Rain spattered on the windows, blurring Danielle’s view of the scenery as it rushed by. The train rumbled on methodically, lulling her to sleep. When she woke, sun was filtering through the blinds. Danielle stood up and smoothed down her sleek blonde hair. Yawning, she stretched her arms over her head before realizing all the guys in the compartment were staring at her. She looked down and saw that her white shirt had ridden up to her belly button. Danielle slipped past the men and, grumbling, into the hallway.
She yawned again and moved on down along the hallway. Reaching the dining car Danielle ordered a cup of coffee, pancakes, and a bowl of cereal. Danielle leaned back against the chair and sighed. Less then a day ago Danielle was on her way to her first day of community collage, but now? Getting as far away from her mother, and her mothers creepy husband, Carl. Danielle’s mother, Carrie had some serious abandonment issues. First, when Carrie was seven her father left Carrie and her mother for the bosses daughter. Then when Carrie was eighteen, she got pregnant. Danielle’s dad, James, married her but after three years, couldn’t handle the marriage. He left and never came back.
Then there was Dean, Garry, Paul, Frank, and now Carl. Each had been creepy and terrible in some way. Dean had a sever case of schizophrenia. When he wasn’t Dean, he was Tommy, a doctor. Carrie filed for divorce when Danielle was seven. The first time Danielle ever felt uncomfortable was with Garry. He was always smiling at her and having her sit on his lap. He had a wild temper and would hit Carrie. He would consume himself in a drunken stupor and not remember a thing in the morning. He left Carrie for his secretary six months after the marriage. Danielle was nine, and growing increasingly tired of her mother’s relationships. Paul was verbally abusive towards Carrie, and would tell her she was not good enough for him. Anytime they would watch a movie as a family Paul would sit right next to Danielle, who was twelve at the time, and grope at her thigh. Frank wasn’t all that weird, but he was so fake. Danielle, who by now was fourteen, couldn’t deal with someone so ken-doll, and it hadn’t surprised her at all when she figured out he was gay. He moved out and the marriage was annulled.
Carrie dated around for the next year or so and by the time Danielle was seventeen, she was married again, to Carl. He didn’t seem creepy to begin with, but as senior year progressed Danielle couldn’t take it. She had been in her room, IM’ing her friend Sarah, when she heard a whirr from behind her. She sat up and spun around. A red light was glowing from inside her wall and after digging into it with her nails, she figured out it was a video camera. She had immediately found the surveillance footage, showed her mother (who denied that Carl did it) and then packing her bags, left the house. For good, she couldn’t deal with it anymore.

Now she was sitting on a train headed as afar away from Nantucket as possible. Danielle ate her breakfast in silence, thinking about where she was going to go. She had around ten thousand dollars in savings, but that wouldn’t go very far. She needed a job, other then the one she had deserted in Nantucket, and fast. She figured she could go to New York without blowing her savings completely.
Just then her cell phone rang, the caller ID came up as MOM. She picked it up and before she could make a rash decision, whipped it out of the opened train window. Danielle knew Sarah’s number, and that was the only one she needed.
After finishing breakfast, Danielle went back to her train compartment and grabbed her bags. When the train stopped at Grand Central Station Danielle sped off the train and out into the muggy New York day.