This is the story of how I met a girl in a glass cage, and how she set herself free.

I like to think I had a hand in it.

"Welcome to our new home, everybody!" mom sang out, twirling out of the truck.

Already I could tell Kara was rolling her eyes, though I couldn't see them from where I sat in the back of the truck. Dad grumbled, reluctant to move after sitting for so long. His muscles must be stiff. I couldn't decide whether I was glad or not.

Hopping down, I landed on the pavement, strolling to the other side of the driveway to study our house.

Two stories tall. The roof looks promising…

I'm antsy from the long drive, eager to do anything active. So when I see the windowsill, I don't think, just sprint. My muscles flex and contract, legs stretching; I'm up the wall, grasping the sill with my fingertips.

The burn felt good, so I hung on for a moment longer before letting go.

My mom's tone was as admiring as my dad's was irritated; I tuned them both out, crouching still. Our house really was tall. My gaze turns from our house to the one next to it.

That's when I see the girl.

She's wide-eyed, pressed against the windowpane. Warm skin and bouncy hair, she looked pretty. I stood, watching as she looks from the wall back to me. I smile towards her.

She frowns back.

Jesus. What's her problem?

The roof did hold promise.

Most of it was sloped and steep, but there was a large, flat space near the back. Within the first few days I moved my construction tools up there, and started building an orrery.

It's Friday. Kara sits on the couch texting her friends and I am sitting across her, arms crossed on the back of a chair. We're both bored, but mom was almost done with dinner. I eye the oven. It smelled suspiciously sweet, though I'm not sure if Kara noticed yet.

Then mom plops a covered dish onto the table between us, and we exchange looks.

Kara snaps her phone off resignedly.

I hold in my laugh as mom says, "Alright. Mind taking this to our neighbors?" She smiles, wiping her hands on her jeans. "Give them a little something to be friendly."

"Again?" Kara complained. I expected her to put up a fight, but I also fully expected her to lose. I stood, pulling on my knit cap. "You always make us give them a Bundt. It tastes like rock!"

Mom looks hurt. "Don't say that," she said.

"Well… It's true," Kara grumbled, but she was grabbing the plate and marching over to the door. I followed. When we were out the door, I asked her, "Did you notice our neighbors have a kid?"

She glances at me. "Sorta. So?"

"So she's a she. Let's ask if she can show us around." I was pretty sure the girl wasn't entirely unfriendly. I'd noticed her staring out her window a lot - mainly at us. Maybe she's lonely. And socially awkward.

Or maybe she hates us and is planning our doom.

Either way, we were about to find out.

Kara sighed. "It's your turn to ring the doorbell," she told me. I reached around her and pressed it.

There was a long silence.

I pressed it again.

Suddenly we hear something whir, like a fan or an engine, and then a harassed-looking woman opens the door. She has pale olive skin and straight hair, smiling a bit strangely. Like she's surprised. Then again, no one really randomly rings a doorbell unless they're selling Girl Scout cookies.

Or do they even still do that?

"How can I help you?" she asked us.

"My mom sent a Bundt," I told her. "The thing about my mom's Bundts is that they are not very good. Terrible. Actually inedible, very nearly indestructible." I grinned. "Between you and me."

"Every time we move she makes us bring one to the neighbor," Kara added.

The woman blinks, then smiles a bit more weakly. "Oh. Well," she said, looking at the plate. "This is a surprise, isn't it? That's very nice. Please tell her thank you very much for me."

I could hear the but in her tone.

"I'm sorry, but I can't accept this."

I asked, just to make sure, "So you want us to take it back?"

"Well, that's rude," Kara said beside me. She probably expected the same as I did - they would politely take it and throw it away later. This was different.

"I'm so sorry. It's complicated. I'm really very sorry because this is so sweet of you and your mom. Please tell her thank you for me." The woman is about to close the door, so I ask loudly, "Is your daughter home?" I feel Kara sharply elbow me in the side, but I continue, "We're hoping she can show us around."

Now the woman is frowning. "I'm sorry, but she can't. Welcome to the neighborhood, and thank you again." She shut the door.

"That… sucked," Kara stated. She glared at me. "Why'd you bother asking after all that?"

I shrugged. "Why not?" I stared in the direction of our house. "Dad's home."

"What?" Kara spun around, and cursed. "Great."

Silhouetted against the truck's headlights, our dad is standing in the driveway, staring at us. Kara and I make our way to him, while mom comes out of the house to welcome him home. He rounds on her. He starts yelling at her, only some of it reaching my ears after we get close enough.

"...another cake again?! Stop bothering the neighbors! And you two-!"

Kara is closer, so he grabs the plate from her, and then throws it at me. I duck to the side, hearing it shatter against the cement.

Dad gets angrier. "You clean that up. You clean that up right now." He storms into the house, mom following him. Kara muttered, "If you hadn't said those damn things about the cake, I bet they would've taken it. Then this wouldn't have happened."

It's not my fault. Jesus. Shoulders slumping, I watched her go inside, then I looked at the cake.

Input: sarcasm + carelessness + cake

Output(?): dad in a bad mood

I had thought it would be funny. Is it my fault, or is it something else? Though if any of them were allergic, she probably would have told us instead of being so rude.

I go inside the house as briefly as possible, grabbing a dustpan and broom. The atmosphere is bad as usual, and I take my time cleaning up the plate shards, one by one. I threw those away but grabbed the Bundt cake, holding it beneath my arm as I clambered up to the roof.

Making a space in the mess of wrappers and construction parts, I set the cake down and stare at it.

I feel resentful towards the Bundt cake. I know it wasn't really it's fault - if it wasn't the cake, then dad would have gotten mad at something else. That's just the mood he was in.

