Going Alone - John Fetto

The screen door banged so loudly behind Hawley that he reached back, too late quiet it, and for a moment felt guilty, sorry, like it was he and not her who had made the mistake, then something tightened inside and he pulled his hand away. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stumbled down the steps, then softly on to grass. He knew how to walk quietly. He knew how to protect himself. He didn’t need anyone. He’d walked for miles by himself. For a moment the quiet neighborhood around Johanna’s house looked as hostile as any Indochinese jungle, foreigners whispering behind the walls in a language he didn’t understand. He wasn’t part of them. He would never be part of them. He kept walking on the grass, slipping between the shadows cast by the street lamps so the eyes he felt from every house couldn’t follow him.

Two blocks away from Johanna’s house, just when the street curved and he wouldn’t be able to turn around and see the yellow light on her front porch. He looked back. It didn’t look any different than all the other foreign houses in the foreign land. For a moment he felt sorry for himself and wondered where his home was if not there and then his spine tightened and stopped. He was by himself. It was a triumphant thought. A successful rebellion against those who did not understand and then it was followed by something else, something unexpected: a moment of loneliness, so deep, his body bent, and against all his biter resolutions he looked back and saw the yellow light of Johanna’s porch light as warm as any camp fire he’d ever felt on a cold night in the woods.