Alannah and Derrick: newlyweds. That’s what the messily painted on the back of their car said. It’s what it had said for the past year. They’d never bothered to erase it; in fact, the swaying breeze of Acorn Avenue and its inhabitants thought it was cute. Everyone, from the oldest and stubborn man that secluded himself in the corner home, to bouncy, young Sally down the street, would whisper about how sweet the couple looked. They would comment on how their hands were intertwined on morning walks every day of the week, how Alannah would always blush when Derrick whispered something in her ear. Secretly, they all craved that affection was theirs to hold instead, but they never said it. To Alannah and Derrick, they were the most conscientious of neighbors.

But Acorn Avenue was no longer quiet about its secrets. People were boarding up windows with any nails they had to spare. Minivans, ones seemingly big enough to hold entire families, sped down the street with only one to two people in each. The rest of the space was needed for supplies: food, water, stacks of legal documents that people pretended still held importance.

Change had truly come to the Avenue, to their carefully crafted middle class utopia. The only constant thing, then, was the couple’s held hands. They grasped each other tighter and tighter every second, their skin reflecting the light of the TV in front of them.

Derrick felt he couldn’t watch, and so he buried his head into Alannah’s neck. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered over and over again. She didn’t redirect his guilt.

Instead Alannah forced her gaze to remain on the frantic newscasters in front of her. Their speech was garbled, practically unintelligible. Many had already fled the station, presumably to make sure their families were safe. This left the program with one image to project again and again: the capitol burning, the American flag a shriveled mess of its once vibrant stars and stripes.

After a while, Alannah turned her head to look at Derrick. “Do you want to run,” is all she said. It was more a fact than a question; it was an inevitability.

“I should’ve listened to you,” he choked out. “I should’ve fucking listened when you wanted to move to Paris, but no, I just had to have my job. I just had to succeed here.”

“Derrick, we have to go,” Alannah simply said. She felt no attachment to this place, anyway. For the eyes of Acorn Avenue had always felt suffocating to her. They were always watching, commenting, only willing to see the surface image of Derrick’s perfect wife. “I packed the car already, last night.”

Derrick simply shook his head and sucked some snot in through his nose. He cupped his face with his hands and started digging into his skin with his fingernails.

“So, you don’t want to run,” Alannah noted. She looked at the TV, then at the sniveling mess that was her husband. She loved the idiot, she thought. She always had the energy to comfort him, to conjure up tears to match his own when he needed it. But something was different under the light of the fire burning on the screen.

Somehow, she felt exhilarated. “Come on,” she said softly, pulling Derrick up from the couch. The fabric had already been implanted with his form in the mere 6 months they’d had it. Something about seeing the indentation made a chill run up her spine. She had to look away.

She led Derrick down the hallway, then out the door, and finally to the car. His body was almost limp in her arms. He was there, but not quite there, somehow at the same time.

She reached into the backseat and pulled out two Subway sandwiches. She, like the doting wife she was, had made sure to get his favorite. She placed it in his hands, guiding his numb fingers to grip onto it fully.

She unclasped her hair from its tight bun, letting its natural waves fall into place along her shoulders. She flipped down the mirror, seeing herself - the one she recognized - for the first time in longer than a year. She couldn’t quite remember when she lost track; perhaps it was when she met Derrick, perhaps it was when she chose him over moving to Paris, perhaps it was even when she said her first words to another person.

Derrick was clenching his eyes tight. He couldn’t look. He couldn’t see the beauty in the fire, but Alannah did. For, in the glittering reflection of her rearview mirror, nobody was watching.

She put the car into drive, and as she looked to back out of the driveway, she only read part of the painted message scrawled onto the window. Alannah: newly. That’s what it said. And that’s what she would be.