*12+ for one minor swear word* Hey everyone, I'm glad to be getting back into YWS, and I'd love any reviews or comments. Also, if you want me to review your work, just ask. Enjoy!
“Maxine!” The principal—known by all in this filthy orphanage as the Bitch, called from the entrance of my room. I gritted my teeth and continued to ignore her. I was laying eagle spread across the hard cot that was my bed and counting the cracks on the ceiling. Truthfully, I knew how many there were: five main ones, twenty medium ones, and fifty-seven branching off those. They were my stars in my night sky, complete with constellations—I could see a crying child’s face, a doglike creature baring its teeth, and plenty more.
“Maxine! Young lady, don’t you dare ignore me! God, I hate this girl.” I wasn’t supposed to hear the last words, but I didn’t care anyway. Words like that didn’t bother me anymore—actually, they were almost compliments compared to some of the things I’d heard. “Maxine, get your ass out of this room this instant! Someone wants to see you!” Again, I had to clench my jaw to stop a smart aleck response. I wondered if she knew how much I hated my given name.
Slowly, I turned my blank stare from the ceiling and towards the Bitch, taking her in without showing a single bit of emotion: she was so thin that I could probably connect my index finger and thumb around her thigh, and she stood a little shorter than my five feet eight inches. Her hair was black and tightly curled, her skin so white that I suspected she hadn’t seen sunlight in years. The Bitch’s mouth was a tight, thin line that was permanently frowning, and no wonder.
After all, she owned this hell hole. I didn’t know what had possessed her to found an orphanage when she hated children so much—maybe she had once been idealistic. I nearly laughed, but didn’t drop my impassive look as I stared steadily at the Bitch. I couldn’t ever remember being idealistic: I’d grown up in a place worse than this and spent my time being shipped off to foster homes, social workers, and then to a different orphanage. I was too old to be adopted now: people went for the cute, cuddly little kids, not for teenagers.
“What do you want?” I demanded harshly, making my naturally light voice low and dark. I didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to talk to whoever the hell wanted to talk to me.
“Don’t talk to me like that, bitch.” The Bitch snapped. I nearly smiled, marveling at the fact that she thought I cared what she called me. “An American woman wants to talk to you—to see if she wants to adopt you.” The Bitch didn’t bother hiding her skepticism. “Now, go along. I don’t want to be disappointed in you.” Do I look like I care? Because I don’t, so don’t delude yourself. I thought, getting up slowly and moving past the Bitch to the door.
She left to harass someone else as I moved down the familiar hallway. I’d been here for six months, long enough to know how to work the showers so that warm water came out, how to avoid the sides of the blue painted walls that were covered in substances I couldn’t even identify. When I reached the much cleaner part that guests saw, I made sure to look as bored as possible. I wasn’t going to get adopted, and I wasn’t going to try. Most of the people who’d adopted me for a short while wanted to know all my problems, insisted that I do things and wear things that I didn’t want to. It wasn’t going to change.
I locked eyes with the only person in the guest area. She was a slightly rounded woman who looked to be partly Asian, partly something else. Her dark brown hair was cut in a stylish bob, but she wasn’t the complete fashionista type that bugged me right from the get go. Her tee-shirt read ‘Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful…hate me because I can kick your ass’ written across it. She was wearing nice jeans and flip flops, as well as a warm smile.
I finished my once over and then looked the woman in the eyes again, making mine as cold as hers were warm. This lady was young, thirty at the very oldest. What the hell was she doing here? “Hi, my name’s Caitlin. You must be Maxine. The head woman said you might fit what I was looking for.” I nearly laughed again, but just gave a silent nod. Caitlin wasn’t getting anything from me.
After a moment of silence, Caitlin nodded to herself and smiled. “Can we sit down…and just talk? If you’re more comfortable somewhere else, we can talk there too. Do you want to go out to a café or anything?” She offered, looking anxious to make me comfortable. I just shook my head, sitting down in one of the plastic chairs. Caitlin sat next to me and seemed to take me in.
