Free Life Before by Michele Bacon

conversation between us. There’s nothing to say, really. She licks her lips and my stomach does a little flip to signal either excitement or impending vomit.
    Without thinking, I close my eyes and we kiss quietly. I know what I’m doing this time, and for a second my mind is free. For maybe the first time ever, I am literally thinking about nothing.
    When Gretchen tousles my hair, Mom springs to mind.
    I pull back. “I’m sorry, Gretchen. I just can’t do this right now.”
    I can’t take it back, don’t want to, so I hustle up the stairs and lock myself in Jill’s bedroom.
    My life is over. My mother is dead. A killer is after me. I just blew off the most amazing girl I’ve ever known. I am alone in the world.
    I have nothing to lose anymore.

E LEVEN
    Janice serves us french toast and bacon for breakfast. Yesterday was pancakes. Saturday, waffles. They’re all my favorite things, which is a testament to the fact that, really, I am full.
    Jill picks through my breakfast after Janice leaves for work.
    She’s munching my bacon when the phone rings. We’ve had two hang ups in the last fifteen minutes. This annoys the hell out of Jill, the girl who spent half of eighth grade pranking everyone we knew.
    This time I answer. “Bernards.”
    This time Gary answers back. “Just give me five minutes with you, Alexander.”
    I can’t speak. I can hardly breathe.
    “Same assholes?” Jill asks lightly. She turns to find me clutching the phone and her face falls. “No. No!” she screams, running for the front porch.
    Seconds later, Jill is back with Deputy Nolton. He reaches toward the phone, and I press it into my ear. The line is dead.
    The world swirls around me: Nolton making calls on his cell and Jill frantically begging her mother to come back home. She closes all the blinds before bawling on the kitchen floor.
    Minutes later, when Janice and Dale return, I’m still holding the phone in the kitchen.
    What would Gary do with five minutes? It took less than that to break my clavicle. Three seconds to kick me down the stairs. With five minutes, he could actually kill me.
    He’s going to kill me.
    Jill maniacally repeats, “Trace the call, trace the call, trace the call,” and Dale demands to know what Gary said.
    Once I’ve repeated Gary’s eight words a dozen times, Dale gets to work, converting the kitchen to a makeshift command center where five cops discuss how to proceed. One is talking with the phone company, one with the police station, one with a judge downtown.
    Jill cries in her mother’s lap on the love seat. She’d made progress on breaking out of Dale Jail, but this will set us back several days.
    The cops are done with me, so I creep down to the basement, where the cold concrete floor and cinderblock walls better suit my mood. I can hear everything down here. Jill screams at her father. “Just do your damn job and catch him!”
    Janice uses the world’s loudest coffee maker and takes a cup to the cop on the front porch.
    It’s going to be a long day.
    And maybe a short life. Gary knows exactly where I am, and there’s nowhere to hide. And nowhere else to go, either. My grandparents didn’t even come to Mom’s funeral. They disowned her years ago, and I guess that applies to me, too.
    Among my friends’ houses, Jill’s is my safest bet. But even here, I’m at risk. And staying means Jill also is in danger. She’s been looking forward to Infinite Summer for ages, and now she’s imprisoned.
    I have to escape. I need to go somewhere no one will ever look for me.

T WELVE
    I plot my escape in the wee hours.
    During the really bad years, when Gary spent our money on god-knows-what and Mom often went to bed without supper, I thought Mom could make it on her own if she didn’t also have to provide for me. Gary always complained that I was eating too much or that I grew out of clothes too fast. And he went apeshit once when I lost my gym shoes on a field trip. I desperately wanted to start a