You Can't Come In

 15 years old

Her mother blocked the doorway to the house.  "You can't come in," she said. 

The girl looked at her questioning. 

"You are a bad influence on your brother and sister," she said. 

"I need a suitcase," the girl responded. 

"No. Those are mine. You can't have my suitcases," the mother answered. 

The girl started walking down the street aimlessly. She had no friends. She didn't know where her dad lived. So, she just walked with no destination in mind. 

She hadn't walked far when she came across a boy she knew from school named Daryl.  He asked where she was going and she told him that her mother had thrown her out of the house and she had nowhere to go. It was evening now and she didn't know where she was going to sleep. Daryl invited her to his house to talk to his mother. 

Daryl's mother told the girl to go back home and ask to be let in and if her mother still wouldn't let her in to come back to her house and she would let her sleep there.

The girl walked back home and knocked on the door. Her mother answered. She asked if she could come in. The mother said "No. You are not coming in here. You are a bad influence."

The girl walked back to Daryl's house. His mother had a bed made up on the couch for her. 

The teen laid down and Daryl disappeared downstairs.

The girl laid there thinking for just a moment. The sheets smelled and felt clean. She didn't know these people but she was exhausted and she felt safe. She knew sleep would come easily and that was exactly what she was fixing to do. 

Then Daryl was standing beside her. Come hang out in my room for a few minutes.  

He led her down the stairs to his bedroom. 

He was insistent. She gave in.

Minutes later she slipped back up to the couch. 

The following night she decided that she wouldn't let anyone else know that she had nowhere to live. She would just keep it to herself.  

Not knowing anywhere else to go she snuck back to her mother's house after night fell and climbed up onto the roof of the aging building in the backyard. She thought that at one time it was probably a garage. Now, it was just a leaky wooden building where her mother used to store things she didn't have room for in the house. Like old family movies. One being the girl when she was a baby taking her 1st steps. She had only seen the movie one time but it remained ingrained into her mind forever. She could play it back as if it were recorded there. The little bald headed baby didn't look to even be ready to walk yet. Her legs bowed trying to hold up her weight as her mother held her by one arm. The mother let go and the baby sank to the floor unable to take one step on her own. The mother pulled her up and swatted her bottom, held her by the arm and once again let go. The baby sank back to the floor unable to take a step.  The mother pulled her back up and swatted her again. The baby started to cry. The process repeated itself several times before the mother gave up. 

Now, the teen laid on the shingles roof of the building and gazed up at the tree branch that extended toward the roof. I hope no squirrels or mice come up here, she thought to herself.  At least there were no boys. No strangers asking questions. 

She woke the next morning as she heard her mother's car start and back down the driveway. 

She came down off the roof and walked up to the side of the house, pulled herself up to the window and slid into the house and made something to eat quickly and hurried off to school.

It was finals that week.  

She slept on top of the roof 2 nights, slipped in and then went to school.

At one point her 13 year old sister noticed her and asked her mother why her sister was sleeping on the roof. 

The 3rd night she slept on the roof she waited for the car to pull away and she went to climb up the side of the house to get in, and use the bathroom and look for food, things didn't go well. Because just as she shimmied up to the window something distracted her and she turned her head just in time to see her father getting out of his car and running toward her.

She dropped to the ground and ran. He was chasing her. She ran as if her life depended on it. Because she felt like it did. At one point she lost her flip flop. She didn't stop. Just kept running.  She finally looked back.  He had given up. She didn't see him anywhere. That was close!

She went to school. It was the last day of finals. The last day of school. And her last class was art class.

She was just finishing up her painting as the class was ending. Her good looking art teacher approached her and he looked so sad. He kind of nodded in the direction of the classroom door. Someone there for her.  And, it wasn't anyone from the school.  She hung her head and without saying anything she left her table and walked out into the hallway with the lady. 

The lady led her out to her car and they both got in. 

"Where are we going?" the girl asked.  "I am taking you home," the lady answered. 

That seemed kind of stupid. She knew how to get home. She didn't need anyone to remove her from class to take her home, thought the teen.

"You can drop me off there, but I'm not staying," the girl answered. 

The lady repeated that she was taking her home. And, the teen repeated her response. 

The lady said that if she didn't want to go home then she would have to take her to a foster home. 

"Take me to a foster home," the teen said. 

And so, the lady did.