Homeless

chapter 1.

- Bella

As I skip down the stairs of my temporary home I yell for Luke, who I've been looking for, for over 20 minutes.

"Luke? Lukey?" I check under the bed again for the fifth time, just to be sure. I get back up from the floor and hear giggling, he tried to be quiet but I hope he knows that I'm not dumb and that I can hear his laugh through the closet door. I jumped when I heard a loud thud from the closet,

"Ow! Stupid shoe box." I hear Luke say from the closet and instantly giggle at the thought of him tripping over a shoe box in the small space. I sneak up to his 'clever' hiding spot, as he would call it, and quickly go over a plan in the back of my head to scare him. I quietly grab the door handle and swing the closet door open,

"Found you!" I scream in his face with a proud smile on mine.

"Took you long enough," Luke says while walking past me and over to his bed. "I hurt my foot,"

"I heard you calling the shoe box stupid," I say while bitting my tongue, trying not to laugh at the memory.

"It's not funny, Issy," he smirks,

"I hate that name." I say trying really hard to be mad at him, he hasn't called me that since I was nine.

"That's why I used it." He says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Why else would I say it?" He's wearing that stupid smug grin on his face that makes me want to throw something at him. I cross my arms over my chest and he does the same thing, mocking me. He attempts to make the same face as me while standing up and positioning his body as the same as mine. I burst out into laughter as always, I can never stay mad at him.

"Okay then Lukey, let's go back upstairs. Ms. Stacey said to watch the younger kids while she went to the store."

"Don't call me Lukey, it sounds too girly," he demands while stomping past me and up the stairs. I smile and shake my head while heading towards the stairs. I mentally pat myself on the back for calling him Lukey, knowing to myself that he doesn't like the name, just like he did to me earlier. As I start to walk up the stairs of this stupid 'house' I hear a whole bunch of screaming saying things like, run it's the monster or just a simple hi Lukey.

The kids like to pretend that Luke is a monster all the time. When I say all the time, I literally mean all the time. Like every single time they see him, they scream and run away. Though I still don't get why Luke let's the kids call him Lukey, but not me. It's not fair.

*

We spend for what it seems like hours, but only minutes, playing with the kids and their plastic toys that they seem to love so much. I'll never understand why. Ms. Stacey came back an hour ago with a lot of paper and plastic bags and screamed for Luke to come help her with 'the fucking groceries' as she said. But of course, Luke came back in with his hand on his cheek, looking like he was going to burst into tears any second. It's always like this, she calls for one of us and if we do anything different from the way that she wants it, she hits us.

Right now I'm sitting on Luke's bed with an ice pack pressed to his cheek, while he's trying to control his tears.

"She hits so hard..." he mumbles. "I didn't mean to drop the bag of food, I swear. I was.." he breaks into sobs again but continues, "I was just trying to help." Luke is only 16 but probably the most sensitive person in the world.

"I know, Luke. But you just need to calm down, Ms. Stacey will be in our room soon to call us down for dinner." I say while rubbing his back, hoping that he truly would just calm down before Ms. Stacey came in here.

"What time is it," he asks, finally slowing his breathing down.

"5 minutes until 6."

"Okay, thank you," he smiles at me while sitting up on the bed.

"LUCAS AND ISABELLA,GET YOUR FUCKING ASSES DOWN HERE DINNER IS READY!"

"That's our cue," Luke says, trying to lighten up the mood.

"Guess so..." I said with a long sigh following behind it. I quickly stand up from the bed and rush up the stairs because I knew that if I stayed down there, Luke and I would get punished again. I sprinted into the dinning room and was un-welcomed with a twisted smile by Ms. Stacey.

"Good evening, Isabella," she smiled and pulled out a chair for me. I hate it when she calls us by our full first names. "Come sit right here, next to Bryan."

Bryan is a seven year old boy who likes to be called B.J., because his middle name is Joe. But he knows better than to correct Ms. Stacey for her 'mistake'.

"Where is Lucas? Isabella do you know where he is?"

"N-no ma'am."

"Hmm, I'm going to go get him. I'll just be right back-"

"Ms. Stacey, I would hate to put you through the trouble," I try my best to lie to her as I stand up from my seat. "I will get him, you have done enough by making dinner I-"

"No. Sit down," she demands with authority. "It is not your job to get him."

She walks over to the stairs and her annoying heels clicking on the hardwood flooring is giving me a headache. All I can think about is Luke getting another 'punishment' as Ms. Stacey calls it. But you can't really be punished if you haven't done anything wrong. I just wish Luke would have followed me up the stairs, I don't know why he didn't.

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