Two years have passed. I am now 13 and I have decided to no longer live in that orphanage. A few days before I packed up what little I had in to the duffle bag I had when I first arrived at the orphanage with. The last thing I packed was my scrapbook. It was filed with the letters Nick sent me before the letters had stopped. Once I had packed I waited until nightfall to leave. An hour after lights out I snuck out of my window. I began to walk. I didn't know where I was going to go but as long as it was away from the orphanage of hell.
A few nights before I left I was beaten for forgetting to do a chore. I told myself after that that I would not let him do that again. So I left. I figured I would head toward New York City. It was a good 50 miles to NYC so I just kept walking. I had no money so I couldn't even take a bus.
As morning approached, I wasn't sure on how far I had walked but I was getting kinda tired. Then I spotted a lady in her 40's getting in to her car. I went up to her.
"Excuse me ma'am." I said politely. She looked up at me.
"Yes? Can I help you?" She asked.
"Well I was wondering if maybe you could gave me a small lift?" I asked politely.
"Where are you going?" she asked me.
"I need to get to the city." I said to her. She nodded.
"Well I'm not going all the way into the city but I'm going about 15 miles out from it. I can take you that far." She said. I smiled.
"That would be great! Thank you ma'am." I said.
"Please call me Terry. What's your name?" She asked.
"I'm Rachel." I said as I got into the car. On the ride in there was some small talk. I told her that I was going into the city to see my father and stay with him. She told me she had two kids of her own and they were both in high school. The ride came to an end 45 min later. She told me good luck on the rest of my trip and she even gave me some money to get there safely. I told her she didn't have to but she insisted. I was grateful to have to money. She gave me $20. That got me a bus ride into NYC and some food money.
Once in NYC I had no idea what I was going to do. All I had was a small duffle bag with clothes in it $10 in my pocket and a scrapbook from Nick. I thought of maybe trying to find Nick but I realized that he could be anywhere in the world. So I decided to try to find a place to sleep. For a 13 year old the city is scary and that was the part I didn't think about because it gets even scarier at night. I got lucky on my first night finding an abandoned building to sleep in. well at least I thought I was lucky. Little did I know that building belonged to some one else.
