Success In Progress

1. On My Own

"What are you doing in my house?"

I jolted awake and saw two piecing blue eyes staring at me. Without a word, I sprinted past the guy and through his front door.

The image of him wouldn't leave my mind for the rest of my life. He was about my age with a backpack on his right shoulder and a pair of Mercedes Benz keys in his left hand. He had on a navy blue polo that brought out the color of his eyes, khakis, and dress shoes. His hair looked like all he had to do was run a hand through it to style it. The one thing that stuck out to me, though, was the expression on his face. It was a mixture of disgust and pity, with a dash of anger, annoyance, and surprise. I suppose I'd look at someone the same way if they were a stranger on my couch, which probably cost as much as the Benz parked outside. Especially if said stranger was covered in grime, dressed in rags, and smelled like a sewer.

I didn't stop running for an hour. I collapsed behind a dumpster and lay there for thirty minutes, catching my breath.

Then I cried.

That guy was the first human I'd come into direct contact with since The Fight.

How did a person hit rock bottom in two days? Who could possibly get that low that fast?

Me, Annabella Martinez, that's who.

I let myself cry for twenty extra minutes and then I got up. My stomach felt like it was about to cave in and my body was screaming for nourishment.

I started wandering around the alley, looking for any signs that showed that I was near a restaurant.

I wasn't.

I moved on to look for another alley, flinching away from the rest of the population as they scurried along, laughing and smiling and ignoring the homeless teenager in the shadows.

Sometimes I saw the same people, especially near bars.

Men in their forties with protruding beer guts and women wearing dresses so tight that their breasts were spilling out of them.

I shivered at the thought of one day being so done with homelessness that I resort to becoming one of those women.

I never felt safe anywhere I went and it was times like these, when the beer-gutted men licked their lips at me, that I was thankful that I left the Fight in jeans, a pullover, and a thick jacket. I zipped up my jacket and pulled the hood over my head as I walked by.

My nose caught the smell of heaven before I did and I let it take my body in that direction.

Tacos.

It was a food truck parked on the end of the street with a sweet, Hispanic woman taking the orders. She looked like she could have been my aunt.

Our eyes locked and her expression immediately turned to pity. A lot of people would be looking at me like that in the future; I just didn't know it yet. She wrapped up a few tacos for me and as she handed them to me, I could hear her whispering a prayer. My eyes began to water while I thanked her and went to find a place to eat in peace.

Fajita meat had never tasted so good. The woman had packed four tacos, some chips, a can of sprite, and a bottle of water. It wasn't until the third taco that I slowed down and began to cry again. The simple selfless nature of the woman restored my faith in humanity. She didn't care why I was homeless. She didn't care that she might have lost some money in sales. She didn't bat an eye when it came to helping someone in need. She just did it.

I saved the fourth taco, chips, and water. I would have to find a bag of some sort to hold it in since the plastic bag she'd given me flew away while I was eating. For now, I stuffed the taco and chips into the pockets of my hoodie and held the water in my hand.

With a full stomach, I began to wander the streets. The only reason that this wasn't safe for me was that my mind wandered, too. I began to think about everything my step-mom ever said to me.

"You're nothing but trash. The only reason you're still here is because your mother is still alive. Your dad would toss you out in a heartbeat. You're lucky she hasn't been killed in that hellhole they call a jail. You look just like her and trust me that is not a compliment. Look at me when I talk to you! Speak, you little cunt! Oh, now all of a sudden you don't have anything to say? Ugh, get out of my face."

That was how she talked to me for ten years. It destroyed me. She destroyed me. I didn't have friends because I stopped trusting people and I didn't have any self-esteem or confidence. I even stopped writing to my mom because my step-mom told me that she was dead when I was twelve.

For years, I'd thought my mom died. No one ever told me how and my dad didn't confirm or deny it. It wasn't until the day of The Fight that I found out she'd been alive the entire time. Nearly six years. I found six years worth of letters from my mom.