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“Mama!” I whimper, shaking her over and over again.
But she never says another word. She’s just gone, like a flame extinguished in a dark room.
And I’m all alone, with her last words forever ringing in my ears.
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CHAPTER 1
MONROE
Isat on the edge of my bed, staring out the window into the dark, seemingly starless sky. Freedom was so close I could taste it.
18.
It felt like I’d been waiting my whole life for this moment. For this specific birthday. The thought of finally being able to leave this place, to start my life, on my own terms…it helped get me through each day.
I knew it would be difficult when I left. I only had my scrimpy savings from my after school job at the grocery store to start my life. But I’d do whatever it took to make something of myself.
Something more than the empty shell my mother had left me that day.
I’d been in the foster system since I was ten years old, the day after that fateful night where I’d lost her. Everyone wanted to adopt a baby, and a baby I had not been. I’d gone through what seemed like a hundred different homes at this point, but my current home was where I’d managed to stay the longest.
Unfortunately.
My foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Detweiler, and their son Ripley, seemed like nice people at first, but over time, things had changed. They were different now.
Mrs. Detweiler, Marie, had come to think of me as her live-in maid. I was all for helping out around the house, but when they got up as a collective group after every meal and left everything to me to clean up–as well as every other chore around the house–it was too much.
Someday, hopefully in the near future, I would never clean someone else’s toilet again.
While I could deal with manual labor for another month, it was Mr. Detweiler, Todd, who had become a major problem. His actions had grown increasingly creepy, his longing stares and lingering glances making me sick. Everything he said to me had an underlying meaning…was an innuendo. He’d started talking about my birthday more, like he wanted to remind me of it for reasons far different than the promise of freedom it represented to me. I’m not sure it had even occurred to any of them yet that I was actually allowed to leave after that day. Both my birthday and high school graduation were the same week. Perfect timing. I just hoped he could control himself and keep his hands off me long enough to get to that point. Some people might not think a high school graduation was anything special, but to me, it representedeverything.
Ripley was fine, I guess. He was more like a potato than a person, which was better than other things he could be. His eyes skipped over me when we were in the same room, like I didn’t actually exist. And maybe I didn’t exist to him. As long as his bed was made every day, and he had food on the table, and toilet paper stocked to wipe his ass, he could care less. He was much too involved in his video games to care about the world around him.
I glanced at the clock. It was 4:55pm, time to get dinner started before Mr. Detweiler got home from work. Sighing, I absentmindedly smoothed my faded quilt that Mrs. Detweiler had brought home from who knows where, and headed out to the hallway and down to the kitchen. The house was a three bedroom rambler in an okay part of town. It was nicer than other places I’d stayed, but I’d found that didn’t matter all that much. The hearts beating inside the home held a much greater significance than how nice, or not nice, the house actually was.
I’m sure I could have been perfectly happy in the hovel I’d started life in with my mother…if only she’d been different.
I came to a screeching halt, and panic laced my insides, when I walked into the kitchen and saw Mr. Detweiler leaning against the laminate counter. How had I missed him coming into the house? I couldn’t recall hearing the garage door opening.
He was nursing his favorite bottle of beer, which was actually the fanciest thing in the kitchen, costing far more than any of the other food they bought. Todd Detweiler was still dressed in the baggy suit he wore to the accounting office he worked at. He had a receding hairline that rivaled any I’d seen, so he brushed all the hair forward, carefully styling it to a point on his forehead right above his watery blue eyes.
He raised an eyebrow at the fact I was still frozen in place. But he usually didn’t get home until 6:30, long enough for me to get dinner on the table and hide away until they were done.
“Well, hello there, Monroe,” he drawled, my name sounding dirty coming from his lips.
I schooled my face and steeled my insides, taking methodical steps towards the fridge like his presence hadn’t disarmed me.
“Hello,” I answered pleasantly, hating the way I could feel his gaze stroking across my skin. Like I was an object to be coveted rather than a person.
I knew I was pretty. The spitting image of my mother when she was young. But just like with her, my looks had only been a curse, forever designed to attract assholes whose only goal was to use and abuse me.
I reached into the fridge to grab the bowl of chicken I’d put in there earlier to defrost…when suddenly he was behind me. Close enough that if I moved, he’d be pressed against me.
“Is there something you need?” I asked, trying to keep the edge of hysteria out of my voice. His hand settled on my hip and I squeezed my eyes shut, cursing the universe.
He leaned close, his breath a whisper against my skin. "You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you?" Todd’s breath stunk of beer, a smell that would prevent me from ever trying it, no matter how expensive and nice it was supposed to be.
