Lost and Found

The Meet-cute

**Enjoy these 6,300 words!**

I glided my fingers over the stainless steel appliances, noting that they appeared brand new. At first, I was too nervous to really pay attention to them. But now? I had no doubt that someone had bought these and never used them. There wasn't a mark. Not even a fingerprint. Only the tiniest scent of something that might have been musk. But it was too faint for me to determine for sure.

Humming to myself, I pulled out the mixing bowls and cups. These were going to be the hardest for me to give up. They were a soft shade of pink. Whoever had come here knew I liked the color.

But I didn't trust the gifts. Even though I wanted them, I didn't know who they were from.

Leaving the cooking appliances and food where they were, I packed up my meager amount of clothes and belongings. The duffel bag I owned was more duct tape than it was fabric, but it worked just fine for my needs. I hadn't had to use it in about seven years.

Once everything was stuffed away, I scanned the basically empty room. Even though I wouldn't miss this place, it still had been my home, my refuge, ever since I'd arrived in Seattle. Looking at it so bare, I was reminded of the first time I had arrived. . .

My stomach whined as I followed Adele up the cracked and worn down concrete steps. Cigarette butts littered the ground, and a lingering smell of smoke remained in the air.

Adele fished out a simple silver key from her pocket and twisted it in the lock. When the door swung open, my breath left my lungs in excitement. This was it. This was happening.

My new landlord followed me inside, an unlit cigarette dangling from her thin lips. "It's not much, but it's at least something."

Gazing around the room, I let my fingers roam over the stained countertops and along the sticky surface of the fridge. I'd never had a place of my own. Sure, growing up, I had my own room, but it wasn't truly mine. It was a cage my mother had used to lock me inside.

Vomit threatened to leave me as I thought about my family. There used to be a time where we were happy, up until maybe I was seven. I could recall memories of her smiling at my sister, Marie, and me as we played on the play set in the backyard of our home in Indiana. She would play tag with us, chasing us around the slide and monkey bars and would pretend that she couldn't catch us while my dad laughed from the back door. Those were the few truly happy memories I had.

But something changed. Overnight, my mother grew cold, angry, distant. She would snap at me for the smallest things, like tripping over my shoelace or laughing too loudly. I didn't understand what I'd done to make her angry, but I would draw her pictures of our family or try to make her breakfast in bed. However, the more I tried, the angrier she became. I could still remember the first time she hurt me. I was eight and had gotten a B- on a math test. I was disappointed in myself and thought she'd tell me to try harder next time. But she didn't. She made me follow her into the kitchen, and I watched her grab the sack of rice from the pantry and pour the grains onto the floor. For hours, she'd made me kneel on the small grains, and my knees had bled.

At the time, I was too young to understand that I didn't deserve her punishments. Over the years, she stopped letting me go to public school and decided to home school me instead. My home became a place of loneliness and neglect. My sister stopped checking on me to see if I was okay and began participating in my torture.

But I wasn't a little kid anymore. I saw how mentally unstable my mother had become, and I knew I didn't deserve the pain she inflicted on me. Abuse was never okay.

My eyes teared up as I spotted the small twin-sized bed. All mine. Turning back to Adele, I smiled for the first time since I'd escaped my home. "It's perfect. . ."