Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“We need you to come home,” I hear Joan say.
“You need a babysitter,” I say bluntly. “I haven’t stepped foot in your house other than to grab clothes in weeks.”
“Well, I can’t have you running around town stirring up trouble,” Warren grunts. “The last thing I needed was to get a call that you’re in the damn hospital.”
“I’m not going back there.” I cross my arms over my chest. I know it’s petulant and not very adult-like, even though just a few minutes ago, being near adulthood was the premise of my entire argument.
“I’ll call your caseworker,” He says as if that’s enough to argue with.
I smile. “Good. I’m sure she’d love to hear where I got the pills.” I cut my eyes to Joan. I watch her face lose color.
“Big fucking deal,” he spits. “Foster kids steal shit all the time.”
I chew the inside of my lip, pissed off.
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Let’s not forget about the illegal grow house you have in the basement.”
It’s Warren’s turn to go ghost white.
“I have an idea. Why don’t you leave me the hell alone? Collect that check you get for me every month and just leave it be. I age out next month anyway.” It sounds reasonable to me.
Warren begins to regain his composure. “You little bitch.” He’s seething. I watch his chest heave up and down. He’s filthy as usual. His shirt is stained, and I’m certain he hasn’t bathed or bothered to shave in a week. It’s amazing the low standards the state has for foster candidates.
I wish I could cower away from him. His face has gone from white to a bright shade of red. I wonder if this will be the time he finally snaps. He loves to yell, verbally degrade, and insult the foster kids in his home, but he’s never raised a hand or hit one of us. I always believed it was because bruises were harder to hide from the caseworker that came out often.
Not mine, of course. I was lucky enough to get the laziest one of the bunch. She’ll call on my cell phone and get updates rather than getting her fat ass out of her office to actually see me for herself. I wonder, looking at him, if this will be the moment that he finally snaps.
“You breathe a word about my basement…” he points his nasty finger near my face but leaves the threat open-ended.
I see Joan tugging on his arm to try to get him to back off. The last thing they need is to get busted growing marijuana in a foster home. There’s a lot of crime and drugs coming in and out of Farmington. Marijuana is the least of the police’s worries when meth is taking over the town, but they wouldn’t be able to turn a blind eye to a home where the state is housing kids. At a minimum, their license would be pulled, and they’d be forced to get jobs. Actual work is like a death sentence for both of them.
“Don’t bother coming back to the house to get any of your stuff,” Warren says as a parting blow.
I watch, relieved, as they leave the room. I haven’t had anything of mine in that house in weeks. All of my belongings were at the apartment Alec and I shared; the apartment his parents will be cleaning out. I can kiss all my stuff goodbye, knowing they will throw it all in the dumpster.
Chapter 4
Kid
I, by no means, have any type of claim over that girl in the bed, but it took everything I had to walk out into the hall when her parents walked in. Where the fuck had they been? I’d been sitting with her for hours, which is not including the time it took to treat her before she got a room.
Her dad looks beyond livid, and I can’t say I blame him. I’d be upset if I heard that my child just tried to off herself, too. I’m not sure anger would be my first emotion though.
“Straight from the faggot to the criminal,” I hear him spit.
What. The. Fuck?
First off, it makes absolutely no sense, but who in the hell talks to their child that way when she’s clearly going through some rough shit?
As they bark back and forth at each other, I’ve quickly come to the conclusion that she’s a foster kid. That’s the only thing that explains the talk of case managers and aging out of the system.
Eighteen in a month. Almost legal.
I slip my phone from my pocket and hit the internet app. She’s seventeen, which according to the internet is the age of consent for the state. I smile, but then see that there are other states in the US that have eighteen as the age of consent. Makes no fucking sense for there to be any difference.