"Oh, come on, Carmen, you have to admit it's weird!" Lily said, causing Carmen to glare.
"Nope. It's not weird that two couples of the same gender love each other…besides, we already established this, Gus left ages ago." Carmen said.
"What? Just because your mum doesn't care about you and neither does your dad, doesn't mean everyone doesn't need a dad." Lily said.
Carmen's eyes flared. She suddenly lunged at Lily and began to hit her, clawing at her and pulling her hair too. They fell to the ground, shrieking and shouting and hitting.
Mike and Gina pulled the two girls apart, and all the kids were staring.
Carmen had nothing at all, no wounds; Lily had a black eye and a bleeding lip.
Before the words could leave Mike's mouth Carmen stormed outside, to see someone standing there…
"…Mum? Dad?" Carmen whispered.
She…recognized him, a bit…and she definitely recognized her mother.
"Hello, sweetheart." He said carefully.
Her eyes suddenly blazed. "Get out."
"What?" Helen blinked.
"BOTH OF YOU GET OUT!" Carmen yelled, turning away.
"Carmen?" a small voice said.
Carmen whipped around to see a little girl hanging onto Helen's hand.
"….She's….she's not….?" Carmen whispered.
"She's your sister." Her father, James, said.
Carmen paled. "You…had another daughter?" she said, staring at her parents.
"Told you they didn't care about you!" Lily shouted from behind. The kids had gathered there.
"Shut up, Lily." Tee, Rick, Johnny, Elektra and Jody chorused.
"No, she's right…just leave me here, I don't want to see you!" she said, before running upstairs to her room.
She suddenly saw all the pink and stiffened. Her mother and her sister…they were wearing pink. Carmen's hands scrabbled at everything she could find and she grabbed some scissors. She began to tear and cut, getting rid of everything. She ripped the wallpaper down and threw white paint from Tyler's room onto every single wall. Soon her room was bare and plain, clothes and rugs and bedding and shoes all broken in pieces on the floor.
Carmen sat down in between the two beds and began to cry. She got up, wiping her tears, and ran into Elektra's room. Grabbing some clothes from her and Faith's wardrobe, she sewed them neatly to fit her. She put them on, threw out all her pink stuff except her phone (which she covered with red and white stickers). She put her phone in her pocket, stole money from every single room except Johnny's, and climbed out of the window.
She ran away from Elm Tree House with her hair flowing out behind her, pulling the black hood over her head as she went.
Carmen was a runaway.