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Winter break had just started, and it was three days before Christmas when my family and I had packed up all of our things. It felt strange to address them to separate homes, but I thought I had made the right choice in living with my father. What I remembered of my grandmother was less than pleasant, and I was sure I didn’t want to spend the last few months of my fleeting childhood with someone I didn’t get along with.

On the other hand, I stopped visiting Charlie when I started high school and I had no idea how much he'd changed. He was protective but not suffocating, and although he had no clue what went on in the mind of a teenager, I always seemed to turn out alright. The town was fond of him because he was the police chief, and he'd worked hard to show that he deserved the position. In a way, I was sort of proud of him.

As I laid on the floor in my barren room, my phone rang and I jerked upright. Reaching for it on top of one of my boxes, I saw the caller ID said it was Douglas and I put the device to my ear.

"Doug?" I asked.

"Hi!" said the voice on the phone. It was high pitched and excited, but wasn't Douglas.

"Jimmy, is that you?"

"Yeah! Is this Bell?"

"Yes it is. How did you get your brother's phone, Jim?"

"He gave it to me."

"Oh, he did? Well how about you give it back to him?"

"He said I could ask if you wanted to come over before you leave."

"Of course I will! You tell Douglas I'll be over in a minute. Got it?"

"Got it." And he hung up.

I picked myself up off the floor and smiled. Jimmy was the cutest. I remembered when the boy was born, and I helped take care of him after his mother died from complications during her c-section. To him, I was family. Whenever their father had to work double shifts or overtime to make some extra money, I always stayed over to help out. Douglas and I made wonderful parents.

Grabbing my coat and wallet, I started to head out of the house. It occurred to me that this was my last day in the desert, and since I wouldn’t be in town for Christmas I decided to take the presents I had gotten for Douglas’s family with me so they could have them early. As I picked up the stack of colourful, wrapped gifts from my dresser, I felt a pang of guilt for leaving. Even though I knew it was out of my hands, I was mad at myself for not trying to work something out so I could stay in Arizona. Douglas was so busy with his brother that it was tough for him to make many friends, and everyone else he knew was not even close to as comfortable with him as I was. He didn’t have a significant other because he was in the closet at school, and his few other family members lived across the world in China. Life was tough, and I was only making it harder for him by leaving.

My eyes burned red and I rubbed at them to get rid of the tears that cascaded over my eyelids. No, they would be fine, I assured myself. If anyone knew what they were doing, it was Douglas. He was a grade-A adult.

I whipped around and left my room, sneaking down the hall so my mother wouldn’t notice me and ask why I was crying. Slipping my jacket on, I left the house and quietly closed the door. Douglas lived a few blocks down, and he always put the red flag up on his mailbox when he was home. When we were kids, it was our way of communicating. Nowadays it was more of a tradition, but it also gave me the green light to use the doorbell because it meant Jimmy wasn’t napping. The flag was up as I walked down the pathway to the front of his house.

Only a moment passed after I rang the doorbell before a familiar face appeared in the doorframe in front of me. I reached out to ruffle the three-foot boy's cropped brown hair but Jimmy dodged my hand. He imitated the sound of a jet engine and ran around in circles, giggling intermittently, before his brother came barreling down the hallway and lifted him into his arms. It almost made me long for a sibling - the closeness, the love. But it was too late for that.

"Morning," I greeted the two of them as I stepped inside, closing the front door behind me. Douglas placed Jimmy back on his feet and he reached up to be held again, but Doug pulled the back of the boy's shirt up and over his head to incapacitate him. He squealed in euphoria and flailed his arms about, trying to grab at it as he hobbled away.

"Goodmorning, sunshine!" Douglas finally said, hands on his hips. He was a few inches shorter than me - me being on the tall side - and had deep muddy brown eyes like mine. It was the only similarity in our features. He motioned down the hall and towards the kitchen, “Hungry? I made pancakes.”

“I did too!” yelled Jimmy from the other room.

Douglas smiled, “He helped.”

