Embedded

Chapter 2

                                                                    Chapter Two

After about 10 minutes of walking, I finally got ‘home’. It is not a house, or any thing like what one thinks of when the word, "house" is mentioned. I live with older people. When I say "older", I mean in their late thirties to early sixties. I entered through the warehouse- like doors. I guess you could call this place a warehouse just from the looks of it from the outside. But, when you come inside, it looks nothing like it appears on the outside. The outside is all rusty, falling apart, and boarded up. But, the inside is pristine, white, and clean. Too clean for my liking. 

No one looked up, or at me, when I walked in, just the way I liked it. I counted the forty-two steps from the front doors to the door that led to my own personal hell. When I was right outside the door, I could tell that "he" was ‘home’ because the light was on. Like everyday, I hoped that he had passed out on the couch due to the effects of the moonshine he guzzled everyday, or maybe he would want me to say only every so often.

Before I could put my hand on the doorknob, the maroon colored door flew open. A muscular hand flew out, gripped my hair, and pulled me over the threshold. Unlike a normal person would have, I didn’t cry out because this was a normal occurrence for me, I was used to it. He let go of my hair and threw me towards the couch.

“Where the hell have you been?!” My ‘loving’ uncle, Matthew, shouted. He was about 5’ 11” and had short blond hair. His green eyes bored into my gray ones. 

“I was at school,” I stated in a calm voice like I was talking to a child.

“I knew that! Why are you late?” Uncle Matthew bellowed. When I took in his full appearance, I noticed that he was actually wearing a clean shirt for once, no pit stains, or food stains either. He looked like he was going to a meeting of some importance because he had shaved and neither his black shirt, nor pants, were wrinkled.

“Look at the time! We get out of class at two and it is two eleven. It is a ten minute walk here!” I yelled back, tensing, knowing that if he hits me, I will hit him back just as hard. Usually when someone reads about a girl getting beaten, she usually cowers in the corner and doesn’t fight back. That is not me, I always fight back, even when I shouldn’t. That is just what I was taught to do.

“We have to go see Captain Smith. Get cleaned up,” he snarled as he turned to get his shoes. 

Gods, I hoped that Captain Smith’s son, John Jr., was not there. I walked in to my room, simply decorated with white walls and gray sheets on the single bed. My room was bland, until you look at my bookcase. It contained titles from ‘The Hobbit’ to ‘The Witch and the Wizard’ to ‘Wreck This Journal’ and ‘Dairy of a Wimpy Kid’. I read everything. Even ’50 Shades of Gray’ occupied a place on a self. Or was it in one of piles of books that was on the floor beside the bookcase? Books are the only things that kept me hooked in reality. 

I swapped my torn, faded jeans for darker ones, and my green tee for a gray long-sleeved one. I kept on my black Converse shoes. I walked back into the living room and saw that Uncle Matthew was not in the room anymore. I was just about to turn and go flop on my bed and finish ‘The Hobbit’, for the fourth time, when the front door opened.