Peter

Lucy-Chapter 7

As I walk into the empty parking lot of an old abandoned gas station, I feel the unmistakable feeling that I'm being watched. Quickly, I turn around to face my follower, but see no one. "You're acting paronoid Lucy. What, did you expect to be perfectly fine after running away? Not a chance." I think this thought as I force my eyes back to the gas station and open the door. It didn't look in that bad of condition. Some windows were boarded up with wood, but I knew that coming in. A few aisles were flooded with papers and rubble, the freezers were empty, and the cash register was destroyed in a pile of parts on the floor. "Can't be that hard to clean up." I mutter. I start my task of pushing the shelves towards the wall and collecting the scraps on the ground. As I start to pick up the remains of the cash register, I notice some leftover change in the drawer. "Score!" I think as I start to count it up. I find that it's together worth $6.38! I'll take what I can get. I find a secure shelve in an empty fridge and put my change in there. After that, I resume cleaning up my new home.

I finish by about 8:30. During my cleanup session, I found some batteries by the counter and put them in a clock near the back of the store. I estimated the time; adding the time I left, to about the time I was in the forest. Also I had found a bathroom containing a sink and a toilet. Of course they didn't work, but I put a bucket I found outside in the toilet, and filled the sink with water from a creek near the store. The small bathroom contained a mirror, which was cracked in too many places to count, and had various swear words written in permanent marker along the bottom. As luck would have it, my face occupied the same space as the word "Bitch" and "Ass". "Of course that would be my luck." I think. Satisfied with my work to make a functional restroom, I walk out into the lobby. I try to find something that could be used as a sleeping bag. I eventually settle for a trashbag I found out back, I almost laugh at the irony. " I run away from home to stop my dad from treating me like trash, just to sleep in a trashbag later?" When the darkness of night consumes the sky, I get into my bag and think about my new place. Suprisingly, nothing immediately comes to mind. In books or movies, when someone runs away, they have a lot to think about. I guess that was just to fill the time until the climax. Some time later, I finally start thinking about the police, and if they'll find me. "No way, they'll give up." I assure myself. But I can't stop wondering if the cops really will give up, or if they will find me before they do. If they did find me, they might find out about my parents being abusive, and put me in foster care. "But there is a chance that I'd be sent back home, and even if I WAS put in foster care, then I could end up with worse parents that are poor, and live in a worse neighborhood than I already lived in." Damn it, I was always a pessimist. Near 10:30, I had so many bad thoughts that I became exhausted of thinking, and fell into a much needed sleep.