Lahat ng Kabanata ng No Room for Me in This Family: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 8

The next morning, the click of the front door opening startled me awake.Mom stepped outside with a bag of trash and nearly jumped when she saw me curled up beside the door. "You scared me half to death! Why are you sleeping out here? Why didn't you come inside?"Seriously, Elowen? We just made you walk a little farther yesterday. Is all this really necessary?""I didn't know the code." I rubbed my eyes, still groggy. "I tried a few different ones, and then the lock disabled itself." Mom looked at me as if I'd said something ridiculous. "Have you studied so much that you've lost all common sense? The code is Hugh's birthday." "You never told me that.""Didn't we?" She barely paused to think about it. "Well, you could've guessed." She said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe to everyone else in the family, it was. Hugh was their little treasure, after all. Mom headed downstairs to take out the trash. I turned back to the keypad and entered Hugh's

Early the next morning, I woke up to an awful clatter outside my bedroom—pots, pans, and something metal being struck hard enough to make me wince."Up! Up! Time to get out of bed!"I squinted at the clock. "Mom, it's only 6:00 am.""You didn't come home for Harvest Break just to lie around like you're on vacation, did you?" Mom marched over to my bed with a stainless-steel mixing bowl in one hand and banged on it loudly with a spoon. The noise went straight through my skull. Still half asleep, I forced myself upright. "Breakfast is your responsibility today," she announced. "Your father and I work all week, and taking care of Hugh is exhausting. Since you're home, you can start helping out and take some of the load off us." With that, she turned and left without waiting for an answer.I sat there for a moment, trying to wake up enough to think. Then, I picked up my phone, ordered breakfast for everyone, and went back to bed. By the time I woke up again, it was around ten

Dawn was barely breaking when I arrived at the station with my suitcase. I stowed my luggage on the rack and settled into my seat. Only then, with home already behind me, did I finally feel calm. I checked the time. It was almost 6:00 am.I wondered if Mom would still come knocking on my door, expecting me to get up and make breakfast. "Up. Time to get up."Back home, Mom pounded on my bedroom door. "Do I really have to come wake you every morning? You should know by now to get up and make breakfast." She opened the door and stopped. The room was empty. Sure enough, a few minutes after 6:00 am, my phone rang with a call from Mom."Hello?""Where did you run off to this early in the morning?" "I'm going back to school."For once, saying it made me feel lighter. Mom's voice sharpened. "All I did was ask you to make breakfast. Did you really have to pull this whole running-away-from-home stunt?" She spoke as though she were scolding a child throwing a tantrum. "Yes,"

Abroad, I rented an apartment with a classmate and decorated my room exactly the way I wanted. It wasn't very big, but for the first time in a long while, I had a space that truly felt like mine.I wandered unfamiliar streets with new friends, surrounded by people from different countries and different backgrounds. They were all pursuing dreams of their own.The food was different from what I'd grown up eating, but at least now I could choose what I wanted instead of being handed someone else's leftovers.After an adjustment period, both my studies and my life settled into a comfortable rhythm. Here, I wasn't someone's daughter or someone's older sister.I was simply Elowen.After graduating with my bachelor's degree, I was accepted into a graduate program at the same university. The years passed quickly, and after earning my graduate degree, I joined a company working at the forefront of its industry.My colleagues were kind, and with them, I found some of the warmth I'd once lo