again harder. The screwdriver slips and I almost drop it.

My hands are shaking so bad I can barely grip anything. I take a deep breath and try one more time. I wedge the screwdriver in and push with everything I have left. Something cracks. I push harder and there’s a snapping sound and suddenly the door swings open.

Warm air from the house hits my face and I almost cry from relief. I don’t think about what I’m doing. I just walk out the door through the kitchen. Doug is asleep on the couch in the living room and doesn’t wake up when I pass.

I unlock the front door as quietly as I can and step outside. The night air feels warm compared to the garage, even though it’s probably freezing. I walk down the driveway in my socks. The sidewalk is rough and cold under my feet, but I keep going. I don’t know where I’m going. I just walk. One house, two houses. My legs give out and I fall on someone’s front porch.

I can’t get back up. I’m so cold and tired. I can’t move anymore. I start crying because I tried so hard and I made it out of the garage, but now I’m just going to freeze out here instead.

A light comes on above me. The porch light is so bright it hurts my eyes. The front door opens and a woman in a bathrobe looks down at me. She makes a shocked sound and kneels down next to me. She’s saying things I don’t understand, but her voice sounds worried and kind. She touches my arm and pulls her hand back fast like I’m too cold to touch.

She stands up and runs inside and I hear her talking fast on a phone. She comes back with blankets and wraps them around me. She keeps saying things and I keep crying. I hear sirens in the distance getting closer. Red and white lights flash across the porch. People in uniforms surround me. Someone lifts me onto a stretcher and more blankets get piled on top of me. These blankets are different. They’re warm. Actually, warm like they’re heated. I close my eyes and feel the warmth soaking into my frozen skin.

People are asking me questions, but I can’t understand them. I keep saying the same three English words over and over: “Interpreter Wednesday. School”. Someone asks me more questions, and I say it again: “Interpreter Wednesday. school”.