A/N: So hey, I know I should be writting on MY STORY but i wrote about half a chapter (about 500 words.) But I can't think of anything for it. This idea just came to me and I was bored with no internet. So I hope you like it.
I never imaged myself here. Actually, to tell you the truth, I never really imaged myself anywhere. I wasn't the type of person to think about who I would be in the next two years. Hell, I never imaged where i would be in the next two minutes! But nevertheless here I am, twenty years old and in Dorthy Day shelter for battered women and children. Another shelter. Great. Good work, Alex, you've single handedly thrown your life away! Wonderful job.
Even the shelters on TV don't do this place justice. It's an old convent in the middle of the city. As you walk in through the back door there's a hallway. The off white paint on the wall is chipping of by the pounds. On the right theres a door leading to the dining room. It's got about five different tables. Three of them, a decaying wood, the other two are old mental card tables. When it's time for dinner whatever volunteer we have for the night stands at the end of the hallway by the steps and screams, "dinner!"
As you walk down the hallway more theres another hallway leading to the family room were they have about five dozen old books some library donated because nobody's ever heard of them so nobody checked them out.
Behind that room is a kitchen. To visualize this kitchen take the crappiest kitchen you have ever seen then multiply it by ten and you've got what they call a kitchen here. There are two over sized stoves in this small space, one of which don't work, the other you have to cook things three times longer then it says to actually get something you can eat. During the summer nobody is allowed to open the fridge in here 'cause if we do then all the cold air will escape and what little food there is will be gone. There are some broken can openers, a few boxes of opened stale cereal in drawers. A few mixed matched pieces of silverware but other then that the shelves are bare.
If you go back into the hallway then turn there are even more doors. On the left is the "office." This room is given to the people who work here. Who have lives and real homes to go to at night. It's the most well kept room in this whole funkn' place. They've got a nice leather chair with a somewhat new computer. Pictures all over of family. Us "guest" aren't allowed in there. (Yeah, thats what they call us. They think "guest" would improve our pride. I guess it's better then "stupid homeless freaks" though.)
After you get out of that room, on the right are the showers. Just a big room with a whole bunch of dollar store curtains and rusted shower heads. Not to exciting.
After that you get to the clothing room. It's a room with lots of tables, just like the ones in the dining room, but these are filled with mounds of old clothes that other people didn't want. That they threw away because they were tired of them. Kind of like me. When mom and Chad got tired of me sticking around when I was nineteen they threw me out. Just like these clothes. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. Thats a whole different story.
Beyond that is the door. Not to exciting so I'll go on.
Back up a little bit till you find the steps. Found them? Good. Now go up. At the top of the stairs you see a hallway. (The volunteers, aren't allowed to go up here. It's kept for us homeless freaks for some "privacy", yeah they really respect privacy when they have doors that don't even close.) The rooms are dirty with stained sheets covering hard stiff mattresses on a bed frame. There are about three "beds" in a room. If I'm lucky there will be only two other people here tonight. If not there will be two other families in this room, usually a mother with about three screaming kids who cry all night.
There are about five of these rooms. Then at the end of the hall are the toilets. Crappy toilets in stalls that don't close all the way aren't exciting either.
Normally my nine year old friend, Bea sleeps on the bed next to me unless there are a lot of people, then she sleeps on the floor. The unwritten rule, oldest get first choice of beds.
Bea is cool, I guess, for a nine year old. After her mom died and her stepfather kicked her out when she was eight. She came here right after I did. We just keep each other company laughing at the stupid volunteers as they come in. She's kind of like my little sister although she looks nothing like me. She has light red long hair and tons of freckles on her pale skin. She's really small. I like to watch over her. I've never had a sister and it's kind of nice to have someone to watch over.
Who am I to complain though? I had my chance to get out. To throw out my future here and move on somewhere else. When I was eighteen, my girlfriend, Paige offered me a home. But no, yet again, my pride got the best of me! No, I was to good accept Paige's offer. Being Paige's lap dog at some fancy apartment doesn't look so bad from where I'm sitting now.
Well, I got to go, Mrs. Juletsy, the lady in the office says that some volunteers are coming. She said that we should be polite and all. That's what she says every night when volunteers from schools and churches come to cook. "Be polite", whatever! Most of them don't even want to talk to scum like us.
Okay, I want to talk for one more second. I just love seeing all these pretty pampered people come in to our hell hole. Looking all disgusted. It's pretty funny actually to watch their faces. It goes from all smiles to just a look of plain disgust. Here they come now. They walk in here in a little line so they can get into the narrow hallway. One after another while I sit at the top of the steps staring at them with Bea at my side.
First, comes an old well dressed man about in his sixties. Then, comes about eight other people, they mostly look about my age. They look so out of place with their American Eagle genes and Hollister shirts. Me and Bea laugh together as they come in. The first student looks so lost. He has some baggy designer genes with a shirt that says American Eagle on it. His big shaggy blond hair almost covers his eyes at he looks around at my world. After him comes this short goody two shoes looking girl. She has a gap skirt and a green sweater covering a white tee shirt. Next comes a few more rich kids with expensive looking clothes and hair cuts that makes them look like they popped right out of PEOPLE magazine. They all look mostly the same. Just look at the PEOPLE people and you'll know what they look like.
After it seems all of them are here, right as Bea and I start to head upstairs, one more girl walks through the door with a big box of food covering her face. She is dressed like all of the rest of them as she carries her Duney and Burke handbag. Behind the box she looks like she has long blond hair. It's pretty. I motion for Bea to follow me as I walk down the steps to help her. Normally I would just sit there at the top of the steps and make fun but she looked like she needed help and I felt sorry for her. I walk down and stand if front of her and start to take the box of food from her as I say, "Here, let me help."
As I grab the box she starts to say "thank you." Then she gets a clear look at me. "Alex?" she asks. Oh My God. It's Paige. I grab Bea's hand and run upstairs. Once up there I get into the room I am staying in and slam the door. Great Alex, way to screw another thing up.