It was dark, snowy nights like this one that a 16-year-old who went by the name of Logan Beach wish that someone had warned him before he was born, about how crappy his life would have gotten by his 16th year.

He thought it would have been a pretty nice heads-up.

It would have been nice to know some of the things that would happen though out his life so he could prepare or change things so that wouldn’t happen.

Some of the things he wished he knew were the answers to some of the hard tests he failed,

the time he broke his elbow riding his’s buddy’s skateboard when he was 11.

Or most importantly, he wished that he knew the fact that on a thanksgiving night when he was 16 years old, he would be hunched over his dresser at 2:30 in the morning packing all his and his sibling's clothes and shoes into a large black duffle bag he bought a few years ago from a garage sale for 4 dollars.

He and his siblings had to move out of their parent’s old rundown trailer home on the bad side of town, that night.

He knew that if they stayed for even one more night that… well… he didn’t want to say exactly what, but it was bad things.

Very bad things.

Logan shuttered thinking about hiding in dark closets or under the porch, holding his breath- praying that the bad people wouldn’t find him…

He remembered the times he sat in front of his bedroom door holding a kitchen knife while his siblings slept- just waiting for his drunk dad to come in yelling and screaming.

Logan let out a soft sigh then held his breath very tightly and stood very still- listening for any noises coming from the other side of the bedroom door that he constantly kept locked.

For a moment he thought he could hear footsteps coming- the loud drunken kind-, But the only sound he could hear was the soft breathing of his siblings, who were cuddled up in their bunk bed or the twin-sized mattress that they pushed under the bed during the day for more living space.

The bed was right behind him- so close that logan could touch the wood of the bedframe from where he was standing.

Logan had four younger siblings. One brother, and three sisters.

His little brother leviathan was fast asleep up on the top bunk that the both of them shared, cuddling logan’s pillow like a teddy bear. Logan had covered his skinny body with a thin blanket they shared.

Two of his younger sisters -Lexington and Lindsey- were cuddled up together on the bottom bunk, Lindsey was cuddling her face into Lexington's arm, and Lexington was laying on her back with her hand over her stomach.

and his youngest sister Lilyann was fast asleep on the mattress with her raggy doll that he had made from an old baby blanket, a few dish rags, and a pink ribbon. It had a face drawn on it with a sharpie.

That was her Christmas present from a year ago.

With the thought of his younger siblings, logan looked over his shoulder- just to look at them. Just to make sure that they were still there fast asleep in their beds. Just to make sure he wasn’t all alone.

He felt like some secret silent monster might try to steal them away from him if he didn’t keep on checking.

They were his only sources of happiness. Without them, logan was sure that he would have ended everything long, long ago.

He smiled at his peaceful sleeping siblings and then continued on packing their things into the duffle bag. His only hope was that they would sleep through his ruckus.

Logan looked at the nearly empty drawers. Thinking of all the things that they needed to pack.

Blankets, pillows, food, clothes….

Money.

They needed money.

Logan sat down on the floor, and gently wiggled one of the floorboards in the corner of the room until it came up in his hands with a small creek.

they had found the loose floorboard when Logan was ten years old.

The missing floorboard showed that there was a small hidden compartment that held an old nikes shoe box, only still intact by many rolls of gray ducktape.

The box used to hold a pair of black and neon green sneakers- size 8. Boys. they belonged to logan, then Lexington, then leviathan, and if they hadn't gone to shreds they would have gone to Lilyann.

But now, it held something… a little more valuable.

He and his siblings had been putting all of their savings in that box- ever since logan was 10 years old and began saving up to buy his baby sister Lilyann some new warmer clothes for her first winter.

He knew that they had been dipping into their funds a lot this year -they all needed to buy new book bags and shoes- but he was nearly sure that they still had a lot left.

He dumped the context of the box out and began to count.

They had 206 dollars, 98 cents, about 20 to 30 sheets of coupons, a few earrings and bracelets that they had randomly “found” around their mom’s workplace, the sheet of paper they counted up the money on, and 6 to 7 empty gum wrappers. No doubt left there by leviathan last time he had counted the money- who was quite the mess and loved bubble gum.

“WHAT?!” he whispered “we had money, I know we did! W-what happened to all of it!?”

Logan grabbed the paper, and began to read everything they had bought! he thought of all the things they had bought. Nothing was that expensive…

New shoes, a bigger blanket, new clothes for the girls, new school supplies… oh… he knew what it was…

Those medical bills from two days ago. He knew the bills were expensive but were they that expensive?

He remembered grabbing a hand full of money, But his vision was so clouded in fear, sadness, and anger that he couldn’t remember much more than that.

