Escape or Eject

Chapter 2

“Day number one,” I wrote down on the notepad I had stored in my knapsack, “I’m alive, and all two hundred and six bones are still intact. Next stop...who knows where?” I set it aside and looked up at the sky. I was still stuck in the woods for at least a few more hours. The police department is probably calling all the local train and bus stations making sure I don’t get on them, so I guess I’ll have to walk most of the way, or at least hitchhike.

My phone would eventually lose battery life, so I turned it completely off, until I was certain I needed it. It wasn’t like I had anyone to call in the first place. The only friends I had back home were a few stray alley cats and Liliane. Who was also fostered by the gruesome-twosome Maureen and Jett. She was there since she was six, and now she’s almost fourteen. If I were her, I would have never lasted that long. I’ve only lived there for the past four years, and I’m pretty sure my IQ has dropped twenty points from their lack of brains.

Liliane and I would play the stupidest pranks on them in the beginning. We’d fill Maureen’s shampoo bottles with syrup and laundry detergent and then empty Jett’s Pepsi and replace it with soy sauce. Course’ the consequences were brutal. They moved me out of my room with Liliane and gave me an empty closet instead, saying that I corrupted her. They always preferred her over me in any situation.

It seemed like every foster family I went to got worse each time I was kicked out. Around twelve years ago, I was stuck in a home with thirteen other girls. It was like being trapped in a scene from Annie. It was there where my anxiety really started to develop. I woke up one morning with my arms and legs tied down to the bed with sheets. The other girls didn’t exactly ‘welcome’ me to the home. I was younger than they were and this made them scared that a new face would be adopted before any of them.

The foster-mom, Ms. Venefica, didn’t care for me too much either. Every time I told her what the other girls had done to me, she thought I was just acting out for attention and would yell at me for trying to get them in trouble because ‘no one likes a tattletale’. That only made things worse.

We went outside to the pond my first summer there. I didn’t know how to swim yet so I had worn a pair of old floaties Ms. Venefica had lying around. But once I got in the girls attacked my arms, screaming and thrashing. “Why should you get any special treatment Haley?” one of the older girls, Carrie, had yelled in my ear. “All of us learned how to swim all on our own!” added the only redhead in the house with a thick scar above her cheekbone.  I could barely keep afloat, and then one of them shoved my head underwater. I reached onto the first body I could grab and ending up pulling her down with me. They held my head down, so no matter how hard I kicked my body wouldn’t reach the air.

I kept my eyes open searching with squinted eyes for which figure was holding me. I clawed and smacked at anything and everything. I could feel the pressure in my lungs intensify. And right when I thought my spotted vision would go dark, the arms released me. And I was jerked out from the depths coughing out gulps of green water into the dried yellow grass. Everyone was in chaos, pointing fingers in my face. Ms. Venefica was frantically searching the water, which is when I realized I came up, but the other girl had not.

I was kept in the basement for the rest of my time in the house. They did get the girl, whose name I couldn’t remember, out from the water in time. She was unconscious for a long time though. Which is why they kicked me out. I was labeled as a threat to every foster-home down the east coast after that, no one wanted to take me in thinking I was a five year old sociopath.

Sighing, I stood up from the uneven bed of rocks I was lying on. I might as well start moving in the right direction. Taking out the wrinkled map, I estimated the general location I was in and followed the North Star towards civilization. While lying awake at night, I researched all the possible ways of surviving out here. Three hours without shelter in harsh environments, three days without water, three weeks without food. With it being less than twenty degrees outside, it was falling under the harsh environment category. I wouldn’t be able to stay overnight here without getting hypothermia.  I needed to get a ride.