*knock*knock* “Sir? Mr. Raposo aren't you supposed to be in class?” Helga the maid was already there, which meant it was after 1. She was standing in the doorway with a dust rag in her hand.

          “Crap!” he yelled, but he couldn’t even stand.

          “Sir if you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t look so good, I don’t think it would be alright if you got up. Do you have a bottle of Advil somewhere?” she insisted upon helping him.

          “In the medicine cabinet. Thanks.” How much did I drink last night? Obviously more than I thought I did. Hilary must be pretty pissed with me, I probably acted like an ass. I’ll call her and make it better tonight. Helga came back in with a glass of water and two Advil, and he dozed off.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! The alarm clock was raging, and it had been going off for over 20 minutes.

“Mmmm, noooo,” Hilary rolled off the bed with her sheets wrapped around her and she hit the floor, “Ouch!” By the time she stood up, Hilary realized she had 15 minutes to get ready, or she’d miss her bus. As she hustled around and got her stuff together, her dad was snoring on the couch with grease stains on his shirt from weeks ago. “Ugh, pig,” she looked at him disgusted, and then ran out the door.

“You’re late Ms. Dock, again. If you want to keep your job I suggest you get here on time.” Hilary’s boss, Frank Hew, was standing behind the counter waiting to give her the speech he gives all the employees when they walk in. He harasses then with his harangue every morning, late or not.

“I know Mr. Hew, it won’t happen again,” she insisted.

“It better not, now go scrub down the sink before anyone gets here, then you can scrape the ice out of the freezer,” he sneered. Frank just loved putting people to work.

“This job sucks, I’ll give you something to scrub, scrub this….” She was mumbling under her breathe loud enough for him to hear.

“Excuse me? What did you just say?” he turned around.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” she laughed to herself.

After 8 hours of rude customers, three wrong orders, and bad tips, Hilary finally sat down on the bus, the first time sitting in hours. She had a while to do as she pleased, so when she got home she took a hot shower and made a small dinner of frozen macaroni. Her dad wasn’t even home when she was there, which Hilary was happy about. Just as she put on her jacket and gloves, the phone rang.

          “This is Hilary.”

          “Hey Hil,” a tired voice said on the other end.

          “Who is this?”

          “It’s me, it’s Greg.”

          “Oh, just you. What do you want?”

“Who were you expecting, the Easter bunny? And that’s not a nice way to greet me; I wanted to talk to you. Look, I really messed up last night and I didn’t even realize how many drinks I had. It was me and Jesse and we were just hanging out and we started talking about old times and I decided to call you,” he said apologetically.

“So sweet of you to call me when you’re thinking straight, but I was just leaving for work again. Did you say Jesse? McCartney?”

“Yeah that Jesse. Work again?” he was confused.

“Yes I said work again. Two jobs is the minimum to keep us living here.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Don’t be sorry Raposo, there’s nothing to be sorry for, except for me in 15 minutes if I’m late for work. I’ll call you later.” –Click-

She ran all the way in the cold October weather to the bus stop, but the bus was gone. Her dad had the car too. I am royally screwed; my ass was on the line and now its out on the curb. I am so fired. Oh well, that job sucked too. Nice attitude right?

Well that went well, I guess? Greg was lying in bed watching “The Price Is Right” reruns. He hadn’t talked to his family in a while, 2 weeks in fact, which was a long time for him. He dialed the number and it rang twice until someone picked it up.

“Helwow?” it was his little sister Danielle.

“Hey there Dani!” he said enthusiastically.

“GWEGGY!!!!!!” she screamed, but someone took the phone from her.

“Greg?” it was Amanda.

“Hey Manda, how’s it goin?”

“Pretty good, I was just leaving though, wanna talk to mom?”

“Sure in a sec, where were you going?” he put on his protective brother act.

“Um, uh,” she stuttered, “with my new boyfriend…” she knew what he would say….

“What’s his name, how old is he, has he been in trouble before, where does he live, what do his parents do, and how long have you been with him????” he was out of breath.

“Chill Greg! His name’s Kyle, we’ve been together for a month.”

“Oh I see what you’ve done…waited for Big Bad Greg to leave so you could date all these guys, well when I get home I’m going to have to talk to this kid….”

“ALL these boys? Oh come on! Look I have to go; he’s waiting at the coffee shop! Later bro! Love ya, here’s mom!” she said hurriedly. Coffee? He thought to himself, since when does my sister drink coffee, ick! I don’t even drink that crap!

“Hey sweetie, how are you?” his mom’s sweet voice filled his ears. He loved his mom so much.

“Sick, mom, so sick.”

“Aww hunnie I’m sorry, I wish I could be there for you.”

