Keira's Daycare

Part Four: Insignificant

Keira woke up, staring at the ceiling. It was cracked and ugly. Paint had peeled off in more than a couple places, and it seemed like it had broken at some point. Keira didn't know who owned this house before Keira's mum rented it out in the winter to be their vacation home, and she didn't think she wanted to. They were honestly probably... irresponsible. Like her mum.
Nobody ever hated their mum, it was just a rule of life. You don't hate your parents. Only sociopaths and psychopaths hated their parents. Keira was sure she wasn't a sociopath or a psychopath, thought surely there were people who would disagree. She got up out of bed. Her room's windows were some sort of white lace that didn't keep light out, so she could barely see with the sun angled in her face.
She started down the stairs. They were a sort of evergreen colour, and complained when Keira stepped on them. The house, as Keira knew, was very old. The door to the kitchen had a skeleton lock, and the doorknob was rusted. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she turned towards the kitchen. Her mum wasn't up yet. She read the analogue clock on the wall: it was five-thirty AM.  
Four-thirty in the States, she reminded herself.
She was sure she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, so she opened the fridge. She got out some cheese, the kind from the actual block. Pre-wrapped cheese slices tasted and felt like plastic. She went through the cupboards until she found the bread, and heated up the burners on the stove to make a grilled cheese. She wasn't allowed to even touch the stove without her mum watching, but her mum was asleep upstairs. She wouldn't care.
When it was done, she tried to eat it, but she felt horrible. She had broken her mother's rule.
She had never broken a rule. She wanted to be sick. It's a stupid rule, she told herself. People break their parents' rules all the time.     
She wanted to cry. She wanted to hurt herself. She started to take the plate up to her room, so she could eat it, so she picked up the plate. When she stood up, she dropped it. The plate fell with a crashing sound. Her heart was racing. Her mum would surely wake up soon. She bolted, pushing open the door that her mother hadn't bothered to lock since nobody lived here, and ran outside, running to the forest bordering the yard. This was when she realised she had fallen asleep in her dress. Apparently, she had taken off her shoes, since sticks and rocks were scraping her feet. She was sure she was bleeding, but she kept running. She deserved this pain, and besides, her mother was going to find out if she didn't keep running.
So that was what she did.