Page 7 of Empower

This is when everything in my world was tilted on its axis.

There was a letter there, it was from a summer camp for Soccer Players. I was extremely proud because people from all over the United States applied to the program in hopes of getting in. Only forty-seven people got accepted each year.

I was so excited to go tell Byron; he was the one to encourage me to go after my dreams. Therefore, I put my things down and started to race out of the house.

That was before I heard my stepfather call out from his recliner, “You better get all of your wild oats sewn between now and nine in the morning.”

Normally I wouldn’t reply to him.

Not when I saw the liquor bottle dangling from his fingers.

However, something in the words he used had me questioning him, “Why do you say that?”

“Because you’ll be legal then. Been biding my time. You look so much like your mother that you’ll make the perfect replacement. Wear something white. We leave at eight forty-five in the morning to head to the courthouse.”

And then I heard him let out a snore.

Okay, don’t freak out.

Don’t worry about what he said.

He was drinking.

Men say a lot of things when they’ve been drinking.

Right?

Deciding to go with what my head was telling me and not my gut that screamed at me to run up to my room, pack my stuff, and go to a homeless shelter.

I shook my head and then jogged down the street to Byron’s house with the letter clutched in my hand.

Then I let myself in like always. His parents had an open-door policy for me and Karly, because they adored our mother.

And who wouldn’t?

She was salt of the grain sweet, kind, passionate, and didn’t take anything from anyone.

Before I headed upstairs, I waved to his parents in their living room.

I don’t remember asking myself why his door was closed when he had a thing against closed doors or hearing the moaning coming from his room.

When I opened his door, the smile immediately fell off my face. I saw Karly on top of him, naked as the day she was born.

Once Byron opened his eyes and saw me standing there, he didn’t look away; he didn’t make any move, except putting his hands on her skanky hips and moving her in motion.

His eyes stayed locked with mine when he said to Karly, “Yeah, baby. Just like that. Grip my dick with your pussy.”

Karly was watching me with a smirk on her lips, and guess what she said to me?

“I finally beat you at something.”

She was so smug that she was able to finally beat me at the one thing I treasured above all else in this world and that was my friendship/crush with Byron.

I should have known. Freaking should have known.

My half-sister Karly was the meanest person on the planet. When I was seven, she didn’t like that my hair looked prettier than hers, so she tied me down in a chair by tricking me into playing a game.

She then proceeded to shave all my hair off, so what did my stepfather do? He just laughed.