Now
Looking at my pale complexion in the mirror, I turn and glance at my small breasts, flat stomach and barely-there ass. I groan in frustration and finger my long, curly brown hair. I turn eighteen today, and I look the same as I did when I was fifteen: small. Sighing, I lean down and grab my black frayed shirt off my suitcase and pull it on. My tits being so tiny, I don’t really have to wear a bra if I don’t want to. Not that I could find a good bra around here if I wanted to. In foster care, you’re given only hand-me-downs, which are usually in the worst condition. Sure, the state supposedly gives us money every so often for clothes, but that shit’s pocketed by the foster care parents. If we’re lucky, they’ll take us to a thrift shop to get clothes, but the pickings are slim.
Foster care. I snort at the thought of it. Supposedly, the system helps by bringing in children from the worst situations and putting them into a home full of hope and love, until they can find the right couple for adoption. It’s all bullshit. It’s a fa?ade. I’m not saying there isn’t a good foster home out there, with loving, caring providers, giving kids who have nobody a little hope that things will get better. I just haven’t seen one.
Sometimes, I feel like a butterfly trapped in a Mason jar. The world is moving and happening on the other side of the glass, while I’m stuck inside. But today, the lid comes off this hopeless jar and I escape. Flying free, with endless possibilities.
I open the black, torn suitcase and grab a pair of distressed shorts. Shimmying them on quickly, hues of red and blue paint my legs from the sun shining through the ratty quilt hanging over the window, acting as a curtain.
I grab some magazines by the bunk bed, which usually holds more kids than there is mattress, when the door slams open to my room.
“Charlie, you need to hurry downstairs and do Tee’s hair before the school bus pulls up. Get a move on,” Aneta grumbles, jostling a small baby on her large hip. I smirk and toss the magazines in the suitcase before zipping it up, having to push and step on the damn thing to zip it up.
Aneta sighs loudly, making sure I hear her irritation. I blow out a breath from the exertion of closing my suitcase and look toward a pissed-off Aneta.
Her caramel-colored, frizzy hair is pulled into a tangled ponytail, which shows she hasn’t seen a brush in a couple days. Her overly large, white shirt is stained and torn in multiple places, hanging off her large frame loosely. And oh, God, she has no pants on, exposing her thick thighs. I hope she has underwear on today. Aneta is the foster parent of this fine establishment, which is a two-story house with more kids than beds. I couldn’t even tell you the name of the child she’s switching from hip to hip, because we have so many kids coming in and out of here, it’s hard to keep track. I’m sick of this fucking place—of all foster care homes, to be exact—and today being my eighteenth birthday…I’m fucking out of here.
“Not happening,” I sing, pulling on my worn flip-flops. I’m the one who does all the kids’ hair, makes sure they’re bathed—hell, I even have to cook for them. It can be difficult at times, but it’s even more frustrating with the ones who require special care. Most of the foster care homes take in kids who have special needs, because the foster parents receive a bigger paycheck in return. The temporary parents find themselves in over their heads, and make the foster kids do the work by taking care of each other. During my years of high school, I skipped out on the fun, crazy things kids do ‘cause all I could think about was one of the toddlers not being fed. But those kids, the cute, squishy-face ones… they get adopted quickly, thankfully. But today, I’m only thinking of myself. Otherwise, I’ll never leave.
“What do you mean it’s ‘not happening’?” Aneta snaps. “And what the hell do you think you’re doing with that?” She points at the suitcase on the floor, a look of despair splintered across her greasy face as her eyes widen.
“I’m eighteen. My sentence as a ward of the state is done,” I explain, pulling the busted-ass suitcase off the floor. “You’re the one who signs up for all these kids then hides in your room behind your computer for me to take care of them. I’m done. Find another victim of the state to be at your beck and call.”