“Yeah, me too, I’ve been puking all day and-”

“Alright, I don’t need details!” they both laughed. “Hey have you talked to Hilary lately? I saw her the other day in the supermarket and she, well, she didn’t look too good,” Mrs. Raposo asked worried.

“Yeah, I just talked to her, actually we just hung up, and it was the first time we talked since I left. She sounded on edge and snippy, plus she’s working two jobs, and… well never mind.”

“Gregory you tell me this instant what’s going on, what have you been keeping from me?” she demanded.

“Mom I can’t explain now, but please, keep an eye on her ok? Her and her dad, please just do that?”

“Greg, just tell me, you know I’ll keep secret whatever it is, its ok. I know her and her dad don’t have much money and he works just as hard as she does.”

“That’s the thing mom, NO he doesn’t. Look I don’t want to get into this now; I’ll talk to you later. Tell dad I said hi, I love you all.”

“Love you too,” she said. –Click-

Greg got really hungry all of a sudden, but didn’t feel like making anything or going out to eat. He opened the drawer on his bed stand and dialed “New York Pizza”. No, pizza isn’t the tastiest thing to eat at 7 in the morning with a sucky hangover, but that wasn’t going to stop him from enjoying a Friday-night pizza. It was about 7:40 when it finally came. He sat down on the couch with a coke and watched “Frailty”, falling asleep on the couch.

Hilary was sitting at home on the recliner chair flipping through the channels, when her dad stumbled in, leaving his keys in the door.

“What are you doing home? Filthy slut GO TO WORK!” he was screaming. Good thing there were no neighbors to hear him.

“Dad, I, uh I didn’t have work tonight,” Hilary lied.

“Are you givin me ahhtitue? I’VE WARNED YOU! Imm-ta boss, you don’ disresepet me!” he was slurring his words.

“Sorry. I’ll go up to my room now.” She tried to get by him, but he grabbed her arm and had a strong grasp on it too. He slapped her hard across face with the back of his hand, leaving a red hand mark. Her face stung for a few seconds, then became numb. Hilary was too scared to cry, for fear of what he may do if he saw her acting like a wimp. He slammed her frail, tiny body against the wall and kicked her shins, missing once and put a hole in the wall with his big construction boots. Her shins began to bruise immediately, hurting to stand. He punched her in the right eye and then screamed more horrible, degrading things at her.

“Now go on up to your room you piece of dirt, and don’t come out!” he spat on her shirt, then collapsed on the couch and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket.

Hilary went into her room and sat in the dark moaning and crying. She was so ashamed and mortified, but mostly embarrassed of herself. Many times she wondered what she did to deserve something like this. The person she wished she had more than anything then was Greg. I wish he was here. He would make it all better. He would make it ok. All of a sudden she realized, she didn’t need to stay with her dad anymore. Greg was right. She was stupid and blind not to listen to him. She was going to leave her father to rot by himself and leave to find Greg. She would die if she stayed here any longer. Quietly she picked up the phone and dialed the Raposo house.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Raposo? It’s Hilary, can you tell me Greg’s address?” she asked quickly.

“Yes, dear, what’s the rush? is everything ok?” she remember the conversation she had with Greg an hour before.

“Yeah, yeah, I was, uh, just going to send him a care-package, you know, a couple cd’s, pictures,” she couldn’t tell Mrs. Raposo what she was really doing, because truthfully, she was the “care package”, only she needed the care though.

She got the address and thanked Mrs. Raposo. After hanging up, Hilary packed a suitcase with the few clothes she had, makeup, and all her shoes. She was leaving. She grabbed anything else she might need, which wasn’t much. The last thing Hilary packed was her photo album with pictures of her mom that she put together when she was 12. She was going through cabinets years after here mom died, and bought a cheap album and stuffed it with pictures. Every night before going to bed, Hilary looked at the beautiful woman she wished was there today. She also grabbed the box she had with all her money she was saving up. There was a total of $536, but Hilary wouldn’t spend a dime of it on clothes or extra luxuries. She dreamed of using the money to buy a car. There was no where near enough, but she can dream, right?

She was finally going. It was time to get rid of her dad and the bad memories she had of him. She jumped out the window and climbed down the side of the house, carefully maneuvering her feet and trying not to drop her 2 bags, a hard thing to do. The night was bitter cold and when she got to the bottom, she zipped her old leather jacket and tightened the scarf around her head.

She took one good look at the dump that now used to be her house. She didn’t even look in the window for a last glimpse at her dad, didn’t want to either. It was a 4 mile walk to the train station, and when she got there, she paid for the $46 ticket. The old guy at the ticket booth looked at her swollen eye and dry, tear stained face, but didn’t make any remarks about it. Hilary sat on the bench waiting for the 9:15 train to arrive. This was the last time she would be in this town, or so she thought.