Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

Winter
Present
I sat in the theater, listening to the latest rehearsals for the
annual Nutcracker performance and remembering when I was
up there with all the little kids, too. The stage was larger than
life, and I still remember leaping around as the snow fell,
barely registering the audience, because the world up there
was far too beautiful to look anywhere else.
Someone squeezed past me in my aisle seat, sitting next to
me.
“How are you?” Rika asked.
I just gave her a small smile.
There were no answers to that question. Saying “fine”
would seem comical.
I clasped my hands in my lap, chilled from the air, and I
dipped my mouth under my thin scarf, breathing out to heat
myself up.
“Come stay with us,” she said.
She’d made the offer ever since the haunted house the
night before last, but I felt numb now, and I didn’t want to run.
I wanted to win.