All the work I post here is in its first draft format. I do this so that you can still read what I'm writing and so you have a reason to buy my books when they are edited and published, alongside supporting me as a person of course.

***
When I opened the front door I expected yelling but it didn’t come. Carol and Rick were sitting silently on the couch.

Rick’s gaze drifted up and he met my eyes. He had this silent seething rage coming off of him. I’d seen that look before right before my mom—no, I wouldn’t let anyone hurt me like that again, especially him. Rick tolerated me at best. I wondered if he cared about me.

“Rairy.” Carol said, pulling my stare from Rick.

Carol cared about me, I knew she did but I didn’t understand why she was being so dismissive about pressing charges on the asshole who beat me up.

I lifted up the baggie with my cellphone in it. “I broke it, I’m sorry,” I said.

“Jesus! Carol!” Rick said while pointing at me. He got up and snatched the baggie from me.

“Don’t open it, there’s pee on it.”

He dropped the bag. It was already in several pieces I doubted that dropping it again would help though.

“On the inside, not the outside.” I said.

He snatched up the baggie, went into the kitchen, and I heard the back door slam.

I jumped.

“Rairy, we have to talk abou—” Carol said,

“I went to the police station.”

“You what?!” she screeched, “You can’t do that, Rairy!”

“Why?! He needs punished! I can’t just let hi—”

“Yes you can! What did the police say?!”

I showed her my arm with a red mark on it. “A police officer without a badge grabbed my arm and forced me from the station.”

“Oh, thank god!”

“What?! What do you mea—”

“We c-can’t mess with these pe-people Rairy!”

Carol's voice was shaking which alarmed me. “Why not…?” I asked.

“They are going to take all of you away if you press charges!”

My heart felt as if it were stabbed. “What? How!”

She leaned forward. “These people have a lot of power. They have connections.”

I crossed my arms. “I can’t stay in class with that asshole!”

“Change the class.”

“I can’t just chan—”

“Yes you can.”

“What if I ca—”

“Drop the class then.”

I couldn’t believe she was saying this. It was insane. Was she really that scared?

She patted the seat next to her. “Come here, sweetie.”

I didn’t want to but the pained look on her face convinced me otherwise. I sat next to her, she put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. She was shorter than me so it was weird but nice.

“I didn’t know…” I said.

“I know.”

***
I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I was so pissed off that I didn’t know what to do.

Lying on my bed waiting for sleep to come was my only real option. There was a black smudge on the wall next to my bed. *Where the heck did that come from?* I smelled it. It smelled burnt like someone had been playing with fire.

*Those kids are gonna burn down the house.* What reall pissed me off was that one of the kids was on my bed. It was yet another thing I couldn’t control.

I pulled my pillow over my face and screamed into it.

*Fuck!*

***
I got probably two hours of sleep. Carol let me take the car again but Rick wasn’t happy about it. Rick and I had a unique relationship. He would help me but sometimes something would set him off and he would blow up. What was really strange is he would flip around and be cool a few minutes later.

My theory was that he would feel bad that he flipped out and then try to make up for it by being nice. It was such a weird thing and could be confusing to live with.

I got to school early enough that I got to see my counselor before anyone else arrived.

“What can I help you with Rairy?” she asked.

“I need to change a class.” Normally she and I got along but today I was pretty aggro.

“I heard you got into a fight.”

*Fuck, her.*

“I need to change a class.”

“What class?”

“My college prep Psychology class—the one just before lunch.”

She brought up my schedule or whatever she did on the computer. “Looks like there’s a gym class you could pick up.”

*Gym cla—* “No, can we just drop it then, please?”

“It’s aerobics.”

“Where am I supposed to change? The girls locker room?” Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen.

“You need someth— how about a computer class?”

“Uhmm.” We’d just started the year so I could probably catch up pretty quick. “I don’t have a computer.”

“Oh, it says here that your foster parents have one.”

“We don’t.” We did but the thing was ancient and the thing barely ran the websites for the kids' homework. I generally used my phone to do my assignments but that was gone now.

“Well, we can get you one of the Chromebooks?”

“That’ll work.” I’d have to log in to the wifi but that wasn’t a problem. “Where do I get one?”

“Can you pick it up at lunch?”

***
No classes with Howard. It was going to be amazing. *Today’s actually going to be a good day.* I thought as I limped to class.

***
I handed Mr. Harden my slip and he looked it over. When he was finished he had me sit down with everyone else.

“Everyone, welcome Ms. Clark.” He said.

Several of the other kids gave me bashful waves. There weren’t any girls here. *So much for STEM.* I felt bad for thinking about it, since I probably wouldn’t have taken this class if my psych class hadn’t been so toxic. By toxic I meant, Howard existing.

Most of the kids around me weren’t the normal kind of kids you might see. Well a few of them looked like they might be “Gamers” but most of them looked like hardcore nerds. Every one of them had their PC’s out. None of them had Chromebooks. I was suddenly worried and raised my hand.

