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SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD Elaine Tate was not asleep. She was tucked under her sheets with her eyes closed but she was not sleeping. She had spent the majority of the time she was pretending to be asleep listening to her parents.
She listened to their movements around the apartment, their conversation, their drunken fight, and the way Elaine's father smashed yet another glass. She listened to it all.
It's been half an hour since she heard anything from them at all and she was starting to think the coast would be clear. The brunette girl sat up, kicking her feet over the side of her bed and lightly bringing them to the ground.
Elaine waited a moment, screaming with all she could muster in her mind for the board under her left foot not to squeak. She put more of her weight on it and she let out her held breath.
She tiptoed as lightly as a ballerina over to the wall her room shared with her parents. She stuck the left side of her head to the drywall and once again held her breath. The girl putting her lifeguard training to the test.
She could hear the light snores she associated with her mother's drunken sleep and the soft hum from the fan her dad turned on to air out the room after spending the last half an hour before bed getting high.
She pulled her head from the wall and moved swiftly across her room. She pulled the duffle bag from the closet and grabbed what she thought would fit. Stuffing the old tattered bag with the lightest layers she could find. It was hot where she was going.
Elaine was prepared for this. She had been prepared for as long as she could remember. Her life was going to come down to this. If I got caught, she shook her head and pushed the thoughts from her mind.
Elaine grabbed the longboard next, placing it by the now zipped duffle bag. She then got her pocket knife from the window sill and moved to her bed. She lifted the mattress as quietly as she could and cut along the seam.
Inside was enough money to get her to her destination and some to hold her over just in case. She wasn't originally going to have the extra money but things just happened, and these were things that no matter how much Elaine had wanted to control and change, she couldn't.
The cash-stuffed envelope was tucked in its spot in her bag and she had one last thing to do. There was a spot behind her desk that she had taken apart to be able to hide stuff in there. She pulled the desk from the wall and used her knife to slice along the backing.
When she got it popped off she reached in and grabbed the contents. She brought them to her bag and put them inside, placing her phone on top and moving to put everything in the room back to normal.
Eliane's eyes scanned the room, mentally checking off from the list in her head. She let out a quiet sigh and picked up her bag, tucking the board under her arm and slipping into the hallway.