I let her, wondering what she was thinking about me. Here I was, a fourteen year old girl who’d never had a family before. She seemed like the type who felt pity for squashed bugs, so I could only imagine what was going through her head. On the face of it, I was a typical looking fifteen year old: five eight, brown hair with blond streaks from the sun, decent figure, brown eyes…and then came the worn jeans and the wrinkled white t-shirt. Well, maybe a lot of fifteen year olds wouldn’t ever wear the shirt, but whatever.
“All right.” Caitlin broke the silence, meeting my eyes. I was surprised, but I didn’t show it. Not many people could meet my stare. “I’m not going to give you any crap.” I blinked, doubly surprised now. Maybe this woman wasn’t everything she seemed. “I live in the suburbs, and I’ve just inherited a large amount of money and a big estate from my grandmother. I don’t want to adopt kids because I pity them—I don’t.” Surprise number three. Of course, she could and probably was just spinning a yarn. “I’ve met your head lady, whatever her name is. She seems like a complete bitch, no offense. I don’t think you’d mind getting out of here.”
She was met with my cool look and silence. Inside, I was starting to smile a little. Despite everything, I almost…liked this woman. “Here’s how it would work if you came with me.” Caitlin continued after I made it clear I wasn’t going to respond. “We’d leave here, hop onto a plane to Michigan, and get to my house. It’s really big and has acres of land around it: a pond that’s practically a lake, a barn with horses in it, and the three story house with seven empty bedrooms. You can pick any one of them and decorate it how you want—I can buy whatever color paint or wallpaper you want.”
She took a breath, seeming lost in her vision. I was fighting the pull of her words myself—this lady was good. “It’s the beginning of summer, so there would be no school just yet. It starts in September, three months from now. Until then, we can just chill and get to know each other.” I raised an eyebrow sardonically, making it clear what I thought of that last part.
Caitlin laughed, much to my surprise. “I won’t push you for information about yourself or whatever—if you want you’ll tell me. But I’ll probably tell you about myself, just so you know you’re not with some creep. From there, we’ll wing it. If you want to leave my place, you can. I might not bring you back here,” She wrinkled her nose at the place around us, “But I could find some nice place if you wanted. I’d much rather you stay with me. What do you say?”
She looked hopefully at me. I made my face impassive and opened my mouth to tell her that there was no way in hell I was going anywhere. “Sure.” I told her lamely, shocking myself—and apparently her as well. Then a wide grin broke across her face.
“Great! I need to get some papers signed and whatever, but we’ll be out of here in an hour. Do you want to go get your things…and say goodbye?” Caitlin asked.
I blinked a couple times, shocked at myself. Then I recovered, gave a curt nod, and left her. Right. Say goodbye. Like I had anyone to say goodbye to, I thought, smiling cynically. Once upstairs, I grabbed my small suitcase with its three changes of clothes, toothbrush and hair brush and locked it before staring at my cot for a moment. What had gotten into me?
Then again, my rebellious side thought, Why not? She’s rich, she won’t bother me, and she seems okay. Why wouldn’t I take her up on her offer?
That’s when my intelligent side very firmly reminded me that there was such thing as being let down. I didn’t need it to happen again. Still, my rebellious side won, because three hours later, I was getting settled on a plane to Ari, Michigan. “So, Maxine.” Caitlin started as the plane took off. “Is there anything in particular you want me to know? Anything you want to know?” She looked curiously at me, dark eyes sparkling.
I debated whether to ignore her or not, but instead I responded. “Max. Not Maxine, Max.” Yeah, it was a guy’s name. So what? It was also my name, and I liked it a hell of a lot better than Maxine. Caitlin didn’t question it.
“Cool.” She simply said. I turned away from her, looking out the window at the landscape moving below. Terror and a thrilling joy swept through me in a cascade—I’d never been on a plane before and all that was between me and the empty sky was a chunk of metal. But at the same time, I was flying. Sure, the wind wasn’t in my face, I wasn’t floating free, but I was going somewhere away from England.
In my excitement, I let a tiny smile slip onto my face. I let it stay there, knowing no one was watching me now. Incredibly, I had the urge to laugh. Laugh! When was the last time I’d even been remotely content? When was the last time I’d laughed? I couldn’t remember. Gazing down over the vast expanse of water that separated the US and England, I let my smile grow. Even if I got tired of Caitlin, I’d still be in America. I liked the idea of that change.
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