Michelle opened her mouth to protest, but Tessa shook her head. “The sofa’s fine,” she replied quietly. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve slept on one.”

“That’s ridiculous,” scoffed Michelle. “You won’t have any privacy, plus that sofa’s a piece of junk. One of the cushions has a big rip in it, and it’s got more cigarette burns than I can count. We’ll figure something out.”

Kimmie crossed her arms across her chest mutinously. “Well, she isn’t getting my bed, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said grumpily.

Debbie looked at Tessa with a rather smug expression on her face. “We might have an old air mattress out in the garage. You and Michelle can hunt around for it if you’re interested.”

Michelle stared at her mother, aghast. “You want her to sleep on the floor? Like she’s a damned dog or something? This is bullshit, Mom. What would social services say if they learned you were doing this?”

Debbie pointed a warning finger at Michelle. “You keep your goddamned mouth shut about that, you hear me? I make the decisions in this house, nobody else, got it? And if none of you like it, then you can just fucking get out. Now, you’d all better figure out how the three of you are going to share that room and start moving your shit out so your sister can move in.”

And with that parting shot, Debbie took the pack of cigarettes and lighter with her and stormed out of the kitchen, leaving the three girls to clean up the dinner dishes.

“God, I hate her guts,” hissed Michelle. “And it is really going to be hell around here when Brittany moves back in here with her brats and her asshole boyfriend. I’m not so sure I did you any favors, Tessa, when I suggested you stay with us. My sister is not the easiest person to get along with, so you’ll have to watch yourself around her. While Sean – well…”

“He’s a creep,” chimed in Kimmie. “He lived here with us for awhile a couple of years ago until Brittany got pregnant and my mom kicked them out.”

Michelle rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but it sure looks like all has been forgiven now, doesn’t it? Brittany was always Mom’s favorite, she knows exactly how to kiss her ass. Guess she must have been doing an awful lot of that lately to get Mom to agree to the whole pack of them moving in. I have zero idea how this is going to work – three bedrooms, two bathrooms, eight people.”

“It’s going to suck,” agreed Kimmie mournfully.

“It can’t be any worse than living in a homeless shelter,” replied Tessa quietly. “Or your car. Or sleeping on the sofa in some stranger’s house that your mother just hooked up with two hours ago. Believe me, I’ve done all that stuff, so sharing a house with a few more people doesn’t seem all that bad in comparison.”

Michelle and Kimmie stared at Tessa in horror at her softly spoken confession. She rarely discussed her past with anyone, feeling uncomfortable when people looked at her with pity or disdain for having been homeless.

But all Michelle did was to give her a quick hug as they finished washing up the dishes. “You’re right,” she admitted. “It isn’t anything nearly as bad. I feel guilty for complaining.”

“Me, too,” agreed Kimmie. “We’ll figure it out, I guess. I mean, how bad could it be?”

Late February

Kimmie’s innocently spoken words on that night almost two months earlier had come back to haunt Tessa on a daily basis, as she discovered that it could actually get really, really bad. From the moment Brittany had stepped foot back inside her mother’s house, an already uncomfortable living situation for Tessa had become more and more unbearable as each day passed. Brittany was one of the nastiest, most unlikeable people she had ever encountered, and Tessa went to great lengths to avoid her – as well as her truly creepy boyfriend and the father of her children, Sean.

Neither of them worked, and in the nearly two months they’d lived here it didn’t seem to Tessa that they were especially eager to remedy that situation. They also did nothing to help with the housework or laundry or other chores, and the house was usually always in a huge mess as a result. Brittany seemed to spend an awful lot of time plunked on the living room sofa watching whatever happened to be on TV at the time, smoking constantly, and yelling at one or both of her children – when she wasn’t outright ignoring them. Sean fortunately wasn’t around all that much, but when he was he often invited three or four of his equally creepy friends over to hang out, and they would stay up until the wee hours of the night playing video games, drinking beer, and smoking pot. He and Brittany fought constantly about whose turn it was to feed their two-year-old son Cooper, or change their six-month-old daughter Mia’s diaper. Neither of them paid the children much attention, leaving Cooper to run around the house with a dirty face and equally unkempt clothing, and constantly causing mischief. And the baby seemed to cry twelve hours out of each day, whether it was from hunger or teething or being neglected.

And it seemed to Tessa that there was always a fight or argument going on now – whether it was Brittany and Sean, Michelle and Kimmie, or Debbie with anyone who came into her line of vision. Tessa felt as though she was constantly having to walk on eggshells, and tried her hardest to fade into the background and keep out of everyone’s way.

She had never been so unhappy in her life, surrounded by equally miserable people who were easily the most dysfunctional excuse for a family that she’d ever seen. She was appalled at some of the things they said to each other, how they made no attempt to hide the hatred and contempt they felt. Tessa tried not to feel ungrateful, knew that her situation could still be much worse than it was, but most of the time all she could do was count the days until she turned eighteen and could legally live on her own. She hated it here in the Wallace household, hated all the noise and confusion and arguing, and had recently begun to wonder if she wouldn’t be better off just living in her car, as awful as that idea sounded.

And the very worst part of all this, of course, was the fact that Sean did very little to hide the fact that he found Tessa extremely attractive. He ogled her openly, licking his lips like some slimy snake as his beady eyes fixated on her breasts, and he’d made all manner of nasty, obscene comments to her when no one else had been around. His scummy friends were every bit as bad as he was, and Tessa made sure that she didn’t leave the bedroom she shared with Michelle and Kimmie when any of them were around and stayed firmly out of sight.