11th of March

  Today was the day that Sadie Martinez came to take me to the shelter.

  Sadie is a pretty powerful person in the shelter's staff. She's not at the top of the food chain, but she is above Mark, and the manager of the shelter. She was the person I spoke with on the phone when I called to try getting in.

  She knocked on my door around 10:15 AM.

  "Hey," she said with a slight smile. She seems like the type of person who doesn't get angry much. She's probably 5 inches shorter, has light tan skin, short black hair, brown eyes, and ear and nose piercings.

  "I'm Sadie," she continued. "I took your call. How've you been?"

  "Oh, hey. I've been good. I've done a lot of walking around this part of the city. It looks cool."

  "Nice. Have you packed up? We should go check out and try to get to the shelter in the next 30 minutes."

  "Yea, I'll grab my bags."

  We went to the first floor, and then to the front desk. There may not be soap at the shelter, so I asked the receptionist while Sadie was checking out, "Could I have some more of the shampoo and conditioner bottles?"

  "Oh, yea, sure, I'll go grab some," replied the receptionist.

  "Smart," Maddie said to me with a grin. "Don't worry, we have shampoo and stuff at the shelter for you guys."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  After getting a small bag of the bottles, we went to Sadie's small grey Mazda. Sadie started the Mazda, and began driving. I remember some of what was said.

  “How dirty is the shelter?" I asked Sadie.

  "Think inner city high school."

  "I've never been to an inner city high school."

  "Oh. It's not the cleanest place ever, but not the dirtiest ever.”

  The shelter is a building with a hallway in it. There are five rooms for LGBT people 18 to 25, two beds in each room. A room across from the first room, both nearest to the front door, is Sadie's office. Across from the fifth room is the rec room, which also has three emergency beds. Past the room is the bathroom, which includes the only shower, shared by everyone living in the shelter.

  It’s cleaner than I thought it would be, but I would definitely move to someplace cleaner if I got the chance.

  "So, you're gonna have a roommate. It's rare that you have a room to yourself," Sadie told me while we were sitting in her office. She was introducing me to how the shelter works.

  I asked her who my roommate is.

  "His name is Javier. I think you'll like him.”

  "Oh, cool," I said. I was also curious about Sadie, so I asked, "Hey, how'd you get here?"

  "San Antonio or the job?"

  "Oh, both."

  "I've always been in San Antonio, my parents came from Mexico. I got a degree in education, but I got tired of education. I saw this place was hiring, I was wanting to help people, so I applied. And got hired, obviously."

  ---------

  9:16 PM now. You can go to bed any time you want, but staff wants you to wake up at 10 AM every morning. There's not much to do here besides reading the books in the rec room, writing, drawing, talking with the other homeless here, walking outside, and watching stuff on the TV in the rec room.

  I like writing, and I've been told I'm a good writer. I've always wanted to be a famous one. For a lot of my life, for many reasons, I haven't had time to write. Now, there's almost nothing I can do but write.