Safe

The house is quiet as she enters. The cars were in the drive, so she knows they are all home, but the rooms are dark and silent. She walks towards the stairs, she can see a light at the top. The third stair creaks, as always, as she climbs up to the second floor. She turns the corner, and sees the light is coming from Andrew's open door. She peeks in, and he greets her. They talk for a few minutes about her morning, and his new job offer. Soon the conversation turns to the card game on the screen of his computer, and this leads to a discussion of counting cards, and how hard it is, and the movie 21. After 10 minutes or so, his mom comes in and joins the conversation. The talk about her mom, health care, cancer, dangerous things like walking across bridge railings,God's will, hindsight, her Japanese friends coming to visit this summer, the grand canyon, hiking and float trips, caves, and finally the plans for the evening. Before she knew it, an hour had passed, and it was time to get dinner ready. She wandered into her room and started brushing her hair, thinking about the feel of this house, this family. This place felt so different than her parents house. The houseshe grew up in felt oppressive, and suffocating. There was always a tense feeling, and part of her seemed to always be screaming to" get out now." But this place, it felt different. It was calm, and quiet, but not a tense silence at all. 
She sat down on the bed, realization dawning on her. This place felt safe. She hadn't felt safe in so long, she had almost forgotten what it felt like. She didn't want to leave. She only had today, and tomorrow morning here, then she would have to go back. She wanted to go back, she was signing at church Sunday morning, and she wanted to spend Easter with her church family, but that meant going back to that place. She didn't want that. She didn't think she could survive another day at that house. 
She started thinking, trying to find a way around going back to that place... "Maybe Katie would let me stay a day or two with her? Or maybe crash on Jamie's couch? I could always just grab a couple of sleeping bags from the attic while they're at work, they wouldn't miss them. Then I could sleep in my car, and use the shower at the church, I know Janna would let me... I couldn't tell her where I was sleeping though. She wouldn't stand for that. Maybe James and Mark would let me stay with them if I cleaned their house, heaven knows they need it! There has to be something, somewhere. Even just for a few weeks... Maybe it was time to call Rusty and see about going down to Austin for a while. But I want to stay here, with my church! But I can't live there anymore, I'll curl up and die if I hear those words again, feel that pain. I'm tired of covering up the bruises, pretending everything is fine. Why can't I just be safe? Just for a little while?"