He remembered paying one of his friends to drive him back to the hospital on his bike, with the

money in his hoodie pocket, and he remembered the next day giving the older couple from three trailers down some money for taking care of Lilyann for the night… but he didn’t think it was that much money.

Then again… they were stitches. 19 of them in total… tiny ones but still.

Logan sat back, rested his head on the bedframe, and hugged his knees, feeling those pesky tears trying to roll down his cheeks.

He hated crying.

How would they survive!? They barely had enough money for one of them to last one month! Let alone 5 of them survive until they could all buy an apartment.

He rested his head against the bed frame sighing. He almost wanted to give up just like that. He almost wanted to say that they had enough time to stay for a few more months so that he could rake together enough money.

But he knew better than that…

He knew that they had to move out that very night!

They didn’t have another day…

“Hey Logan, what's wrong dude?” he heard his 15-year-old sister Lexington ask in a whisper.

He opened his eyes to see the girl he called Lexie holding tightly to her side as she struggled to sit down on the floor with her older brother.

The girl was wearing a black tank top and black pajama shorts. Logan had sent her to bed in a hoddie- but it had ended up on their younger sister, who was cuddling the blankets the two girls

shared bed.

He could only assume that lexie had given it to her.

“Oh, lexie! You must be in pain! Let me go get your painkillers.” logan answered, trying to jump to a stand, but lexie grabbed him by his shoulders and shoved him back down.

“Not until you answer my question. If you don't answer me, I wouldn’t take them!” she answered, narrowing her brown eyes.

“Y-you have to take them lexie…”

“If you try I’ll spit them out in the snow,” she answered, standing up to grab the bottle of pills the doctors gave to her that was sitting on the top of a dresser. “I'll throw all of them out in the snow! I wouldn’t take them unless you tell me what's going on!!”

Lexington beach was the most closed-minded person on planet earth. She did what she did when she wanted and only when she wanted. No one could stop her or get her to do something when she had her mind set on the other thing.

Logan couldn’t count all the times that he had to drag lexie away from groups of kids in the trailer park or at school just so that she wouldn’t get in trouble for fighting. She would always be kicking, screaming, and fighting.

“No no wait!!” logan said quickly “I… we… um…”

“Come on logan, just tell me- ok?” she whispered “I can handle it! I can handle anything!”

She pointed to the wound on her stomach as if saying, ‘i got this scar to prove it.’

Logan sighed and looked up at his sister.

“We barely have 200 dollars,” Logan whispered, two tears rolling down his cheeks. “How are we going to survive lexie? We have to feed each other, as well as two 14-year-olds, and a 6-year-old!! W-we can't leave them here…what are we going to do!!”

Lexie was silent for a few moments as she rubbed her side.

“Well… if you must know…. Amara keeps all her money from her tips in the bottom drawer of her bedside table.”

Logan looked at his little sister in shock.

“W-what are you suggesting?!”

“Well I’m ‘suggesting’ that she may not deserve all that money.” lexie shrugged, a large smirk covering her face. “Want me to get you some?”

“Nah, you stay back and pack the rest of the stuff. I’ll get the money,” Logan answered, raising his hand to give her a fist bump.

She gladly returned the bump.

“Get going.” lexie whispered. She whined as she stood up. She clutched her side, and let out a breath of pain. She leaned against the desk and sighed- logan could see the tears

filling her eyes.

“Are you ok?!” logan whispered, gently grabbing her arms.

“Yeah… I’m good…” she whispered, cracking a smile, even though her face showed that she was in pain. “Nothing that a few painkillers and some stitches can’t fix.”

She patted her stomach as if to show that she was fine- even though she winced in pain.

Logan nodded.

“Just take it easy, ok?”

“Of course, I will.”

Logan kissed his younger sister’s forehead before he climbed up onto the dresser they had put in front of the large broken window and slid it open just enough for him to climb out onto the

makeshift platform made of old scrap wood and tires that he and his siblings had made back when he was 8.

He looked back into the room at lexie and saw her folding up a few of his hoodies, before putting them in the duffle bag.

Logan jumped off the platform into the 2-foot-deep snow.

He could see his breath in the light of the streetlights. all the trailer houses were dark and quiet. The windows were dark and the doors were all locked up.

Logan lived in the trailer park, called ‘the happy hour trailer park’. it was old and run now, with trash and broken down cars littering the yards, and the porches were old and had rotten or loose boards. It was the skum of the world had to live at.

Logan’s neighbors were washed-up movie stars, drug addicts, gang members, and ex-inmates. People who everyone else thought were just a waste of oxygen- a waste of food and life. But logan never thought of them like that.

