the art of being lost

deciding to be lost

"Come on Sage, wake up." Kelsey gently says trying to wake up her sister.

"Do I have to?' whimpers Sage.

"Yes honey its your last day at the preschool, enjoy it."

Sage slowly wakes up and begins undressing. I quickly gather some clothes for her a little shirt with flowers and old capris. which reminds me, she needs new clothes. when Sage is all dressed and has finished slipping on her shoes i gather up her lunch that i had packed shortly before waking her up and her small pink backpack as well as my reqular sized one. I turn towards the closed door, then quickly remembering the past nights events, turn right back around to open the window. luckily we have a big tree with long thick branches right ouside our shared room. we will have to climb out the window again to get her to school...yay. I quickly hop onto one of the sub branches bounching back and forth before dropping our suff on the ground and going back up to get Sage. Once we both have our feet planted safely on the ground we start heading towards Main Elm Street. We arive shortly at our destination. Giggling Smiles Young'in Preschool. after a quick good bye I leave Sage in her classroom and head North to work.

I work at North West Seed Shop. i've worked there since i was in 6th grade feeding the animals until i eventualy worked up to manager. But not for long, no, i will not be working there when i start my Senior Year in high school and i'm hellbent on that. Why do I want to get me and my sister out of here you ask. well because i can't let Laura and Bill (our biological parents) countinue to ruin our lives, so that's another thing i'm hell bent on. You see... they're alcoholics they drink until they're tipsy, then they drink until they're drunk, then they then they drink until they're abusive, then they drink some more till when they don't know what the hell is going on. and then it repeats. i'm guessing by now that you can guess that last night was a repeat one of many in the past, but if I were them, I wouldn't count on it being one of many more in the future.

The day passed unevenfully. after ariving at work at about 6:00 AM to open and leaving at about 8:30 AM to make it to school on-time. After school I went back again from 3:30 to 5:30. on Fridays we go to the park till 8:00 PM so i can get some homework done and Sage can play on the playground equipment. At 8:15 we packed up our stuff and started to head home. I let ourselves in through the front door this time. as i walked over to the fridge, Sage following me close behind i heard something coming down the stairs. Sage heard it too i could tell becasue she scooted away from the stairs and hugged my upper thigh.

"Haloo myyyyy littlee brats" Bill slurred.

"Good evening Bill" I reply shortly. Sage clenches on to me tighter.

As I finish making our dinner: sandwhiches and chips with juice. I hold on to me and Sage's plate as we near the stairs. It all happend so quick that I barely had time to react. Bill had suddenly smacked Sage. Hard. Almost imediatly she begans to sob. I push. B. L her in front of me so that I am now between her and Bill. Luckily he doesn't follow us up to our room. as I put the plates down on the bed we share together I sit Sage down and inspect her face. I'm shocked at what that goddamn bastard did to her. my sweet Sage. her jaw was bleeing, not bad, but bad enough to get me upset. And thats when I decieded that I wasn't going to wait the 10 more days tell I had planned for us to leave for Oregon to get out... we were going to leave tonight... we were finally going to leave.