• The next few weeks would turn out to be much the same.
    Ever since I was a toddler, Mindi and Todd were bad parents. They completely neglected me to the extent that I began calling Mr. and Mrs. Murray mommy and daddy. Mindi was so furious that she chained me to a tree in the backyard for four days without food. That had been during the time the Murrays were on their family vacation. It was terrifying those four hungry nights. Mindi would unchain me only long enough to take a couple of sips from the chlorinated pool. When the Murrays had returned, I had been reduced to about nothing and Mrs. Murray paid Mindi for permission to take me to the hospital.
    In my whole eight years of living, that was one of the not-so-good highlites. One that kept me from sleeping for weeks on end and waking in beds of sweat. I had lost my appetite almost completely and weighed forty-two pounds, almost half less than Chase.
    Mindi would continue to beat me and abuse me to this day, and Todd would continue to sit by the sidelines - as if watching a wrestling match, for the exception that I was not putting up a fight, practically sacrificing myself to the hatred of my own mother.
    I only recognized it but a couple of years ago. Each night Mindi would be out late and return drunk. She was normally not alone. Todd would be alseep on the couch, the T.V. still on. Mindi would lock me in my room, but even then I watched her pull the young men into her bedroom through the keyhole. I asked Mrs. Murray about it, but she was too embarassed to tell me and promised I would understand later.
    I noticed that my parents were unemployed and were finding different means of raking in the cash. Each night, whether Todd was sleeping or awake, Mindi would bring another young man home. At the time I was completely ignorant, but I didn't like that way the men always grabbed at her thighs before entering her room.
    Todd often yelled at Mindi calling her a "prostitute" and other big words that made Mindi's face twist in a furious line. Mindi screamed illiterate words at Todd and they would be up all night screaming at eachother until Mindi grabbed her coat and told him she was going to get a "drink". All these fights tore my family apart.

    "Wake up, dammit!" Todd said once every morning. He normally said other things but Mrs. Murray told me they were inappropriate and he "didn't mean it, anyway".
    This morning he didn't and I woke to slamming on the door. I got up quickly and opened it.
    "What the hell are you doing still asleep?!" Mindi screeched. She was holding a blanket up to her chest, however, I didnt see anything underneath.
    "Mindi", a slow voice called from her room.
    "I'll be back with you in a second!" she called back. Todd was snoring loudly on the couch. Mindi grabbed my hair and whispered in my ear fiercly to stop being such a ************* (Mrs. Murray told me they were not very nice words; unlike many, Mrs. Murray thought I should know what was happening).
    I dressed quickly in a new plain red T-shirt, that Mrs .Murray had secretly given me, and a pair of beige capris that still had a blood stain on the knee. I quickly ate breakfast and made the bus just on time.
    As soon as I stepped onto the bus, it went quiet. I said "good morning" to the bus driver and slid into the seat behind him. The bus eventually got louder until the children were all talking in normal voices.