"Getting Yourself Home"

"It's three o'clock on a winter morning, foggy, the roads slick with ice. You turn in the bed, away from the man and his thick arms, his muscled chest, the wrists powerful from days spent with hammers and saws. You open your eyes and begin to calculate each of the moves it would take to get you out of here: the flip of he blankets, the swing of your legs onto the floor, the search for your clothes crumpled on the chair by the desk, gathering those clothes in your arms and tiptoeing over the creaking planks to pull them on in the other room--the boyfriend muttering from his side of the bed, or not making a sound, his eyes tightly closed, his head twisted away. And then the search for your purse, your shoes, your keys, your coat, standing with all these things by the doorway, trying to decide whether or not to say good night...

...Just the thought of it exhausts you, and when you contemplate even the first of these moves--the turning back of the covers--you realize the impossibility of even such a simple gesture, one that will lead you out of here and back where you belong."

"Getting Yourself Home" by Brenda Miller