Pageant Question: Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten years?

Even all the way out by the maple tree, Cara could hear her things being broken inside the house.  She used to be extremely attached to her belongings.  Even when she was little, she took good care of her toys.  Not one of her Barbie dolls suffered a horrible haircut.  No Memory game card was drawn upon.  She dusted her knickknacks and even kept her clothes in good condition, not wanting to give them up even if they no longer fit.  Her mother knew better than to try to clear out Cara's room after the crying that ensued after the last purge.  Instead, Cara's mother gave her storage boxes and little-used items were carefully labeled and put into the attic.  But now...

As she had become forcefully detached from her belongings, Cara realized she could live without them.  First, her new husband had demanded she not have so much "crap".  She purged like she never had before, wishing to please him and keep a neat house.  Cara had built up quite a lot of money by selling her childhood online.  Clothes, now called "vintage" were snapped up.  Teen magazines had bidders fighting till the end.  Her toys and trinkets and memorabilia sold, one after the other.  At first, it really hurt and she cried as she listed them, she cried as she packed them up, but eventually, she started to feel better.  Lighter.  Her new husband demanded more.  Cara held on to less and less.  And now...

Another crash from the house and muffled yelling let her know that her husband was not done with his anger.  He was never done.  Burning embers needed little fanning to become a flame.  Simply walking past created enough of a breeze to get them going.  Cara's husband was smashing her remaining belongings.  She pictured him emptying her closet and dresser drawers.  Running an arm across her bookshelf.  Throwing her remaining memories against the wall that would again need patching.  She knew he would tire of the exertion, grab the keys to his truck, and squeal away.  He said he went to his mother's house, but she knew he it wasn't his mother he visited.  Cara had found the emails accidentally and the text messages purposefully.  It was that day that she felt the stranger calling himself her husband had killed the man she married.

The backdoor smashed open and closed.  The truck door squeaked open and closed.  The tires spun on the gravel and squealed on the pavement, heading east.  As soon as she knew he was far enough away, Cara moved into action and, not for the last time, wondered what would happen.