“Well I’m happy you decided to come back and see me, but now I should know to expect you’ll never make an appointment,” she said once she finally called my name off the sign-in sheet I had bullied myself onto. As soon as I saw her, I regretted having an immature outburst in her office less than a month before. But then again, she probably didn’t even remember it that much. I was just another one of the hundreds of brown faces smudged together week after week, day after day, time slot after time slot. Rasul had opened me up somewhat, cracked my hard shell enough that I was willing to actually share a little of what was on my mind. I dumped it all on Sue. I needed more time to figure out if I was ready to be grown, have this baby, and raise it. I needed to figure out what job I might want to do and if I would have to go to school after high school to do it. And I had to get the stress of Ma off my back if I was going to think about any of that clearly. I walked out of New Horizons with the name of almost every shelter, organization, and group home in Chicago for girls like me.