Mr. Harden gestured at me. “Is a Chromebook going to work for this class?” I hoped so I didn’t have a job let alone money to get a real laptop.

“A Chromebook should work fine.” He turned back to the class, “Now, If you would open the cla—”

I raised my hand again interrupting him. He looked at me.

“Uhm, I don’t get my Chromebook till after class.”

“That’s fine. Feel free to just listen or pair up with someone.”

It was a feeling more than anything but I felt the room mentally shift its attention to me.

There was a kid with curly brown hair to my left and a blond-haired boy to my right. I didn’t know which to choose. The brown-haired kid waggled his pen back and forth and I swear he scooted away from me. When he stopped waggling the pen I got a good look at it. It was a multicolored pen.

I scooted over to the curly-haired kid with the pen. I took it as a sort of sign that he might be LGBT friendly or something.

He sort of froze.

“Can you turn your laptop so I can see?” I whispered.

When he didn’t move it I moved it for him. *At least I get my own laptop soon.*

***
The computer class was all about programming. Something of which I knew nothing about. This year was probably going to end up being rougher than I thought.

The kid next to me’s name was Valentine. He didn’t talk to me the whole period. It was really awkward. I only knew his name because he had a paper with it on there.

***
The woman at the front desk remembered me from yesterday. I could tell just from the way she was looking at me. Her eyes were squinted and she had a scowl on her face.

“What’d you do this time?”

“I’m here to pick up a Chromebook.”

She glanced behind her. There was a small pile of papers with what I assumed was my Chromebook on top of it. “Give me a minute.”

She pushed with her legs and floated on her computer chair to the pile. She grabbed it, and rolled back. She pulled off a paper that was stuck on it and handed me the computer. It was pretty light and there were like half a dozen stickers on it. I knew what I would be doing tonight.

***
Turns out Becks wasn’t here today or wasn’t at lunch so I went directly home after English.

When I got home Carol was on the couch. There was an indent in her seat. She almost never left the couch.

“Hey, Rairy.” She said and then she saw what was in my hands. “Where’d you get that?”

“It’s the schools. I got the class changed and they put me in a computer class.”

“Good. Can yo—”

“Watch Allan?” I interrupted. “Yeah, where is he?”

“In his room.”

Carol got up, I gave her her keys, and a weak smile.

***
“Rairy?” Allan asked.

I looked up from the computer. “Yeah?”

He shimmied over with his head down. “Can we watch videos?”

I smiled at him. “Sure let me get these stickers off first okay buddy?”

He nodded slowly. He had been glancing up at me from the floor while he watched TV.

Most of the stickers were gone. There was one of Spongebob that was pretty cool so I left it on there.

The back was finally done so I started on the ones on the pads where my hands went.

***
Allan was waiting so patiently and he would have to keep waiting because I couldn’t stand the sticky residue on my wrists as I typed. Of course I found that part out after I plugged it in and turned it on.

***
Rick was the first to get home. I’d kept Allan busy for at least two hours as we watched videos. I tried to keep them kid friendly. I didn’t want to corrupt his mind or whatever happened to kids minds if you did that too early.

The twins Lacy and Gabe came home a little after Rick. I ended up cutting up apples for all of them. For some reason Allan really liked apples but you had to cut them up for him or he wouldn’t eat them.

When I first met Lacy and Gabe I’d asked them if they had any special twin powers. They had no idea what I was talking about. I found out later that their only twin powers were being able to annoy each other and as a side effect, me too.

Rick didn’t watch the kids but he took over the TV and expected us to be anywhere but where he was. We would usually just hang out in our rooms.

The house was only three bedrooms. The girls room which Lacy and I shared and the boys room which Gabe and Allan shared. We were all in my room with three kids hovering behind me. Their school wasn’t giving out computers for them yet so having a computer in the house that didn’t take ten minutes to run a youtube video was something they oood and awwwd over. Being poor sucks.

Normally they would watch while I used my phone but since that was gone here we were. We were in our normal positions, me on the floor and all of them lying on my bed behind me.

I wondered if our situation would ever change.

***

BECKS: sory I didn’t warn you

BECKS: r u the

BECKS: i cnt belev mom n dad acted tat way

BECKS: r u mad?

BECKS: rairy?

Becks had left a bunch of messages for me on instagram. I was still too pissed that she didn’t send me anything after the attack.
*How do you like being ignored?*

If I saw her tomorrow I would probably talk to her about what had happened. Instagram's website which is the only thing I could access had a very limited amount of features I could use.

***
I’d spent most of the night with the kids watching videos. It was fun but I got tired of it especially since I couldn’t watch what I wanted to watch.
We ate dinner which I made. Luckily Rick and Carol bought a bunch of canned food. It was pretty easy to prepare but I wished I could make something nicer. Carol and Rick always ate out leaving me to cook for us.

