“We’re going over this afternoon so I can get a tour, but yes. I want to start as soon as possible. I haven’t been to school in weeks.” It feels like months, but when I count back, I’ve only missed one entire week of school. “I really want some normalcy. Get back to a regular schedule,” I explain. Plus, I’m bored. I don’t feel comfortable enough to really feel at home. But I can’t tell her any of that. Or can I?

“Is the family treating you well?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

She looks up from her notes. “Yes.”

“What are my options? No one has ever explained what my options are. I’ve been told I’m a minor so I have to go with my parent. Everybody keeps saying I have to stay until graduation. But do I have any choices?”

“What’s the problem?” She looks around the pristine kitchen. I see how it appears to her. She probably has lots of clients in houses that aren’t this nice. Kids with abusive parents. I know I have it easy compared to others.

“There isn’t a problem, per se. But I’ve had my entire life turned upside down and I really want to go back to Wisconsin.”

“Your family is here,” she states bluntly. “Have you been touched in an inappropriate way?”

“No!”

“Are they not providing for you?”

“They are.”

“So what’s the issue? They’re your family. They’ve given you a lovely home to live in. From what I understand it’s a vast improvement over your past living situation.”

Okay, now that pisses me off. I don’t need stainless steel appliances or down pillows or organic chicken to make me happy. Maybe I’m super messed up or maybe I do have Stockholm syndrome, but I miss the life I had with my dad.

At first, I felt obliged to right Dad’s wrong when it came to Paula. I should get to know my mother. Just not in a move-to-Florida-forever sense. I was in such a haze when everything happened that I went along with what the grown-ups told me. Sheriff Gleason said I had to stay until graduation. Now I’m starting to see more clearly. There’s been something nagging at the back of my mind after what Sarah said yesterday about Paula and Craig thinking I was going to leave. “What happens when I turn eighteen?”

She raises her eyebrow at me. “You’re an adult.”

“So that means I can decide what happens to me.”