Chapter 10: Packing the Past
Inside his bedroom, Leo sat on the floor with his back against the side of his bed. The afternoon sun filtered through the blinds, casting striped shadows across the carpet. He looked at the untouched plate of muffins still resting on his nightstand, now slightly stale and hardening at the edges. He realized then that no amount of baking or polite conversation would ever change the minds of the people downstairs. They were locked in their grief, and they wanted him to suffer the consequences of a tragedy he was too young to even remember.
He opened his closet and pulled out a small canvas duffel bag he used for school trips. Methodically, he began to pack his belongings: three favorite shirts, two pairs of shorts, a handful of comic books, and the small wooden carving his grandfather had given him before he passed away. He wasn't running away to live on the streets; he knew he couldn't survive out there. But he knew someone who might help him find a temporary sanctuary until his mother could make a sensible decision.
Downstairs, the argument had quieted down, replaced by the heavy, suffocating silence that always followed their explosive fights. Leo unlatched his bedroom window, pushing the screen outward. The drop to the grass below was manageable—just a two-story jump onto the soft flower bed beneath his window, a trick he had practiced with neighborhood friends during carefree summer afternoons.
He swung his legs over the windowsill, the cool breeze catching his hair. He looked back at his room one last time, taking in the posters on the wall and the bed he had slept in for years. It hurt to leave, but staying felt like a slow erosion of his soul. With a silent breath, he dropped quietly onto the flower bed below, landing softly on the mulch with a muted thud.
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Keeping low against the wooden fence, Leo slipped around the side of the house and made his way toward the front driveway. He didn't take his bike; it was too loud. Instead, he walked briskly down the sidewalk, heading directly toward Mrs. Gable’s house three doors down. He needed an adult ally who wasn't poisoned by the tragedy of the past, someone who could help him force his family to confront the truth before it destroyed them completely.
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