I shook my head, “They smell amazing, but I already ate. Is your dad gone again?”

Eyes downcast, he shrugged and said, “Yeah, he’s getting in some more hours before they break for the holiday. He’s been gone a lot. It’s okay though, uh, that’s how it always is.” Douglas exhaled, then looked back up at me. Smiling again, he said, “Here, let’s get out of the hallway.”

We made our way to Douglas’s room, where he pushed back the rainbow curtains that served as his door when we entered. He got rid of his door when his brother was born, so he’d be accessible if something went wrong. There was no reason for it now that Jimmy was up and about, but he’d never put it back.

“Are you ever gonna get your door?” I asked him, plopping down on a beanbag chair in the corner of the room. I tried to get settled but it was impossible - whoever invented beanbag chairs must have wished eternal discomfort on humanity.

“Doubt it,” Douglas laughed, stretching out on his bed. “It’s probably firewood by now. And I think the curtains are nice!"

"They're very... You," I smirked, gazing around at the rest of his room. His walls were covered with clippings from books and newspapers, as well as things he’d written himself. He also had a Jake Gyllenhaal poster on the ceiling above his bed. He loved the shit out of Jake Gyllenhaal. “How’s your career going?”

Douglas laid with his hands behind his head, staring at the poster. “Remember that kid’s zine that contacted me in the fall? My story is finally going out for them next month, so that’ll be a few hundred in the bank. I submitted my poems to three more magazines this month, and we’ll hear from them soon enough. I just need to get something consistent,” he groaned. “It would really help to have the income.”

I looked behind me at the writing that was pinned up, reading it over as I listened to him. "You'll find something. Those magazines have gotta pick you up, you must have a few dozen publications already."

"I do, but none of them are worth anything... No one cares what has your name on it unless they find it in Time magazine, Rolling Stone. Not like I'm good enough for them anyway."

"Oh shut up!" I laughed, pulling my knees to my chest. "Your writing is better than anything they publish, you just don't write articles."

"Because articles are boring."

"Exactly. You need to find sort of literary magazine that can... Appreciate you." I rested my chin on my knees and looked at Douglas, who eventually rolled over and looked back at me.

"You don't care," he said with a blank expression.

"Goddammit Doug, yes I do." I stood up, though it took me two tries to detach myself from the beanbag, then went and laid next to him on his tiny twin bed. "Give me your best work and I'll get it published in Washington. Then you'll see."

"Ha!" he laughed, rolling onto his back again. "That'll never happen."

"Of course it won't, if you don't give me a chance." I nudged him with my shoulder. Ever since one of the members of the school paper turned down his story, Douglas had gotten an awful attitude about his work. He shared his poetry with me on a regular basis, so I knew he had something going for him. If he didn't, I'd tell him. What kind of a friend would I be if I didn't?

Douglas waited a moment, then climbed over me and hopped off of his bed. He reached underneath, pulling out a shoebox. Opening it, I saw it contained pages upon pages of typed writing, and he selected a thick stack which he tossed up to me. I grabbed it, then flipped through it and scanned the contents. Most of it I recognized, and some pieces were at least five years old. But it was true, it was his finest work. It'd be easy for me to find someone - anyone - to publish it. And then he would get his confidence back.

I sat up, and Doug came to sit beside me. Clutching the packet of papers, I said, "What did you tell Jimmy? About me leaving."

"I said you were going on vacation over the break to visit your dad."

"What are we gonna do? When I don't come back, and he starts asking questions?"

"You aren't gonna do anything," said Douglas. He looked at me, running a hand through his preened black hair. "You'll be in Washington. I'll deal with the fallout here."

"I'm sorry. You know I'm sorry." I put my hand on his shoulder and then leaned against it. He stayed still, trying to give me the silent treatment, but he couldn't resist and wrapped his arms around me.

"Iz, you could have stayed here with us," he whispered.

I didn't respond.

"We could have brought in a cot and you could've slept in here. You could help with Jimmy. It would be easy."

