Mrs. Varner’s hand squeezes mine gently and I stiffen without meaning to.
Mr. Varner carries sleeping Natalya up the stairs like she weighs nothing. I follow them silently, my shoes making tiny sounds on the shiny floor.
Every step echoes.
This house feels too big.
We get upstairs, and two doors are ahead of us when Natalya wakes up in Mr. Varner’s arms and looks around, her jaw on the floor. Mrs. Varner gets on one knee to get to my height.
“These are your rooms. You can decorate them any way you want tomorrow. Now go clean your teeth and sleep. It’s late.”
She puts a soft kiss on my forehead and leads us inside.
My room is so big that I feel a little funny standing in the middle of it. There are so many drawers and furniture, windows taller than me and an empty library.
I don’t have anything to fill it with.
The bed on the left side of the room is so wide it could fit all my friends from home. I sit on it, nervously playing with thesheets, but I just can’t see myself falling asleep here—it’s so big and I’m so small.
After a while, I decide to sneak into Natalya’s room and get to her bed instead. It’s so huge she doesn’t even feel I got in. She’s deep asleep.
I scooch on the edge of the other side of the bed and lie down, feeling tired and finally closing my eyes.
Kasien
Age 14
I sit at the kitchen table, my head pounding and my eyes sore from another sleepless night. I had homework for my Spanish lesson to finish, but I couldn’t concentrate no matter how long I tried.
Across from me, Natalya is checking her school bag while stuffing whole pieces of bread into her mouth, butter smeared all over it. Her fingers run through books and loose papers, probably missing something as always.
The clock on the wall catches my eye. She’s late again.
The bowl of cereal in front of me stays untouched. I’m too tired to eat. All I want is to go back to sleep.
I press my palms to my face and rub my eyes, trying to wake myself up, when the driver shouts at Natalya to get to the car.
She’s doing well in most subjects, but she already has two strikes for misconduct, and a third would be a problem.
I’m doing a lot of homework with her. She’s bright but can’t keep her focus for long. All her notes are covered with random scribbles. That’s the only thing she can do for hours without getting distracted—painting or scribbling some shit.
She finally closes her bag and gets up from the kitchen table.
“Don’t you dare flip your teacher off again,” I shout at her as she runs through the door to the car.
Her school uniform is all wrinkled and not tucked in properly, and her long black hair is messed up all around her head.
She nearly crashes into Adrien as he walks into the kitchen, looks up at him while gulping the bread, then keeps on running.
My chest instantly warms when I see him. He turns around and raises an eyebrow at her, but I don’t see her response as she’s already climbing into the car, leaving for school.
Adrien takes the rest of her breakfast and wolfs it down, giving me an annoyed look as he checks the clock.
We have a private church school today. Friday discipline session disguised as religion. Once a week, we have to listen to some religious bullshit even though we both know there’s nothing religious about this fucked up family.
Adrien’s sudden appearance in this mansion a few years ago was my salvation. He’s my best friend. More like a brother. We’re homeschooled together for the rest of the week, but Fridays are God’s day, apparently.
I roll my eyes at the thought and force myself to finish the cereal.
