Chapter 7
Mom got a job two weeks later.
It was at a daycare center, not far from the shelter. She’d worked at a daycare before she married Dad, before she quit to stay home with me and Ethan.
She was nervous on her first day. She wore a nice shirt, and she kept checking her hair in the mirror.
“You look great,” I told her.
She smiled, a little shaky. “Thanks, baby.”
She came home that night, tired but happy.
“The kids are so cute,” she said, sitting on the edge of my bed. “One of them drew me a picture. Reminded me of you when you were little.”
She worked hard. She picked up extra shifts when she could. She saved every penny.
Clara helped us find an apartment a month later.
It was small, on the second floor of a quiet building on the other side of town. It had two bedrooms, a tiny kitchen, and a small balcony that looked out at a park.
The best part? It had a backyard. A small patch of grass, with a wooden fence all the way around.
Ethan ran around the yard the first day we saw it, laughing so hard he could barely breathe.
“Can we plant flowers?” he asked, looking up at Mom.
“Whatever you want,” she said, grinning.
We moved in a week later.
We didn’t have much furniture. A couch we got from a thrift store. Two beds. A small table and chairs. But it was ours.
I checked the locks on the front door that first night.
Then I checked the locks on the windows.
Then I sat on the couch, and I looked around at our living room, at the drawings Ethan had taped to the wall, at the small lamp Mom had put on the end table.
It felt like home.
Ethan planted sunflower seeds in the backyard the next day.
He dug little holes with his hands, dropped the seeds in, covered them up, and watered them every single morning, even when it rained.
“Gonna be taller than me,” he told me, every day.
I started at a new school that fall.
I was scared at first. I didn’t talk to anyone for the first week. I sat in the back of the class, and I ate lunch alone.
Then a girl named Mia sat next to me in math class.
She had pink hair clips, and she loved the same cartoon I did.
“Wanna sit with me at lunch?” she asked, after class.
I hesitated.
Then I nodded.
We became best friends.
She invited me to her birthday party a month later. A sleepover.
I almost said no. I’d never slept away from Mom before. Not since that night.
But Mom encouraged me.
“Go,” she said, smiling. “Have fun. Ethan and I will be fine. Call me if you need anything, anytime.”
I went.
I ate pizza, and we watched movies, and we stayed up until midnight talking.
I didn’t have a nightmare.
I didn’t check the locks.
I just had fun.
When Mom picked me up the next morning, I couldn’t stop talking about it.
She laughed, listening to me.
“I’m so happy for you,” she said.
The sunflowers started to sprout a few weeks later.
Small green shoots, pushing up through the dirt.
Ethan cheered when he saw them.
“Told you!” he said, grinning at me.
I smiled back.
Life wasn’t perfect.
I still flinched when I heard a man yell. I still had nightmares sometimes, where I was back in that closet, waiting for the shouting to stop.
But it was good.
Mom was happy. Ethan was happy.
May you like
We were safe.
For the first time in my life, I knew what that felt like.