He thought of them as the coolest people in the world. He loved his neighbors!

He could remember the countless summer afternoons that he, his siblings, and the other neighborhood kids would sit on the adult porches with sugary lemonade in mix-match cups and vanilla cookies on discount Halloween paper plates, listening to the stories the adults would share.

The stories were always about the adults in the prime of their lives- when they were young beautiful movie stars or young businessmen.

He just loved laying on his stomach, kicking his legs, and listening to these stories- imagining his neighbors as young beautiful people.

He would stay at his neighbor's houses waiting for his parents to drive back home from work when he was little.

He would run to his mom and dad, hugging them tightly as he asked them how their day was- not that they normally answered him. Most of the time they would just shove him off and tell him to grab their cigarettes or grab their wine.

He was very used to that sort of thing, his parents didn’t like him or his siblings, but the other adults used to think that logan and his siblings were the sweetest kids in the world.

The adults in the trailer park were cool, but the kids were even cooler.

Logan loved going out when he was little to play with neighboring kids. They lived in the same neighborhood- so they were all friends.

They would walk to school together and if they were lucky someone would let them ride the handlebars of their bikes or sit on the back.

The older kids treated everyone like little brothers and sisters. You didn’t want to mess with any of them- not even the littler ones- because the older group would corner you in a back alley and beat you into a pulp.

Logan and his friends would find old bikes, scooters, and skateboards in the trash, and bring them back to the trailer park to play with.

He joined a gang of 10 to 12 kids when he was 11 and when Levi was 9. The gang went by the

name of ‘happy hour trailer trash’.

They would just run around the town wearing matching red bandanas while acting all off.

While h and Levi did that, his sisters would play out in the other girl’s front yards and play with their dollar tree barbies and stuffed animals.

Logan had everything he needed from that trailer park.

They would get food from the neighbors, They got hand-me-downs from the older kids, and logan even got his first job when he was 10 years old from that trailer park. A 40-year-old man would pay him 5 dollars every week for picking up his groceries from the local store.

Logan loved everyone there, but The older couple who lived a few trailers down had become his stand-in grandparents. They would help their parents by watching the kids during the summer when they were little, and they would still take care of lily if logan asked for it

His world was this trailer park. And soon enough, he would have to leave it…

Logan slowly crept through the snow, around to the other side of their small trailer home.

The trailer home was painted a blueish color- its pant was pealing down and it had the message ‘PEOPLE LIVE HERE!!’ pained with black spray paint.

logan knew that his parent's bedroom was only down the hall a bit from his and that it would be warmer and quicker if he had gone through the house, but then the small paper balls stuck in the door frames would fall onto the floor. And god…

He couldn't even muster himself to think about what would happen…

Logan slid through the window into his parent’s big room.

The room was dark, full of nettles, and smelt like cigarettes. Logan’s dad was snoring loudly as he sat down on his knees in front of the bedside table on his mom’s side of the bed. Her hair brushed against his nose as he opened the bottom drawer.

Inside the small drawer were stacks of cash!!

At least 500 to 600 dollars!!

Logan cracked a bright smile and looked around the room to find a bag to put all of the money in.

He grabbed a plastic Walmart bag and dumped out the cigarette trash that his parents were addicted to.

He put all the money in the bag, before crawling to the other side of the bed where his father was snoring like a log sawyer. Logan knew that his father kept all his money in an old shoe box, the same way they did.

His shoe box used to be for a pair of long, knee-high black boots for women.

Logan opened the box and smiled. Inside his dad’s box was Another 400 dollars!

Logan put that money in the bag too- then shoved the bag in his hoodie pocket.

When he climbed back into his bedroom from the window lexie let out a long sigh of relief.

“Oh thank you, god! Thank you!!” she whispered, holding her heart “you took such a long time

logan! I got scared!!”

Logan sighed and hugged lexie tightly.

“Listen to me lexie. They can't hurt me.” he whispered, “I wouldn’t let me.”

“...ok…”

“Good, now wake up Levi and Linny for me.”

“Lily too?’ lexie asked.

Logan looked down at his six-year-old sister Lily, who was still cuddled up on her floor mattress.

“Nah, let her dream just a little more. When she wakes up her whole little world will be flipped on its axis,” Logan answered, putting all the money in their shoe box before putting it inside the bottom of the duffle bag.

He knew the money wouldn’t last forever. He would probably have to drop out of high school to get a job or two- an eleventh-grade education would be enough- right?

“Logan? What do you need us to do?” logan’s little brother leviathan, who was called Levi by everyone who knew him asked.

