by C. B. Stagg
The house was somewhat familiar. My mom came by here all the time to pick up deliveries, but always left me in the car, telling me to hide on the back floorboard until she’d driven off. I was never under the impression that life with my mother was safe. It was the only life I’d ever known. But this new life, the one I’d been forced into with Toby and Myra, was a whole new level of dangerous.
My breaths came quickly, and my heart pounded to a new, unfamiliar rhythm, but I worked hard to remain invisible, burying myself further down into the pile of clothes and towels that littered the closet floor. I recognized the sound of handcuffs being slapped around flesh, and I prayed Toby would just forget about me. I wasn’t too worried about Myra ratting me out. She was so strung out most of the time; I was sure she couldn’t even remember her own name.
I could hear the little kids, presumably ones born to Toby, Myra, or both, though I never was quite sure. They were screaming and crying as they were forcibly taken out the front door, followed by Toby and Myra, him screaming, “You dumb bitch. I know it was you, Minnie. I’LL KILL YOU! I’ll KILL YOU!” Toby, probably blitzed out of his mind, continued to yell threats to my dead mother while Myra whimpered in a language all her own until the lights, the sounds, and the chaos melted away. I was left alone, sitting in a puddle of my own blood at the bottom of a closet in a derelict crack house on the edge of town, to fend for myself.
I knew it was time to get the hell outta Dodge. I wasn’t safe. I had never been safe. Someone would be coming back.
It was almost six in the morning. Even though school didn’t start for a few weeks, I knew teams were in summer practices, so locker rooms would be open. That would give me a safe place to shower or at least clean up before looking for a new living arrangement. I grabbed my yellow backpack, my prized possession. It was the only new thing I’d ever owned, and the only thing I had left that reminded me of my mom. I changed my clothes, then stuffed as many of my belongings into the bag as would fit before walking out into the heat of the Texas summer to start the two-mile hike to the high school.