SPACEDESKTOP

No extended family stepped in. No friends of my parents. It was just me and her. In a sense, I was grateful that I hadn’t been taken away to a group home. But she still didn’t like me.

Walking up the driveway, I shook off the heaviness that thinking about her always brought. I focused instead on the dream that had kept me going through all of her jabs, her undermining, and her disdain: college.

Today, I was supposed to get my acceptance letter. My escape plan was finally becoming real.

But as I opened the front door, a wave of heat slammed into me. It made no sense. It was spring in the South! The air outside was already hot, but inside, it felt like a sauna.

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