A new school, she thought. As if a new family wasn’t enough?

 Tamar sat on her bed, face buried in her pillow, wishing she could cry. The tears were there, lodged in her throat, building up somewhere behind her eyes, but she just couldn’t get them to come. They were fighting to be released, and the pressure was causing her head to pound. But Tamar was spent. She just could not cry.

Her long brown hair fell in waves along her pillow as she tried valiantly to pull herself together.

A new school, she thought. As if a new family wasn’t enough?

As if taking my siblings away from me wasn’t enough?

As if starting a new school as the kid from the dysfunctional home is even possible. Not in eleventh grade, it’s not. And it’s not even the beginning of eleventh grade. It’s NOVEMBER.

But she knew there was no one to hear her. The powers that be had shackled her to their wrists and dragged her behind them, twisting through narrow alleys, banging her against the walls without caring that she was getting bruised.

She had better pull herself together, because the rest of the family was due to arrive home any minute and a new wave of introductions would begin. Tamar rolled over and surveyed her new room. The walls were cream with the faintest hint of pink. Her linen, too, was a sophisticated pattern of pale pink and cream, and she fingered the trim on the pillowcase absentmindedly. It was actually a really nice room if you didn’t count that she was here because she had nowhere else to go. Soon she would put up her own decor and mark it as her own. If the Weisses let, of course.