The Escape

            The seven houses looked down on the river. I looked up at them, every morning, hoping to live in just one of them when I grew up. The brick, the ivy-covered, the white stone and the wood; each house was an amazing work of art that I wished to be a part of.

            My own home, a trailer on the other end of the city, dust covered and practically dilapidated, housed me for my whole life. For thirteen years I lived there with my father, a man who drank frequently and conversed rarely. A dreary and hopeless life is what I was given, and I wanted more. Thankfully, on the twenty-second of July, I met a girl named Naomi.

            Tall like the houses that looked down on the river, long brown curls that reminded me of the waves in the river, and gorgeous green eyes like the ivy on some of those houses; I found her to be perfect. She found me to be entertaining and a drastic change from her usual crowd. But after telling her my dreams and after helping her with hers, she eventually helped me with mine. She helped me get through high school, especially Science class. She was a genius when it came to chemistry and the combining of molecules. It all just seemed like numbers and letters to me that didn’t mean a thing.

            She was my best friend.

            Seven years after we met, after we became friends, we moved in together at the 22^nd St Apartments. They were on a hill that let us see the seven houses overlooking the river, if we squinted really hard. Thirteen years after that, after getting our degrees from college and getting work, we scraped our money together and got a house on the river, we could see the backyards, or at least try to, of the houses overlooking the river. Those seven houses stayed out of my reach, but when Naomi passed away when our child turned seven, the seven houses didn’t matter anymore. I buried her on the twenty-second of July, and I escaped with her thirteen years later.