Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
But it wasn’t just school activities that defined that year for me. My Junior year in high school was also the year my body finally started developing.
I don’t know if I was such a late bloomer because of genetics—I remember my mother saying she hadn’t started her period until late—or because of the fact that food was so hard to come by at the Spauldings’ house. For whatever reason, I was as thin as a stick and flat as a wall until that year. And then, suddenly, I began to fill out.
First my breasts became big and heavy and then my hips followed suit, growing curvy and full. None of my old clothes fit anymore—now I was reduced to wearing Maria’s hand-me-downs and since Nancy only gave her the worst clothes to begin with, whatever came to me was already falling apart.
To my great embarrassment, none of my bras fit anymore. Even the old one Maria grudgingly passed down to me was too small. The cups barely covered my nipples and the elastic straps cut into my shoulders mercilessly. I wished desperately for a new bra—one that fit. But I didn’t have any money of my own to buy one and Nancy Spaulding spent every cent of the money CPS gave her to use on her foster children to buy treats for herself and Alexis and knickknacks for her house. So I had to beg Maria to give me anything she had to spare—which wasn’t much.
Speaking of Maria, that was also the year she finally got away. A few months after the school year started, she aged out of foster care and was able to leave the Spauldings house at last, though I’m certain the trauma of what she suffered there probably followed her the rest of her life.
I feel guilty when I think of her and what she endured—I wish I could have said something—done something. But the Spauldings had everyone so thoroughly fooled that convincing anyone in authority of the horrors going on in their house seemed completely hopeless.
After Maria left, her place was taken by a girl named Tricia—a petite girl of about fifteen or sixteen who was an excellent cook, having spent a good part of her life caring for her five younger siblings and her mother, who was a less-than- functional alcoholic.
Tricia was skinny as a rail—even skinnier than I had been at her age—and she kept her black hair shaved short on the sides. The haircut made her look almost like a boy and she had a sharp, abrupt way about her that was often quite masculine, too.
What I’m trying to say is that she wasn’t Gary Spaulding’s “type.” And unfortunately, since my body had finally begun to blossom, I was.
It started with the way he looked at me during shower time. I tried to hide my new, larger breasts with my arms and shield the small thatch of curls that had sprouted between my legs with my hands. But Gary Spaulding’s eyes were greedy as he stared at me while I stood in the shower stall.
Nick seemed to notice too, though he would never stare at me. He kept his gaze mostly on Gary, as though waiting for our foster father to try and make a move. And sure enough, a few days after Halloween that year, Gary did.
Nancy had held me back to lecture me about some new kind of laundry detergent she wanted me to try, so I was last in line for the shower that night. Her husband didn’t bother me until after I had finished my ice-cold wash and was wrapped in a ragged, threadbare towel that barely covered me.
The Spauldings had thick, luxurious bath sheets themselves—I knew because I had to wash and fold and put them away. But the towels Nancy Spaulding gave us “fosters” to use were stained and torn and way too small—they looked like something that had come out of a rag bag somewhere. Come to think of it, that’s probably exactly where they had come from, knowing her.
Anyway, I was brushing my teeth for the required three minutes as usual since Nancy was unfailingly strict about dental hygiene. Nick and the other foster kids had already finished and left the basement for the barn. I rinsed my mouth and was about to follow them and change into my one pair of ragged pajamas when I felt a hand close around my arm.
“Kira, sweetie,” Gary Spaulding purred in my ear. “You know, you’ve really grown up lately. Maybe it’s time to let you sleep in a real bed in the main house for a change—wouldn’t that be nice?”
“What? No!” I yanked my hand out of his arm in a panic. This was what I had been fearing for years—from my very first night at the Spauldings’ place. I never should have let myself be the last one still brushing! Now I realized that Nancy Spaulding had made me wait until last for a reason. My breath was burning in my throat as I rushed for the door that led out of the basement.