“You need to get out of the house for the whole day and don’t come back, until late.” Clare looks at her stepdaughter.

“Can I have some money to buy some lunch and dinner while I am out, please?” Chris couldn’t figure out why her stepmother needed her out of the house all day.

“Money? You want money? Your fat and can stand to lose some weight.” Clare wasn’t about to give her useless stepdaughter any money.

“I’m not fat. All I’m asking for is just a few bucks. Just enough to buy some soda and maybe some crackers or hamburgers.”

“Fine! Here is five dollars. You don’t deserve it anymore. Now, get out of the house and don’t come back until late.” Clare turns and walks away.

Chris heads back to her closet and grabs her backpack. She figures she could spend some time at the library and work on her schoolwork. She also grabs a few cans of food to take with her. She buries them deep in her backpack.

“Hurry up and get out of here.” Clare was getting impatient and wanted her stepdaughter out of the house before her guest arrived.

Chris shuts her closet door and hurries out of the house. She starts walking towards the public library to finish her assignment for Mrs. Midnights' class. The first report she had worked on for Mrs. Midnight’s class had been turned in on Thursday.

Mrs. Midnight gave them another report she wanted them to turn in on Monday. Since it was the weekend, she had several days to work on it.
She tried to talk with her friend Jessica, but she didn’t come to school on Friday.

After walking for twenty minutes to the library. She goes in and sits at one of the computer stations. She pulls out some paper and a pencil and set them near the keyboard. She pulls the assignment sheet out and starts researching the assignment.

Chris spends the next four hours working on the assignment. By the time she finishes, her fingers were hurting her. She leans back in her computer chair and looks at the word document. She had everything typed up and all her references were listed and in order. She saves her work on the only thumb drive she had.

She glances up at the clock mounted on the wall and notices it was around two in the afternoon. Her stomach starts growling from hunger. She picks her backpack up and logs off the computer. There was a McDonald’s two blocks up from the library and a dollar store nearby.

Chris heads towards the dollar store first and buys a two-liter of their off-brand sodas. Afterward, she heads over to McDonald’s and buys two hamburgers. Instead of eating inside McDonald’s she walks over to a nearby park and sits on a park bench to eat her lunch.

While she is eating her lunch, she watches the people around her. Some of them were families out enjoying a nice day. Some of them were just out enjoying the sunshine and jogging. She spots a little girl walking with her parents as they walk past her. Tears form in her eyes as she wishes her birth parents were still alive.

She misses her mother and the fun they used to have. Her stepmother was mean to her and didn’t care about her. The only person her stepmother cared about was her son. She wipes the tears away from her eyes, as she tries to get her emotions under control. She saves what is left of her soda and put the bottle in her backpack.

She wishes she knew what time it was as she gets up and starts walking home. She wonders why her stepmother wanted her out of the house so badly. She thinks about it as she gets closer to her house. She notices there were a lot of cars, trucks, and some motorcycles parked at the house. She could hear music coming from inside and from the backyard.

The smell of barbecue being cooked drifted by her nose. She stops in her tracks, as she observes the fun people were having. She even notices her stepbrother, hanging with some of his friends from school.

Tears form in her eyes again as she turns around and walks away from the house as fast as she could. She didn’t know what she was going to do, about her situation. But she needed to do something.

She ends up staying at a women’s shelter for the night. She wasn’t going to go back tonight. Instead, she’ll think about going back tomorrow, instead.

As Chris laid on the cot she was assigned too. She looks around the room and notices that there were at least twenty to thirty women surrounding her. Some had daughters and young children sleeping with them. She wonders why these people were out on the streets.

She finally falls asleep like three in the morning, if the clock on the wall was right. She is woken up at six in the morning, the next day. She grabs some cheese toast and juice before she leaves.

Chris didn’t want to go back home, but what other choice did she have right now. The walk back to the house seemed long to her. When she opens the front door and walk-in. She notices the house was a mess. She heads towards her closet and put her backpack away.

Afterward, Chris heads into the kitchen to get the cleaning supplies she was going to need. She goes about cleaning the place, before her stepmother and whatever men she slept with wakes up. She starts in the kitchen and goes to the main bathroom next. The stench near the
toilet was overwhelming. She wonders how many drunks couldn’t aim right.

Once the kitchen and main bathroom were done, she picks up all the trash, empty bottles, and cans. She puts the cans in a separate bag and hides them in the shed. She peeks in on her stepbrother and notices he slept with some blonde hair girl.

She closes his bedroom door quietly and goes about finishing up cleaning the house. Once the house is cleaned, she goes outside and starts picking stuff up. It starts drizzling while she is outside.

She spots her stepmother standing in the door frame of the sliding glass doors. She was drinking a cup of coffee. She slides the glass door close.

When Chris is done cleaning the backyard up and picking up the front yard. She heads back to the shed and put the yard tools away. As she walks into the house “go to your room and stay there.”

Clare didn’t want the man she slept with last night to know about Chris.

“Yes ma’am.”

Chris covers up a yawn as she heads towards her closet. Once she closes the door, she secures the door and dries off.