I hate her. She doesn’t understand what it’s like to see things that most people can’t even admit exist. The ugly truth, painted in red, stuck in my head, images I can’t shake. Death. Cruelty. Terror. People taking other peoples’ lives as if lives mean nothing. Then they leave me behind to carry the foul, rotting truth with me. Alone. Why did they leave me behind? This teddy bear is all I have left of a time when ugly didn’t consume my life.

I turn my head away from the sound of her voice and stare out the window at the sunlight reflecting against a lawn ornament shaped like a tulip, and hug the teddy bear against my chest, the one my dad gave me as an early birthday present the day before he died. There are little red, heart-shaped beads on the tulip and when they catch in the light they flicker and make dots dance against the concrete on the back porch. It’s pretty to watch and I focus on them, shoving my anger down and bottling it up—trying to stay in control of my emotions. Otherwise all the feelings I’ve buried will escape and I’ll have no choice but to find a way to shut it down—find my adrenaline rush.

Besides, Amelia doesn’t need to repeat what I already know. I know what I do every night, just like I know what I am to them, just like I know in a few months or so they’ll get tired of me and send me to another place with a different home where everything I do will annoy those people, too, and eventually they’ll pass me along. It’s like clockwork and I don’t expect anything more. Expecting only leads to disappointment. I expected things once when I was little—that I’d continue to grow up with my mom and dad, smile, and be happy—but that dream was crushed the day they died.

“Violet,” Amelia snaps and I quickly turn my head to her. She and her redheaded friend are staring at me with worry and a hint of fear in their eyes and I wonder just how much her friend knows about me. Does she know about that night? What I saw? What I escaped? What I didn’t escape? Does it make her afraid of me? “Are you listening to me?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No.”

She crooks her eyebrow at me as she opens the cupboard above her head. “No, what?”

I set the teddy bear on my lap and tell myself to shut off the anger because the last time I released it, I ended up breaking lots of things, then got sent here. “No, ma’am.”

Her eyebrow lowers as she selects a few cans of beans out from a top cupboard. “Good, now if you would just listen the first time then we’d be on track.”

“I’m listening now,” I say to her, which results in her face pinching. “Sorry. I’m listening now, ma’am.”

She glares at me coldly as she stacks the cans on the countertop and takes a can opener out from a drawer. “I said would you go into the garage and get me some hamburger meat from the storage freezer.”

I nod and hop off the chair, taking the teddy bear with me, relieved to get out of the stuffy kitchen and away from her friend who keeps looking at me like I’m about to stab her. As I head out the door into the garage I hear Amelia saying, “I think we might contact social services to take her back… she just wasn’t what we were expecting.”

Never expect anything, I want to turn around and tell her, but I continue out into the garage. The lights are on and I trot down the steps and wind around the midsize car toward the freezer in the corner. But I pause when I notice Jennifer in the corner, along with a boy and two girls who are messing around with bikes in the garage.

“Well, well look what the dog drug in,” she sneers as she moves her bike away from the wall. Her bike is pink, just like the dress she’s wearing. I used to have a bike once, too, only it was purple, because I hate pink. But I never learned how to ride it and now it’s part of my old life, boxed away and sold along with the rest of my childhood. “It’s Violet and that stupid bear.” She glances at her friends. “She always carries it around with her like a little baby or something.”

I keep the bear close and disregard her the best that I can, because it’s all I can do. This isn’t my house or my family and no one’s going to take my side. I’m alone in the world. It’s something I learned early on and becoming used to the idea of always being alone has made life a little easier to live over the last several years.

I hurry past her and her friends who laugh when she utters under her breath that I smell like a homeless person. I open the freezer and take out a frozen pound of hamburger meat, then shut the lid and turn back for the door. Jennifer has abandoned her bike to strategically place herself in front of my path back to the door.

“Would you please move?” I ask politely, tucking the hamburger meat under one of my arms and my teddy bear under the other. I dodge to the side, but Jennifer sidesteps with me, her hands out to the side.

“Troll,” the boy laughs and it’s echoed by the cackling of laughter.

