Forgotten: Seventeen and Homeless (7 page)

Then not knowing what more I can say, I just leave and hurry back over to where Jayden is still sitting surrounded by our books and stuff and quickly sit down.

"Something wrong?" He looks curiously at me.

I shrug, then glance over to where the strange girl has emerged from the restroom. "Just a weird encounter in the ladies' room."

"Huh?" His eyes follow mine, then he nods in a knowing way. "Oh, that's Cybil Henderson. She goes to our school. And she's a little odd."

"Oh ... well, she was half naked in the restroom."

His brows lift. "Seriously?"

I nod. "Pretty weird."

"What was she doing in there?"

"It looked like she was trying to take a bath in the sink."

He frowns now. "I'll bet she's homeless."

"But she goes to our school."

He looks over to where the girl is now standing by the magazines, then shakes his head. "Yeah, well, you know how it is. They'll let anyone in that place." Then he kind of laughs.

I study the girl now. Cybil Henderson . . . she goes to our school ... she bathes in public restrooms ... maybe she's homeless? And I'm sure I'm just being melodramatic, but what if that were me?

is a little before nine when Jayden drops me off at home. And once again, he walks me to my door and kisses me. And once again, I feel slightly dizzy and warmth rushes through me. Before he can kiss me again, our front door light goes on-making us both jump.

"Looks like your mom's expecting you." Jayden steps back.

"Uh, yeah, I guess I better get inside." I glance behind me to be sure the door's still shut.

"In case she needs something."

"Right." I nod and reach for the doorknob.

"Thanks for going to the library with me," he says as he moves away.

"Thank you."

"I'll call you." And just like that, he's heading down the stairs.

As I go inside, I smell smoke. Not cigarette smoke or cooking smoke, but something different. Kind of like leaves burning. "Hello?" I call out, but no one answers. Is something wrong? Our place is on fire or someone's broken in, so I grab for my cell phone and get ready to dial 911. "Mom?" I call out loudly. "If that's you, you'd better answer-I'm calling the cops!"

My mom's bedroom door opens, and she bursts out with a trail of blue smoke following her. "What are you doing?"

I hold up my cell phone. "I was going to call 911. I thought something was wrong."

She leans her head back and laughs.

"I didn't know I was being funny." I peer behind her. "What's on fire in your room?"

She laughs even harder now. And then a guy appears from behind her. "Whass so funny?" he asks in a slurred voice.

"My daughter. She was going to call the cops on us."

The guy gets a worried look. "Why're you calling the cops on us? We didn't hurt nobody."

"I thought we had burglars." I study him more closely. Although I haven't met Mark, I'm pretty sure this is not him. This guy looks like he needs a haircut and a shave and probably a shower too. "What are you doing anyway?" I look over his shoulder. "And what's burning in there?"

Now he starts laughing. And then they're both laughing like I'm the funniest thing ever. My mom waves her hand at me in a dismissive way. "My daughter"-she lets out a loud chortle-"she thinks she's my mother!"

This makes him laugh even harder. "That's a good one." He pulls my mom back into the bedroom, shutting the door in my face. Then they both laugh some more, and I seriously consider calling the cops. Okay, that would enrage my mom. But who is this guy? And why are they smoking dope in there? Because I know that's what they're doing. And it totally infuriates me.

I go to my room and lock the door behind me. Then I flop down on my bed and try not to remember the last time something like this happened. It's one of those memories you try to suppress, telling yourself it was a one-time-only thing. But history, I've heard, repeats itself. Especially when the person doesn't learn from her mistakes the first time. And my guess is my mom's history is repeating itself now.

I was around twelve the last time something like this happened, about a year after my parents' split. My mom's mood swings had been playing havoc with our lives for months. And then she met Perry, and she started acting almost normal again. At first Perry seemed nice-even to me. He fixed a leaky toilet and promised to take us to Disneyland when he got his tax return. But it wasn't long before I figured out that the connection my mom and Perry shared was illegal drugs. Naturally, my mom claimed she was simply "self-medicating" since her prescription pills never really worked. And naturally, I wanted to believe her. Especially since, as strange as it seemed, our lives had calmed down a bit with Perry around. And then one day I came home from school and my mom and Perry were gone. I mean really gone. A lot of her clothes and things and her leopard-print suitcases were gone.

