Stalked

I'm a crown ward-government property, which means they typically ignore me, but that's all changing now that I'm a pregnant foster child. The government is adamant that I go to an unwed mother's home and give the baby up for adoption, while my foster mother insists I stay and have it, knowing she'll get paid to keep the baby as a foster. My roommate believes we should elope with the boys in our lives. Co-rent a cheap flat.

My boyfriend's mother wishes I would disappear from the face of the earth, which frankly at this point, seems like an excellent thought. Fifteen, pregnant, Anglican, and a foster child-whose childhood was void of parental guidance-aren't great ingredients for a good wife recipe, especially considering her Catholic son is an up-and-coming teacher. She believes he can do much better than me, and welfare trash is far below her standards for any daughter-in-law. I plan to prove her wrong.

Frankly, he isn't the son she thinks he is.

Weird is the best word, to describe the shy quiet boy who peers at me daily from between the chip racks. What normal person enters a store, hides behind a stand, and spends a half-hour spying on somebody he doesn't know? My roommate thinks it's flattering, but then again, she believes combing Clorox through your hair and ironing it with a red hot clothing iron, are ultimate beauty tips. Now she's teaching me how to become a good liar, because according to my future husband, I'll have to constantly lie about my age, because at fifteen I'm going to be a high school teacher's wife.

Destroyed and Stalked Chapter 26 Partial Excerpt

I listen in horror as he describes the shaking, the noise, the bodies diving out the door-the mangled sparking wires. "Is anything left standing? Anything?" I can barely talk. Every muscle in my face is twisting into spasms. Tremors penetrate my body-weaken every fiber. I grip the steering wheel for support.
"It's toppled forward. Bent like a branch in the wind. It's not going to stay up. The front foundation got sucked into a black hole. Destroyed."
"Is anyone left on site?"
"Some ran away yelling it was the end of the world and some more are stunned just sitting outside like swatted flies."
I pull into the lot and gaze at the falling building, as though my eyes were fisheye lens. A large gaping hole is where the front foundation used to be. It reminds me of the house we rented in Harbour Breton. The one on stilts. My eyes scan the site. The missing concrete-the drop-off-the...