“This is my house,” Jennifer says with a smirk. “Not yours, so you don’t get to tell me what to do.”

I hold up the hamburger meat, fighting to keep my temper under control. “Yeah, but your mom asked me to get this for her.”

She puts her hands on her hips and says to me with an attitude, “That’s because she thinks of you as our maid. In fact, I overheard her talking to my dad the other day, telling him that’s why they’re fostering you—because they needed someone to clean up the house.”

Don’t let her get to you. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does. “Get out of my way,” I say through gritted teeth.

She shakes her head. “No way. I don’t have to listen to you, you loser, smelly, crazy girl.”

The other kids laugh and it takes a lot of energy not to clock her in the face. You were taught to be better than that. Mom and Dad would want me to be better. I move around to the other side but she matches my step and kicks me in the shin. A throbbing pain ricochets up my leg, but I don’t give her the satisfaction of a reaction, remaining calm.

“No wonder you don’t have any parents. They probably didn’t want you,” she snickers. “Oh wait, that’s right. They died… you probably even killed them yourself.”

“Shut up,” I warn, shaking as I step closer to her. I can feel anger blazing inside me, on the brink of exploding.

“Or what?” she says, refusing to back off. The boy on the floor stands up and starts to head toward us with a look on his face that makes me want to bolt. But I won’t. I’m sure they’ll chase me if I do and in the end I’m going to get blamed for this incident.

“What do you mean, she killed her parents?” he asks, wiping some grime off his forehead with his thumb.

Jennifer grins maliciously and then turns to him. “Haven’t you heard the story about her?”

“Shut up.” I cut her off as I move so close to her I almost knock her over, then raise my hand up in front of me, like I’m going to shove her. “I’m warning you.”

She keeps talking as if I don’t exist. “Her parents were murdered.” She glances at me with hate and cruelty in her eyes. “I heard my mom saying she was the one who found them, but I’m guessing it’s because she did it herself because she’s crazy.”

I see the image of my mom and dad in their bedroom surrounded by blood and I lose it. I quickly shove the image out of my head until all I see is red. Red everywhere. Blood. Red. Blood. Death. And a stupid little girl who won’t walk away from it.

I throw the hamburger meat down on the ground, not concerned about what happens to me, and grab a handful of her long blond hair and yank on it. “Take it back!” I shout, pulling harder as I circle around to the front of the car, away from the boy, dragging Jennifer with me.

She starts to cry, her head tipped back, tears spilling out of her eyes. “You evil bitch!”

“Let her go!” the boy yells, running around the car at us. “You crazy psycho.” He turns to the other girls and tells them to go get someone and then they take off running, looking at me like I’m crazy, too.

I know it’ll be just moments before Amelia comes out and then not too long after she’ll call social services to come take me away. I’m trembling with anger and hate all directed toward Jennifer, because she’s the one here in front of me. No one else. My vision blurs along with my head and my heart and it feels like I’m back at my childhood home walking into the room again, seeing the blood… hearing the voices…

I’m trembling so much my fingers have no strength left to hold on to Jennifer and I release her. She immediately stumbles forward into the front of the car. Regaining her balance, she spins around and shoves me so hard I fall to the ground and my head bangs against the wall.

“You psycho!” she shouts, her face bright red, tears streaming out of her eyes. “My mom and dad are so going to send you away.”

I stare at the space on the floor in front of her feet, hugging my teddy bear, motionless.

She lets out a frustrated grunt and then stomps her foot on the floor before running out of the garage.

Moments later, Amelia comes rushing in, shouting before she even reaches me. “You’re done here! Do you understand?”

“Yes.” I don’t have a single drop of emotion left and my voice sounds hollow.

“Yes, what?” She waits for me to answer her with her arms crossed.

I don’t reply because I don’t have to anymore. I’m finished with this home. There’s no erasing what just happened. I can’t change the past just as much as I can’t control my future.

She gets livid, her face tinting pink as she tries to contain her fury. She tells me I’m worthless. She tells me that no one will want me. She tells me I’m leaving. She tells me everything I already know.