It was pretty fucked up but at least they gave us food. I’d lived at one foster home where I’d nearly starved. I was grateful for what we had.

***
Carol liked to walk the kids to school in the morning since it was less than a mile away. Some days like yesterday the kids would walk alone but Carol generally went with them. She said she liked the exercise.

I got the car. I was not looking forward to school.

***
Valentine was staring at my computer almost the whole period. I’d finally had enough. “What?! It’s a free one from school!”

He didn’t respond and looked away.

The kids in this class were so shy. It was off-putting.

***
Becks wasn’t there but her friends were. Her friends generally put up with me rather than actually paying any attention to me.
Valentine and a bunch of little nerdy friends of his were all gathered at a table but they’d probably be too scared to even talk to me. I choose to sit alone.

***
“Rairy can I have apple.” Allan said.

I happened to be in the kitchen at the time so cut him an apple.

“Can we watch more videos?”

“Sure kiddo.”

***
Carol got back with the kids and they all wanted snacks too. I’d never asked to be a mom. Even though I couldn’t have kids anymore I wasn’t sure if I wanted any after watching these runts.

***
“I’m going to watch some of my stuff now.” I told the kids behind me. A chorus of aww’s erupted behind me.

“Find somewhere else to go.” I said when they didn’t get the hint to get out of my hair.

***
I looked at the computer and then took a deep breath. My hand hovered over the ‘Enter’ button, as I exhaled I pressed the button.

ME: hey srry my phone is broken

ME: i got one of those schol laptops

BECKS: srry abt wht hppned

I didn’t want to talk about Howard, like at all so I changed the subject.

ME: wht hppned to lunch?

BECKS: mom n dad made me cange lunch

ME: b cuz of me?

Becks parents were like Rick. They tolerated me as Becks friend but didn’t like that she hung out with me. When I first met them they thought I was a girl and then found out later I was a boy. I think they still held a grudge. I was only like ten when I met them.

BECKS: yah

BECKS: thy dont wnt us talkin n e more

I sat there staring at the message I wrote. It read, “i h8 life.” While I did hate the shitty card life had given me, I didn’t hate all of it. I deleted the message.

***
Becks and I talked for most of the night. We both decided that we didn’t care what her parents thought.
We were best friends and it was going to take more than her parents to kill our friendship.

***

Ms Arnold— yeah, Miss Arnold, she made sure we didn’t call her Mizzz— was laying out our math tests. I hated taking a test every week. *It's like, how many tests could they make us take?*

At least I was pretty good at math.

***
Valentine was getting braver around me. He’d upgraded from cowering away to angling his laptop so he didn’t have to look at me. This kid had issues.

I had a few months of work to catch up on in this class, I didn’t need the distraction anyway. At least he wasn’t messing with me like I knew Howard would be.

***
I stared at Becks’ and my old table. I wondered if her friends knew anything.

“Hey Lindsey.” I said as I walked up to the table.

“Yeah?”

“Have you heard from Becks?”

She hopped up from the bench. “Yeah, because of your bitch ass they swapped her lunch.”

*Fuck.*

Lindsey and I didn’t get along. When she decided to walk my way I turned and got the hell out of there. I’d had enough beatings for the rest of the year. Or the next 40 years.

***
Mrs. Law's english class was one of the easier classes I had. I was taking college prep in most of them. Next year I would have even less classes. I wondered if I could test out of any of them and possibly only have a few all year round.

I’d end up watching the kids more often but at least I would get out early.

***
Carol took the car as soon as I got home. It was okay, with Becks not at lunch I couldn’t eat out anymore. We didn’t have money and Becks would always buy me food. I felt sort of bad taking her handouts.

It was so weird not having snapchat and instagram around. Carol and Rick said they weren’t going to buy me a new phone. I could probably get a job but that would eat into my classwork. Which reminded me that I should probably be doing that instead of watching videos with Allan.

***
I’d eaten through about half of the school work in a few hours. I was so happy I could access it through the laptop. It was so much easier to type it all out too.

If only Allan would stop bugging me for another apple. It would probably be best for Carol to invest in an apple tree at this point.

***
I woke up in a cold sweat, the kids that had been chasing me in my dream with daggers were faster than me. Seeing my heart beating in their hands was apparently enough for my brain to eject me back into the real world.

***
Makeup was so good at hiding nasty things on your face like black bags under your eyes. At least I looked halfway decent. Luckily, I was able to sneak in a few youtube makeup tutorials because I had no idea how much to use to cover them up.

Lacy watched me carefully as I applied it. I didn’t know when young girls became interested in makeup; having grown up as a boy.

***
Lunch again. Sitting alone again. Howard and his group of assholes actually pointed me out. I couldn’t keep sitting alone; it was only a matter of time before they started screwing with me again.

At least it was Friday and I didn’t have to deal with their crap for the next couple of days.

***

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