"No. I couldn't have. You know I couldn't stay here with you. I love you and I love Jimmy, and I can't bear to leave you two, but... My family is important to me. It's a great opportunity for me to see Charlie again, and I...I applied to colleges over there, you... You know..." I trailed off, my voice threatening to break. I hated feeling so vulnerable; I wanted to be strong. Not everything I said was true, since I valued friendships just as much as I did my family, but I needed to find a way to get Douglas to understand that I needed to leave. I felt different than I had when my mother first told me I had to move. Instead of regret and fear, I felt invigorated and ready to become independent. Freedom was waiting for me on the other side of the airport terminal, and i wasn't about to let it get snatched away. Even if it meant leaving my best friend.

Douglas held me tighter. "I know it's hard. You're gonna be okay. We'll be right here, you know. You can come back whenever you want."

I rocked back and forth with him slowly, letting the tears roll down my cheeks. I wasn't used to crying so much, and I assumed the only reason I was even crying was because i was lying. I'd never felt bad about lying before.

Just then, Jimmy peeked his head through the curtains. His face was messy and he had a huge grin on.

"Something wrong?" his brother asked him. I sat up straight and composed myself, wiping my hands on my jeans and giving the boy a smile.

He giggled and hid his face so we could only see his eyes, "I spilled the syrup."

Douglas sighed and rolled his eyes, getting up. I followed him, grabbing my back, and we went into the kitchen to clean up the five-year-old's mess. While we were on our knees scrubbing, Jimmy got into my bag and appeared under my nose with one of the presents I had brought.

"This one says my name!" he squealed. "Can I open it?"

I looked to Douglas, who nodded. "It's not Christmas yet, but why not?"

Jimmy ripped apart the red and green wrapping paper and gasped. I'd bought him a pair of pajamas with beetles all over them because he'd gotten really, freakishly obsessed with bugs. He immediately began to put them on, but I took them away from him.

"Jim, you gotta clean yourself up before you put your new clothes on, or you'll get them all sticky." I smiled, trying to keep the child from getting upset.

He nodded and ran off to the bathroom, excited to become one with the insects.

Placing the pajamas on the table, I got Douglas's gift out too. He tossed his dirty towel in the sink and walked over to me, where I handed the wrapped rectangle to him. He opened his gift with a bit more restraint than his brother, and his lips pulled up into a smile when he uncovered it.

"Federico Garcia Lorca," said Douglas, running his fingers over the cover of the book. "You know I have a thing for gay poets."

"I wonder why," I said with a laugh.

"Let me get yours." He held up a finger as he walked over to their tiny Christmas tree and plucked one of the gifts out from underneath it. By my side again, he slid the golden box across the table.

I now opened my own gift, prying the lid off of the box and pushing away a thin layer of tissue paper. Before me sat a pristine pair of pointe ballet slippers of my exact skin tone. I shook my head, setting them next to me on the table again, and enveloped Douglas in a hug. "Goddammit. How are you so perfect?"

He just laughed, and Jimmy came back into the room. I put my slippers into my bag and helped the little boy into his new pj's, basking in his amazement. It always felt great to make a kid happy. And yet, I knew that a month from now he would be anything but that. I managed to catch a glimpse of the time and realized it had all been eaten up, so I gathered my things and sank down to my knees, calling Jimmy over.

I held out my arms and he came sprinting into them, snuggling his sticky face into my neck. After a second, he pulled back and said, "When are you coming back?"

"Soon," I told him, pinching his cheeks. He laughed and squirmed out of my grasp, and I was glad that he didn't feel the pain that I felt about leaving him. The ignorance of a child was so sweet.

He ran off to watch cartoons, and Douglas walked me to the front door. Now the tears were in his eyes, and he hugged me again with all of his might. I sniffled, grasping his shoulders, and kept him as close as possible as if it would keep me from leaving. But we parted. And we stared at each other, both in silent disbelief, until I turned around and stepped out the front door.

As I stepped over that threshold into the brisk desert air, I was sure I'd never see them again.