She lay on her back staring up at her ceiling. It was white--well calling it white was a generous term for something that more closely resembled dirty bath water--and it was peeling, dividing the ceiling into 4th’s and 8th’s and 16th’s of disintegrating sludge. She shut her eyes and another ceiling came to her mind, one with glow in the dark stars a little girl had plastered sloppily on 10 years ago. She longed for that girl, the one who'd sat on her father’s shoulders, happily slapping stars above her, and stared up at them smiling every night. But it could never be like that again because that little girl had had parents, parents who would stare up at them as well, not because they wanted to but because she wanted them to. At times like this, when she could hear her foster mom yelling, and the shrieking replies of her foster sister, she'd imagine that her parents were with her, encouraging her and loving her, no one else really did.
“Phoebe get down here, your dinner is getting cold.”
“Coming!”
Phoebe sighed and begrudgingly trudged down the squeaky wooden stairs, pausing to itch her ankle.
“Move! Come on.”
Her foster mom was waiting impatiently at the bottom, one hand firmly at her jutted hip, the other wildly gesticulating towards the mess of peas and potatoes on the counter, supported by an exhausted paper plate.
As the three of them sat down to a taut silence, a key turned in the lock, and her foster father's wide frame shoved through the front door. He shuffled over to the table, smiling down at the adoring faces of his wife and daughter.
“Hi sweetie,” he said leaning down to kiss his daughter’s head. “How was your day?”
“Good, daddy!” Carolina giggled happily.
“And my love,” Bill walked over to his blushing wife, arms outstretched. “How was your day? Phoebe wasn’t too much of a nuisance, I hope?” He stared pointedly at Phoebe who had to look down, lest she flush, or scream.
Irene smiled, “No, not today, thank god.” She lowered her voice and tilted her head towards her husband, “Although, I've been meaning to mention--that girl is becoming a lot more work than the checks are worth.” Phoebe swallowed, were they not aware she had ears?
Bill smiled and patted his wife’s back, whispering into her hair. She tittered, leaning into his chest.
"Daddy! Guess what happened at school." Little spears of Carolina's dinner went flying from her mouth to paint the table.
Her father looked at her with the bewonderment and curiosity only a parent can feign.
"What?"
"Guess!" At this, more food went flying and Irene gave Phoebe a look. Clean that up it said.
"Did you...make something pretty?"
Carolina smiled happily and nodded, producing a macaroni and glitter catastrophe on cardboard.
Bill's eyes widened cartoonishly, and noisily munching on food, he extended his arm out wordlessly and enthusiastically to examine the collage.
Irene was still staring at Phoebe, angry exclamation points embedded in her eyes. Phoebe stood up, her face down. This was insane. She had become their very own Cinderella. Dumping the remainder of her dinner in the sink and grabbing the sponge, She mopped up her Carolina’s spittled peas.
"You're excused," Irene theatrically announced to Phoebe, fluttering her hands as if to telekinetically push her out of their family moment. Phoebe obliged, calmly walking up the stairs, her body bursting like a storm cloud as she fell on her bed in tears of frustration and sadness. How was this her life? How was this fair?
Hard slaps, sharp screams, shrill laughter. Memories of previous families and previous days spent feeling abhorred, scorned, and ostracized in cruel houses mocked her. But no more. She straightened and steeled her gaze, glaring at her bedroom door. She’d leave, somehow she’d find a way to survive--on the street, in a car, a park, a museum, whatever worked.
She'd figure out something, it was probably more fun to be homeless than an old, unwanted foster kid.
Phoebe started throwing clothes into a bag but thought better of it, tossing them back out. She didn't want it to be too obvious; she'd just need a little money and figure out the rest later. She glanced at the clock by her bed; it was seven pm which meant that she'd need to wait four more hours if she wanted to sneak out unnoticed. She turned off the lights and got under the covers, listening to the family chatter below her and the pelting rain above. Drip, drip, drip, it sang above her.
She dreamed of her parents holding hands, holding her hand and swinging her around. She could hear her own squeaky childish giggles, her mother’s tingling laughter, and father’s rumbling chuckles. She felt the wind rush past her cheeks and sun shining down on all three of them, encompassing them in a world of warm yellow light. She spun around and around and around, her breath and heart beat combining with those of her parents to form a trinity, a tight melodic bond that wouldn’t—couldn’t—ever be broken. But then the spinning got faster and the air got colder and she yelled out in pain as the icy wind pierced her cheeks. She looked up at the hands that grasped her but they were no longer her parents. They were Irene and Bills’ and they were tearing at her. She looked below and all she could see was black, stretches and leaps of black nothingness that she was terrified to join. But she couldn’t hang onto Irene or Bill either. She pushed their claws away and she was falling, down, down, down into open black skies.
Phoebe's eyes popped open and she sat up, her skin crawling and her breath raspy. She squinted at the clock, but her sleep sleeted vision blurred, concealing the bright red digits. The room crystalized and the clock announced that it was three twenty four.
She sprung up, her heart beating, pausing to tread lightly on the floor that happened to be her foster parents' ceiling. She shoved her shoes into nearby sneakers and grabbed at the thick sweatshirt by her bed in the near darkness.
She crept downstairs, wincing at every groaning step. Irene's purse was leaning against a cushion of Bill, Irene, and Carolina’s sequined smiling faces. She briefly rifled through it, her fingers blindly clutching a wallet-like structure. She pulled it out and the gold clutch shimmered in the moonlight. There were forty dollars inside and a credit card, she took both.
There was a movement from above and Phoebe looked up to see Carolina trudging towards the bathroom, dazedly scratching her disheveled head. Phoebe ran behind the kitchen table, her heart reverberating down to her toes. The bathroom door shut behind Caroline, and Phoebe leapt from the counter, silently sprinting towards her gated oasis.
She paused at the entrance to her within-reach freedom, was this an incredibly idiotic idea? She could still turn back, return the money and walk upstairs, crawling into her squealing bed above her bathwater ceiling. Phoebe physically shuddered, no, this was would be better, most things would be better that this nightmare. She’d lose a home, a family, but maybe that was okay. The possibilities felt endless and finite. She could go to Cambodia, Jordan, Oklahoma; and although the uncertainty scared her, it also freed her. She opened the door and stepped out into the sticky D.C. night.