My Future Doesn't Have Room for You novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Two Cars, No Room
Hallie is left at a bus stop in a blizzard while her cousins get matching cars, secretly accepts Penn, and finds out her benefit is four times what she was told.
On the last Thursday of December, my aunt left me at a bus stop in a blizzard.
She stood beside her SUV with two sets of car keys in her fist.
My cousins, the twins, had gotten new cars for the holidays.
Same make, same price, nearly the same leather inside.
My aunt called that fairness, and she was proud of it.
Both cars were already packed with ski gear and the twins' friends.
I had been standing in the snow for twenty minutes, and it was over the tops of my shoes.
My last final of the semester started at six.
The city was about to pull its buses off the road for the night.
She glanced at the cars, then tucked my bus pass into my glove and zipped my coat up to my chin.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart, there's just no room. The 5:10 will still run, so sit near the driver and text me when you're there."
My cousin Kayla pressed her face to the window and laughed.
"Look, Brett, a snowman somebody forgot."
My fingers were stiff, but I still stepped back so their tires wouldn't spray me.
For ten years I had believed one thing.
If I was quiet enough and useful enough, one day they would treat me like family.
My aunt Janet always said the money my mother left me was mine, so I never asked for gifts, never asked for a seat, and never complained.
That day there were two cars, with room for everyone.
There was just no room for me.
I smiled and told them to have fun.
When their taillights were gone in the white, I took out my phone.
I had applied in secret from the school library, and the answer from the University of Pennsylvania had sat unopened for a week.
The first line said: Full scholarship, tuition, housing and meals.
I pressed Accept before I could talk myself out of it.
Janet thought she had left me out of one ski trip.
She had no idea I had just left her family out of my whole future.
I made my exam with four minutes to spare, then walked home through the wind.
The brass plate beside our front door still said BRAEBURN.
Uncle Gary polished it every spring, and Janet told him every spring not to bother.
My coat and jeans were soaked through when I got inside.
My phone buzzed twice before I had the door shut.
The first text was from Janet.
"Remember to be grateful. We drive in this weather and wait in lines and coordinate everything, while you sit at home and study in comfort."
The second came right behind it.
"We ordered a four-person pizza. None for you. Don't use your survivor's benefits on takeout either. That card is for family emergencies."
The card held three hundred and eighty dollars a month.
Janet had told me that was every cent of what the government paid me for losing my mother.
I typed back: "OK."
The fridge held Kayla's yogurt and Brett's energy drinks, each labeled with a name.
The pantry had half a bag of expired oatmeal.
I got down two bites and went to sleep hungry.
Something wet and freezing hit me in the face, and I woke up gasping.
Kayla stood over my bed in her socks.
She threw a second pair of ski pants onto my chest, caked in slush.
"The roads closed, so we came home early. Wash these by hand. The machine ruins the fabric."
"Can it wait until morning?"
"You slept all day. You're not tired."
Brett came down and kicked his snow boots across the floor to me.
"Do mine too. Take the laces out and wash them separately."
Janet stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at the wet pile in my arms.
"They sat in traffic for hours while you stayed warm at home," she said. "You didn't pay for the trip, so you can pay with some work. That's only fair."
So that was how it worked.
For cars, food and vacations, I had my own benefits and could not touch the family's money.
For boots, I was suddenly the third child.
I scrubbed everything at the utility sink, one piece at a time.
When I finished the last boot, I stood up and my vision went black.
I held the wall until it cleared, then climbed to the kitchen for water.
Uncle Gary was coming in the back door with a bag of burgers and milkshakes.
When he saw me, he put the bag behind his back.
"The coupon was for four people," he said. "So I didn't get you anything."
Then he dug into the bag and held out a small box.
"Free fried peanuts, though. Nobody likes them. You can have these."
I didn't take it.
"I'm severely allergic to peanuts, Uncle Gary."
He stood there with his mouth open.
Upstairs, Kayla yelled that there were pickles on her burger.
"Coming!" he called.
He took the peanuts and hurried away.
I drank two glasses of water and went back down to my room.
It was a storage room with a narrow bed and an old wardrobe, and it was the only place in the house that was even half mine.
Now the twins' skis lay across the bed frame.
Their helmets were piled on my blanket.
Kayla's soaking ski jacket had been thrown on my pillow.
I sat on the floor with my back against the wardrobe and opened my phone again.
A new email had come in from the Penn financial aid office.
"To finish your aid file, please confirm the account that receives your Social Security survivor's benefit of $1,640 per month."
I read it three times.
Then I opened the app for my card and looked at the last deposit.
It was three hundred and eighty dollars.
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