They Can't Take That Away from Me: A short story

On his 21st birthday, a troubled young man realizes who and what he is.

“Edward! Come back here!” Mrs. Wardle’s voice followed him as he half-ran, half-stumbled from the living room.

But what did it matter any more what she thought? So much empty air they were, all her sniveling promises and thinly-veiled threats. He was a man now, taller than she was, heavier, and he could do what he chose. He would reclaim what she had tried to take from him.

Besides, it was too late for going back. He had committed himself. And he was going to follow through! Not for him the empty promises that satisfied so many others. That was the one thing she’d taught him. He could no sooner go back on a promise made than he could resist making it in the first place. Pride! An irrational, unforgiving thing, it held him in its tight binding, and he would go on though it cost him everything he had.

He went upstairs to the small room he had come to know as the one thing in the world that was his—a refuge, and a place to be alone with his thoughts. He spent hours here, mulling over his life and making plans for the day he would be free. And now it had come.