I slipped out of the bathroom, down the back spiral staircase, and through the dark pantry.

The cold night air hit my face as I let myself out into the damp alley behind our Manhattan townhouse.

I ran three blocks in the freezing rain before I managed to hail a yellow cab.

By midnight, I was on a train to Boston, watching the wet lights of Connecticut blur through the dirty window.

I rented a small, furnished apartment in South Boston, far from the brick townhomes of Beacon Hill.

The walls were painted a dull beige, and the radiator in the corner hissed and clanked through the night.

The ice on the windowpane didn’t melt, even when I turned the steam valve all the way to the right.

I spent my evenings eating cold soup from a can, listening to the hum of the traffic on Interstate 90.

I bought a wool coat from a thrift store, its hem slightly frayed and smelling of cedar.

I walked to the library every morning at seven, the wind from the harbor biting my cheeks.