Perspective

chapter one

I wake up to the yelling. As always there's yelling. I look to see where I am today. The room is mostly blank and a little dirty. Nothing really worth remembering.

The yelling continues in the distance so I turn around on the floor and pull the blanket tighter across me. I hear my brother moving beside me but we mostly ignored one another. No need to make noise and draw attention to ourselves.

Suddenly the door bursts open and our mother comes in with tears welling in her eyes. "We have to leave," is all she says as she gathers our stuff and us and then we're on the road again.

I don't like this. I wish we could just stay in one place and that's it. But nothing is ever like I want. I start to fall asleep again.

***

I wake up to see we're at grannie dimples. Oh how I love grannie dimple! I rush out of the car to go inside and crash into her. She laughs as she bends down to hug me and give me a kiss.

We mostly spend our time in the kitchen baking or cooking or in the living room watching the news. Luckily today's a day in the kitchen. We make homemade ice cream.

***

"No! Please stop!" I yell as grandpa Mike chases me around the house. I don't know what happened but I woke up to everyone being gone except grandpa Mike and I made him mad.

He's chasing me around with a fly swatter yelling at me. I don't know what I did but I'm scared. I just want my mom. I just want this to stop. I just want to be safe.

***

We're at a shelter. I'm scared again. There's a man in the hallway walking and pacing. He keeps passing our door and peeking in. Maybe I'm imagining things. Like how mom says the shadows really don't move and it's just in my mind.

***

"You are going to have to stay here for a while, okay?" My mom says as she backs away into her car and leaves. I look on in confusion then accept what happened. I start crying and feel this panick inside of me. It hurts so much.

I'm rushed to the hospital and they put these sticky things on me and said complicated words. Something about a panick attack.

***

For some reason I'm now at my dad's. I haven't seen him in so long. It's a little weird. Why are we watching this weird show? What is that man doing to that woman? I look over at my dad to see him doing something under the blanket. I don't want to be here anymore.

***

I'm so excited to go to a friend's house! I can't wait!! As my friend and I are playing her brother comes up to us. He asks us to lay on the beds and for us three to play a game. For some reason he touched us in our private areas. I don't really like this but he's older so I have to listen.

***

I get yelled at a lot. For wetting the bed. For crying. For my speech problems. For a lot. I'm not sure what to do. I feel lost and alone and I don't want to remember any of this. This all hurts. I'm just a kid! Leave me alone!!