Dearest Mother,It sure is hot out today, and this trip to find somewhere to lay my head for the night is taking longer than I kind of expected it to. But rest assured I will not be giving up so easily. I am determined to make it through the day and never return to that house again. You have my word.KathrynI stared out of the window, fascinated at what I saw as the bus approached uptown Charlotte, the opening song to an anime I snuck to watch stuck in my head. I had never seen so many tall, beautiful buildings so close up in a long time. They looked great against the clear, bright summer blue sky, their windows glistening in the sunlight.Before long, the bus was stationing itself at the uptown transit center, everyone aboard soon getting off. As I prepared to get off myself, I remembered where I was intending to go, so once everyone else was off the bus, I shyly walked to the front of the bus where the driver was seated and asked him which bus would take me to the Salvation Army Women's Shelter. He pointed to a bus stationed straight ahead from us. He said that it would be leaving soon and advised me to walk over there as soon as possible. Otherwise, I would be left behind. I acknowledged his advice and promptly thanked him before exiting the bus and quickly making my way to the next one.As I stood there waiting for the driver of the next bus to arrive, I took note of my surroundings in the transit center, vague childhood memories coming back to me. I remembered coming here with my mother as a small child a long time ago and riding the buses with her to different areas. I don't fully remember what those areas and places were, but what I do remember is how the transit center looked and smelled. I remembered it as a bright-colored and lively place that smelled of something sweet. As I looked around the place now, it was kind of dirty looking with a lot of trash and homeless and junkie looking black people hanging out all crowded together in certain spots of the transit, staring and smoking and talking about whatever nonsense. My memories were from quite a few years ago, so I guess change was inevitable.At last, the driver of the next bus arrived and prepared to take off, soon after signaling me, who was first in line, that it was now ok to get on. Before I took my seat, I confirmed what the previous bus driver told me about directions on getting to the shelter with the current bus driver. He told me he'd let me know when we were arriving there and signal me to get off. I thanked him and went to my seat, waiting as other people began boarding the bus. And before long, we were taking off.This second bus ride was a little shorter than the previous one. I didn't realize how close the transit center was to the shelter until the bus driver signaled me to get off. Feeling slightly uncomfortable at the public attention I was getting as the driver loudly but kindly told me which direction to walk to get to the shelter's entrance after leaving the bus, I thanked him gratefully and got off, walking slowly as the bus whooshed past me.Because of where I got off, I had to cross the street to the shelter, and that wasn't really all that fun. At the time, I was kind of shy about crossing the street and walking by in front of a bunch of people in cars, especially when I did it alone. But in the end, regardless of how I felt, I managed to cross the street in one piece.Because of the way the shelter was set up, I couldn't quite locate the entrance, so I ended up at what I later realized was the back of the building where there was a little playground. I did remember there being a playground from my time being here when I was seven, but the playground I remembered was fenced in and more towards the front of the building. Additionally, I remembered watching my father's van ride by through the cracks in the fence when I was in the playground after each time he either came by to check on his family, or dropped us off there. (My father would periodically take us in and out of the shelter just for us to still have to sleep in the van for whatever reason.)I was starting to get a little confused. For the most part, the shelter looked pretty much the same way it did when I was a small kid. But had the building gone through some sort of remodeling in the last eleven years?"Hello?" A voice called out to me. And when I turned to see who it was, I noticed a woman sitting on some steps in front of what looked like a back entrance to the shelter. I waved to her and walked slowly and nervously towards her."Hello..." I began, "Um, I'm looking to get into this shelter, but I don't know how...""You look very young," observed the woman, "Where are your parents?"I gave the woman a short version of the reason I was alone and looking to get into the shelter. She seemed to understand and got up to lead me in through the back of the building to a little waiting area while she went to find someone to talk to and get help for me. At some point, I was asked whether or not I had an ID, which, of course, I didn't.As I waited and waited, I eventually noticed the presence of a coffee machine and wanted so much to have a cup when the woman from earlier reappeared with news. She told me that I would have to go to another building to try to get admitted into the shelter and handed me a sticky note with the address written on it to said building. The Hal Marshal building is what it was referred to. If I went there, I was told, I would get a case manager to speak to and he or she would help arrange for me to possibly get a bed in the shelter.I was a little disappointed that I would have to look for another building just to get admitted after I came all this way here. But nevertheless, I gratefully thanked