I freaked. The only other family I knew of was my mom's mom, Grandma Vincent, and she was a person I barely knew and had never wanted to know any better. It's putting it mildly to say that my mom and grandma never got along. Anyway, after my mom didn't come home for three days, I got scared and, out of pure desperation, called my grandma. She was living in Florida at the time and having some health issues related to decades of chain-smoking Camels.

I suppose I actually thought she might come and stay with me so I could finish the school year. Or perhaps she'd invite me to come out to Florida to live with her. I even entertained thoughts about her taking me to DisneyWorld. But my dear sweet grandmother called our state's Department of Children's Services, and the next thing I knew, I was slammed into a foster home with a bunch of other losers like me.

And if I thought my mom was bad, the foster home was way, way worse. I don't even want to think about it all these years later. But by the time my mom returned and got the authorities to release me back to her care, I'd nearly been raped twice, had a nasty case of head lice, and had developed the beginning of what I'm sure was an honest-to-goodness stomach ulcer.

Now I pace back and forth in my room. I am so angry that I'd like to hit something ... or throw something ... or just scream so loudly that all the neighbors come to see what's wrong. I even consider running down to the pay phone and making an anonymous call to the police. But that might land me in the foster-care system again. I am so not going there. To say I'm trapped is an understatement. But what options do I have?

I consider calling Isabella since she's my closest friend. And it's possible I could ask her for help, but she had to go to some out-of-town family thing today. And even if she was home by now, what would I say? Do I invite myself over to spend the night? And if I did spend the night, what if I lost it and just spilled the beans? What would happen if I told her the whole ugly story? I know she wouldn't understand. How could she? Her worst problem in life is a bad-hair day or getting a B on a test. Or the fact that her parents overprotect her. She's always complaining about how they keep such close tabs on her. And she can't do anything without checking in every step of the way.

I remember how her mom grilled me when I first met her, like she was worried I might be a bad influence on Isabella. What would her parents think if they knew my mom and some strange man were smoking drugs in our condo right now? For sure, they'd never let me see their precious daughter again.

What would Jayden think if he knew about this? Even as I consider his reaction, I know I will do everything possible to keep him from ever knowing. It would ruin everything between us. I know it. The shame I feel myself... just to think about my mom and that creep ... right here in our condo. It's disgusting. And humiliating. And I hate it. I hate him. I hate my mom. I hate my life.

The next morning, I wake up just as angry as I was when I went to bed last night. I go into the kitchen and start opening and closing cabinets, slamming them so loudly I'm sure our neighbors are ready to complain. Well, let them. And let my mom deal with it!

"What are you doing?" my mom demands when she comes into the kitchen, blinking at me with blurry red eyes. "Are you crazy?"

"Am Icrazy?" I shoot back at her. "That's novel coming from you.

"What?"

I point my finger at her. "Look at you! You're a big fat mess. I know that you've lost your job. And now you're shacking up with some drug freak and-"

"Watch out what you call my friend."

"Your friend?" I let out a big sarcastic laugh. "With friends like that, you don't need any enemies, Mom."

"I'm warning you, Adele; don't you talk to me like that."

"Warning me?" My voice is so loud I'm sure everyone in the complex can hear me. "What are you warning me about, Mom? That you've destroyed our lives again? That you blew your last chance to make it? That you're going to start hiding from your problems by using drugs again? Just what are you warning me about? I'd like to know!"

"I'm sick of you and your attitude, Miss Goody Two-shoes! You always talk down to me, like you're so much better. Well, you're not any better, Adele. You've just had more opportunities."

"I've had opportunities?" I shriek at her. "Like working and going to school while you lie around feeling sorry for yourself all the time? Like putting up with a lazy mom who has no idea how to be a mom and is so selfish that it usually feels like she's the child? Like I'm the one who has to be responsible and act like the adult? Opportunities like that?"

My mom is speechless and looks slightly hurt. And I know I should back down. I should apologize and do something to make everything better. the problem is that I'm just fresh out of solutions. And my patience is worn so thin that it's like I'm standing on a paper-thin layer of ice and I don't even care if it breaks and I go down into the freezing waters and drown. I'm so over this.

"That's the thanks I get . . ." She lets out a sob and waves her hand. "For getting us into this place ... your school ... your fancy new clothes. That's the thanks I get?"

I place my hands on the granite countertop, bracing myself and keeping myself from picking up something and throwing it. "You might've gotten us here, Mom, but then you blew it up. Just like you always do. You ruin everything."