Living With The Bad Boy [COMPLETE][VERSION ONE]

Chapter 2

When I get home, something is wrong. I can tell immediately, though I'm not sure what. Something is missing. I can feel it the way amputees can feel a limb that's not attached to them anymore. The absence of something important. I just can't figure out what's missing.

"Mom?" I call, my voice echoing in the silent house. "I'm home!"

No one responds.

And then it hits me. The mechanic hum of our cheap, plastic refrigerator. It's always there and now, it's just... not. And the lights are off. We usually keep most of the lights off to keep our electric bill from skyrocketing, but my mom should be home, and she usually turns on some lights.

The power must be off.

But the weather hasn't been bad. No trees that I know about have fallen on our power lines, and I can't think of another reason that our lights would be off.

Unless-

No, Sienna. Don't even think about going there. This is just a coincidence. Everything's fine. You're fine.

But the sinking feeling in my chest tells me that everything is the opposite of fine.

Ignoring the pounding in my chest, I decide to start on my homework, slinging my cherry red Jansport bag over my shoulder and climbing up the stairs to the top of our duplex apartment. I found the bag last year, at a yard sale, for $3. It was dirt-stained and smelled faintly of feet and there was a small tear in the fabric at the bottom. Anybody else probably would've left it there to rot, but I didn't have a backpack and $3 was too good a price to pass up.

By next August, when school started again, you could barely tell that the bag was used. I'd stitched up the hole with red thread if taken from our school's Home Ec. classroom and scrubbed the dirt out so hard my fingers ended up red and raw. And now it's mine.

I'm at the top of the stairs when I hear her. My mom, on the phone. I'm about to turn away from her room and go to my own when I hear: "Please, just one more month. I can get you the money in-"

What???

"No, not all of it, but enough to make a dent. Please, my daughter and I have nowhere to go!"

My heart pounds in my chest so hard, I think i'm about to collapse. This cannot be happening. This can't be what I think it is. Nononononononono. Please no.

I hear my mother sigh and say, her words filled with the weight of a ton of bricks, "I understand. We'll be gone by next week."

I peek into the room in time to see her hang up the phone and rub her temples with a sigh, her stance slouched, defeated, exhausted.

"Mom?" I ask, and she looks up like i've shocked her, brown eyes widened in surprise.

"What's going on?"

My mother sighs, and she looks like she hasn't slept in a month.

"Mom?"

She shakes her head. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough," I say, my voice thin and barely audible. "Are we being evicted?"

My mom sighs. "I suppose that's how it looks."

"But-" I stutter, my brain trying to find a way to make sense of this. "How could this happen? I thought the three jobs you were working were enough to cover rent! If that wasn't enough, you should've told me! I could've helped! I could've... I don't know. Gotten a job or something. And why would Mr. Walker do this to us? I thought he was nice! How could he kick us out after missing a little bit of rent?" Tears start to form in my eyes and I brush them away. I can't break down now. I have to stay strong, just for my mother.

"It wasn't a little bit of rent," my mother says quietly, looking at the floor. "The hospital cut my hours six months ago. Ever since then, I've been slipping. I just wanted to put food on the table and give you everything I could that I just-" she looked away. "I am so, so sorry, Sienna."

Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around my mom. "Don't be sorry. This is awful for both of us, but we'll get through it together, okay? No matter what."

"Yeah." My mother nods. "Thank you for being so understanding, Sienna. You've really matured these past few years, haven't you?"

I force a smile and then turn away, trying not to think about how I was forced to mature these past few years. "So what are we going to do? Are we- are we going to be homeless?"

I look back at my mom, who takes a deep breath. "I'll figure something out, okay, Sienna? Don't worry about it."

I nod and leave the room. Don't worry about it. As if.

The next day at school is awful. Mayah and Ethan are being extra cheerful, of course, singing their choir parts and trying (unsuccessfully) to get me to go to some big party with them this weekend. "There won't be another party like it until New Years!" Ethan protests when I tell him absolutely not. "You have to go!"

No one seems to notice that I don't particularly want to go. I also don't want to talk to anyone today. I spent all of last night pacing my bedroom, trying to find a solution to our money problems, and I'm completely exhausted. I just want to curl into a ball and cry, not listen to how hot Clayton Schreave is, thank you very much. At lunch, Jase Turner is behind me in line and it takes all of my self-restraint not to punch him in his smug, arrogant, privileged face as he tells Corey Westbrook about how he crashed his dad's Tesla.

However, as exhausted as I am, the day passes in a blur, and nothing outrageously horrible happens. Soon enough I'm at home, taking in the peeling grey paint and the outdated kitchen appliances as much as possible before we're evicted next week.

We're being evicted next week.

I still can't believe this is happening.

I'm in the kitchen doing my homework (or at least trying) when I hear my mother walk in. I look up instinctively, almost waiting for another bombshell to drop and her to announce that she's dying or something. But when I look at her, she's smiling. Smiling. As if we won't be living on the streets in a week.

"Sienna!" She even sounds happy, like a weight has been taken of her chest, as she walks over to where I'm sitting. "I have some really great news. I called up my old friend today, Lizbeth, from high school. She and I were on the field hockey team together but lost touch after she started at Brown, but she still lives in the area. I was telling her about our situation and she offered to hire me as a live-in maid!"

This is her solution? Living in the debt of some rich Glendale family? Cleaning their house and cooking their meals while they sit there, contemplating buying a new MacBook just because and complaining that dinner is cold?

"Sienna?" my mom asks me. "How do you feel about this?"

How do I feel about this? Terrible.

"I-uh-" lie through your teeth, Sienna. Mom found a job and a place to stay. That's a lot more than you managed to do. "I can't believe you really found us a place to go. Thank you."

Turns out, I don't even have to lie.

Turns out, I don't lie awake that night.

Turns out, there's nothing wrong with my mother being a maid.

Turns out, just when things start to get better again, the universe just has to throw me a curveball.

Author's note: Thank you so much for checking out my story! I promise it's about to get a whole lot more interesting, just give me a chance to explain everything that's happening before I dive into all the juicy drama that's coming up ;)