the woman for going out of her way to help me and started making my way to the nearest bus stop.As I made my way there, I almost couldn't believe my eyes, for right there in front of me, across the street from the shelter, was a Kingdom Hall. The sight immediately triggered a memory of seeing it all the time as a child when I used to stay at the shelter before. I even remembered two Jehovah's Witnesses who were staying in the shelter for a bit themselves, a young adult daughter and her mother. I couldn't believe that after eleven years, it was still there, well-maintained and operational. I took a few minutes to admire the childhood sight before continuing on to the bus stop, remembering that I still had somewhere to go. Memories weren't going to give me a place to rest my head, after all.There were a few people at the bus stop already when I got there, so I settled somewhere off to the side, slightly away from them.As the July sun started rising higher in the sky, giving off its immense heat, I became even more grateful for my choice of clothes: red shorts with a pink, sequined tank top. Even so, I greatly anticipated the bus's arrival with its cool, air-conditioned environment. When the bus finally did arrive, I got on, got a seat by myself, and rode back into uptown Charlotte to catch yet another bus.I got off another bus that dropped me off a little way across the street from the Hal Marshal building. I once again had kind of a hard time looking for the entrance at first, but eventually, things worked out just fine. I walked inside to a very large, air-conditioned room with rows of tables and chairs set up off to the left and a lady sitting at a desk straight across from me.I slowly walked up to her and told her that I'd spoken to someone earlier who gave me the address to the building and told me that I was to speak to someone here about getting me a bed into the Salvation Army Women's shelter, to which she acknowledged everything I had said and told me that she would be getting someone to speak with me shortly. She then asked for my name and said I could go sit at one of the tables until someone came out to get me.For the most part, the large room was mostly empty, there being only a few other people in the table area besides myself. I sat at a table by myself, set my bags down, munched on a few graham crackers, and waited.Unfortunately, I had nothing to do while I waited. I obviously had no electronic device like a phone or tablet or anything, or even a book to read. And just sitting there, staring off into space the entire time made me feel like I looked creepy. So, eventually, I resorted to lying my face down on the table while I waited for what felt like hours for something to happen.Finally, someone called my name. I jerked myself up and turned around to find a skinny, older lady, looking in my direction. I stood up, grabbed my bags, and walked towards her."Are you Kathryn?" asked the lady."Yes," I responded."Follow me."I followed the lady down a back hallway to a room I assumed to be her office. Once we sat down and everything, she instructed me to tell her about myself in detail, and why I wanted to get into the Salvation Army Women's Shelter. I pretty much gave her the same story I gave the other woman from earlier, but when I mentioned my father and some of the things he's done, she seemed to grow very concerned."Aren't you worried that your father might start beating on your little sisters, too?" the lady asked, "You should report your father for doing this so that the rest of your family can get help, too."From time to time, the thought of somehow getting my father arrested has crossed my mind, but when you've spent enough time living under circumstances where your own father made sure that everything he did stayed under the radar with threats of bashing your head in the ground even harder than how he was already doing it if you even tried to so much as scream very loudly for help, in my case, that was enough to just give up and never really have those thoughts again. That way of life eventually seemed normal to me in a way. However, now that I'd finally escaped that household, for the time being, I was still a little scared that my father would try to look for me, bring me back, and beat me or retaliate in some other way for running away. So, as irrational as this may have seemed to some people, the now resurfaced thought of reporting him to the police made me scared, so I told the lady that I didn't feel comfortable doing that. She tried to pressure me a few more times to report my father, but I just wouldn't budge. Thankfully, she finally stopped pestering me, leaving the topic with a final reminder that if I ever changed my mind, I could always report my father to the police anonymously.With that topic finally out of the way, the lady asked a few more probing questions about my situation, eventually also asking about my age and whether I had an ID or not. And at last, after doing a bit more research on her computer, the lady concluded that since I didn't have an ID, it would be difficult if not impossible to get me into the women's shelter, but because I was eighteen, she referred me over to yet another building, this one being specifically for youths like me. I asked her if this building was far, and if I needed to take a bus there. Thankfully, she said no to both those questions, writing down the address for me while she spoke and gave me directions to the building and telling me I now had an appointment at 3:00 p.m. The new building in question was called, The Relatives, and it was supposedly within walking distance. Before long, I was once again sent on my way to another place, hoping I would make it there in one piece.