Summer Roberts likes to keep the door to her bedroom shut tightly. Occasionally, when she feels the need, she will turn the lock on the doorknob. It's a cheap lock, the kind that doesn't even really lock the door. Anyone could barge in on her if they really wanted to.
But when her father is downstairs, arguing with her stepmother, sometimes it's better just to turn that lock, and be just a little bit more excluded from the strife.
Her father and the Step-Monster are arguing in whispers, as if they still think Summer has no idea what is going on. She knows that outside her door, down the stairs, there is cursing, glaring, lowered voices that just want to scream out. She knows one day, the Step-Monster will probably lose her self-control, and just scream everything she has bottled up inside to release all the agony she truly feels.
Summer hears the front door open, and jumps to her window. She pushes aside the curtains, and watches as her father gets into his car, and pulls out of the driveway. Summer reached onto her nightstand, and grabs Princess Sparkle, stroking the synthetic fibers that make up the plastic horse's mane.
Downstairs, the Step-Monster is probably burying her bottled-up anger in a handful of painkillers, maybe something stronger.
And Summer just doesn't want to be a part of it. She's only part of the family because she has to be.
A loud knock on her door resonates into the room. Summer clutches Princess Sparkle tighter.
"You can't come in! I'm studying- naked."