Logan turned around to see his 14-year-old siblings standing on the cold floor awkwardly.

Levi was wearing one of logan’s old tee shirts and shorts, he was rubbing his arms slowly- trying to conduct some warmth.

Lindsey, who was called Linny by everyone was wearing a pair of bright pink leggings with flowers and skulls on them, with a baggy gray hoodie over her white tank top.

The twins looked almost identical- just different genders.

Linny’s hair was long and reached her waist. She had beautiful doe eyes which were the color of chocolate.

Levi’s hair was fluffy and simi curly. He also had doe eyes- but they were slightly smaller.

The twins looked at each other than at logan.

“Just… um… pack up our first ade kid, and our fairy tale book.” logan answered, looking at his little sister who seemed to be about to cry. “Linny, are you ok?”

“I-i’m… i-i’m scared.” She whispered.

“Look,” Logan whispered, slowly bending down, putting his hands on her shoulders “nothing will ever happen to us. I’m going to make sure of that. Ok, Linny?”

“O-ok…”

“Good, now get dressed in something warm.” logan smiled “and get something for lily to wear too.”

“Ok…” she whispered, as she began to pull clothes out of the duffle bag- she picked out a hoodie and socks for lily.

Logan sighed, looking at the 14-year-old twins.

He hated himself for everything the twins had gone through. He felt sorry for them. Sorry they had to live like this, sorry they had to grow up so early… he didn’t want that to happen… but they did…

As his siblings worked to pack all their things, logan looked over at the white bedroom door.

Though he never admitted it to anyone out loud, he was scared of that door…. But only when it opened.. he hated what lay on the other side of the door- the creatures there were evil. If that door ever opened… well logan didn’t want to think of the horrible things that would happen.

The beatings, the yelling, the pain.

Logan carefully pushed the empty bookshelf to the door as a backup barricade- just in case…

He didn’t want anything getting in!

“Hey, Logan? We’re ready…” lexie whispered, tapping her brother’s arm.

Logan looked back at his three siblings- three of the only four people who he carried for more than life itself- and nodded his head slowly.

“I’ll wake lily up.”

Logan sat down on the edge of his little sister lily’s bed. He hated to say it- but lily was probably his favorite sibling. He had nothing against his other siblings, but he had been taking care of lily ever since she was a baby!! In a way, she was like his little girl.

He gently shook his sister’s arm, waking her from her slumber.

“L-logan?” the six-year-old whispered, rolling onto her back. She rubbed her eyes and yawned softly as logan looked down at her.

Logan smiled and brushed her curly brown locks away from her face.

“Hey Lily.” he whispered, “it's time to wake up.”

Lily yawned confused.

“Time for school?”

“Not yet sweetheart.”

Lily sat up in her bed and looked at her four older siblings.

“What's happening?”

“Come here lily.” lexie said, trying to bend down on her knees, though the pain in her stomach hurt bad. “Linny’s going to help you get dressed, ok?”

Linny nodded and began to help lily get dressed. Linny had picked out knee-high black socks

and a gray hoodie to pull over lily’s porky pig tee shirt. The shirt was big enough to fix logan.

“What are we doing?”

“We are moving out.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

“Where are we going to go?”

“To the park for the night.”

Lily rubbed her arms.

“Will it be cold?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Can we cuddle? If it's cold?”

“Of course sweetie.”

“Will mama, and dad find us?”

“They wouldn’t.”

“A-are you sure?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Ok…”

Lily looked down at her little mattress, too where her little blanket doll was sitting.

“Can I bring my dolly?”

“Sure you can.”

Lily grabbed her doll made of blankets and cuddled it close to her chest. That raggy doll was the only doll lily ever owned. And it was the only comfort thing that she would ever have.

Logan picked up all the blankets and pillows on their beds and then handed all of them to his siblings.

“Ok…. let's do this…”

“Right.” lexie whispered, looking at the twins, who were standing right next to each other “twins, open the window and toss the blankets out.”

“Ok,” they answered at the same time. Levi climbed onto the dresser and pushed open the window before jumping out into the snow.

“Linny, give me the blankets!” he called softly, opening his arms wide.

Linny threw the blankets out and then climbed out the window to her brother.

“Here, you two take lily.” lexie answered, picking up the little girl before gently slipping her out the window.

Than lexie climbed out leaving logan alone in the bedroom he lived in his whole life.

This room had been his safe haven for 16 full years. He was almost said that he had to leave it now….

Logan smiled before climbing onto the dresser

“Goodbye room,” he whispered. He climbed out the window to his siblings. “Come on you guys.”

As they walked down the empty street he smiled. They could finally escape!

They could finally be free!