The woman didn't have to be so rude.

Input: refusal + cake + dad

Output(?): dad in a bad mood

Well. Maybe it was the cake's fault after all. It's in two of the equations I've thought up so far. I'm tempted to kick the Bundt off the roof, but it'd end up hitting something. Right now, that's the last thing I want.

Eventually I climbed back down, swinging into my room. I'm turning to close my window, and then I see it. Her lights flare into existence, her curtains flung open instead of closed like usual. She's staring at me, and I imagine I see pity in her gaze.

Did she see what had happened earlier?

I shut the blinds, not wanting to find out.

Two days later, I start to feel bad about being so cold.

I was on the roof, doing a handstand, when I glanced at the cake. The rock-solid, still whole cake.

Knowing my mom, it could probably fall from the roof without a crack.

Or from a bedroom window.

I start collecting things, an idea forming in my mind.

She was taking a while. Bored, I started to explore the area

The place was slightly warm, with a man made stream running through it. One of walls were made of glass, giving me a good view of the outdoors. Another wall was covered in rocks. The room was filled with tropical plants, though they were made of plastic.

Like a fish tank.

I climbed up the rock wall, pinching one of the leaves of a tree in my hand. Up close the coloring was even more fake-looking.

I saw her walk in. "It's not real," I said, just for something to say.

"It's not real," she said at the same time. She craned her neck upwards to look at me, bouncy curls falling down her back. Her eyes were wide, a light brown. "Are you going to stay up there all day?"

"I'm thinking about it, Maddy," I told her. "Carla said I had to stay as far away from you as possible, and she doesn't seem like the kind of lady that you piss off."

She smiled slightly. "You can come down. Carla's not as scary as she seems."

I wasn't so sure. Ladies can be fierce when protecting their kids. Of course, Carla probably wasn't her mom.

"Ok." Moving back down, I leaned against the wall as nonchalantly as possible. It felt lifeless and confined, this room, with it's too green greenery and too clean stream. No algae or moss in here. The rocks are too pristine and perfect, despite the work whatever company had put in it to make their surfaces pitted and uneven.

Fake.

I turned my attention back to the girl before me. I remembered emailing her, telling her she was like a ghost. She really was. Untouchable, barely seeable.

And still in the doorway.

"Maybe you should come in," I suggest.

She closed the door, keeping her gaze on me. I keep still, watching as she moved further into the room. "You're different than what I'd thought you'd be," she told me.

I grinned. "I know. Sexier, right?" She blinked. "It's okay, you can say it."

"How do you manage to carry around an ego that size and weight?" she chuckled.

"It's the muscles."

She laughs, the sound pealing out into the empty room. I stare at her, and then realize I'm staring at her as she falls silent a bit abruptly. Her nose had scrunched a bit as she laughed, the freckles clustering together. "Your hair really is so long," I commented. "And you never said you had freckles."

"Was I supposed to?" she asked, confused.

"Freckles might be a deal breaker." I smiled at her.

She sighed. "They're the bane of my existence." Which was ridiculous. They're beautiful, and she's beautiful, and she's laughing at her own words. Which gets me laughing.

"You're funny," I said.

She smiled at me.

There's a long silence until I look around. "This is some crazy room," I said, just to break the ice.

"Yeah. My mom built it so I could feel like I'm outside."

"Does it work?"

"Most days. I have a really excellent imagination."

"You really are a fairytale. Princess Madeline and the Glass Castle." I stop.

She looks at me. "It's okay. You can ask."

I pull at the rubber band around my wrist, then let it snap against my skin. I do this a couple more times, then ask, "How long have you been sick?"

"My whole life."

Input: (life + Maddy)sickness

Output(?): no life at all

If life was x and Maddy was y, sickness would be a 0, negating whatever value the first two had.

(x+y)0=0

"What would happen if you went outside?"

"My head would explode. Or my heart. Or my lungs."

"How can you joke…?"

She shrugged, the movement surprisingly casual. "How can I not? Besides, I try not to want things I can't have."

"You're like a Zen master," I said, abandoning all seriousness. "You should take a class."

A grin. "It takes a long time to learn."

Feeling comfortable enough to move a bit, I crouch, sitting against the wall. "Where do you want to go the most?" I asked curiously.

"Besides outer space?" she checked. I couldn't tell whether she was joking or truly wondering; I smiled at the idea anyone could be that innocent. "Yes, Maddy, besides outer space."

"The beach. The ocean," she said without hesitating.

It wasn't unusual for someone to have never seen the ocean. "Want me to describe it to you?" I asked, already thinking about it.

Maddy nodded vigorously. "I've seen pictures and videos, but what's it like to actually be in the water? Is it like taking a bath in a giant tub?"

"Sort of," I said slowly, thrown by the comparison. Then I corrected myself, "No, I take it back. Taking a bath is relaxing. Being in the ocean is scary." I tried to think of everything that would describe the ocean. "It's wet and cold and salty and deadly."

She looked surprised. "You hate the ocean?"

I grinned at that. "I don't hate it. I respect it." Holding up a finger, I told her, "Respect. It's Mother Nature at her finest - awesome, beautiful, impersonal, murderous. Think about it: All that water and you could still die of thirst."

I resisted the urge to open my arms wide as if I were in a theatre, continuing, "And the whole point of waves is to suck your feet from under you so that you drown faster. The ocean will swallow you whole and burp you out and not notice you were even there." By now, she was laughing.

"Oh my god, you're scared of it!" she chuckled.

"We haven't even gotten to great white sharks or saltwater crocodiles or Indonesian needlefish or -"

She cut me off, still laughing hard. "Okay, okay." I stopped as she held up her hands as if to ward off my words.