I walked through the crammed hallway to find the only bathroom in the house, only to find I was too late and there was already a line. Damn, I should have come earlier, I thought. I forget about the bathroom and went straight to the counselor’s office. I walk into the offset office and scrunch my face at the smell. It smelled of lemons and Pine Sol, mixed together. A woman in her late forties with straight auburn hair that reached her mid-back looked back at me with a fake smile plastered on her face, and with that I slip out of the chair and walk into the office. The couches that are in this office and more high end and I sit on the one further away from her and sigh with the comfort. Each and every one of us has a reason, a cause, to why we’re stranded here together; mine is simple and harsh. And today, I’m the lucky one who gets to tell it all first… or not.
“Good morning, Rae.” If you can call it a good morning, I thought to myself. I’m finding that I’m starting to do that more often.
“Yeah,” I mumble, this is something I do not want to do. I don’t need a shrink; I never had or never will. It’s all bottled inside me, never moving, always bugging me.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Does it look like I want to talk? I think to myself.
“No.” I receded into the couch pulling my knees close to my chest and closed my eyes.
“We have all day,” She continued to pry; I still sat there with my knees pulled to my chest wishing she’d stop talking to me. “Okay, would you like something to drink? A snack?”
Instead of a reply, I shake my head slowly back and forth. It’s not that I have a problem with talking, but there are some things you just don’t want to talk about.
“Can I just leave?” I suggest.
“Yes if you want, it still may be a little too early for you to talk about these incidents.” I send a silent prayer thanking God for letting me leave this woman and her prying.
“Thanks.” I mumble getting up from the chair and follow out into the offset office. I walk back through those now familiar hallways and stop at the bathroom relieved there were no lines. I walk in and close the door behind me, inside I find the sink. I let the water run for a few seconds and splash my face with water shivering from the coldness. I find the towel and dry my face, I look up at the mirror; I find the familiar freckles that sprinkled under my eyes and over my nose and the mocha colored hair that curled into ringlets that reached my lower back. As I turn my head I see the not so familiar bruises where fingers can be manageably seen, the memoires rush in, I shake the feeling and unlock the door.
I walked five doors down to reach the door that’s covered in pictures and drawings; I open it up to find my roommate, Maxine, is sleeping. I quietly reached my bed and pulled out the familiar iPod and let the soothing sounds of Celtic harmonies swirl throughout my head and two minutes later I’m sleeping peacefully.
**
“Rae,” someone shook me gently, and I thought it was my mom, but I open my eyes to see it’s only Maxine.
“What’s up?” I manage sleepily.
“You want dinner or not?”
“Oh, right. Let’s go.” I jump out of the bed and grab the familiar Abercrombie hoodie, I was suddenly cold.
“Fell asleep, huh? Didn’t get enough sleep?”
“I never do,” I say.
“Well, that sucks.”
“Doesn’t it?”
I nod. We walk down that hallway and turned to the café. The simple way to say cafeteria, but café sounded more like the kind of café’s that are plastered throughout a mall or strip mall. The interior of the café was painted light beige with accents that you’d find in an antique store with a few booths around the edges and some tables spread out in the middle with a salad bar to the front. The food in this place will make your mouth water. It was pre-processed crap they sell in school, it was real food. The staff puts in part of their money so we have good premium food and not the phony stuff because there are only eight kids here, plus whatever staff is working.
Maxine and I go over to the booth we always sit in, which happened to be the one booth that overlooks the mountainside of this house. It’s in the country fields of South Dakota; therefore we can see the mountains perfectly. The sun was setting over the horizon, making the sky turn a pink orange, a smile spread over my face as a sat in the corner and pulled my feet up to my chest. Maxine sits across from me, taking a peak at what I was smiling at and turned back to face me.
“You know, I never thought I’d be here.”
“Ditto.”
A guy, around my age with shaggy straight hair, walks in with an alternative rock tee-shirt that hugged his abs, yes abs, and dark washed jeans. I’ve never seen him before; even in the few months I’ve been here.
“Hey. Do you know him?” I slowly pull my attention back to Maxine, waiting for a reply.
“Oh, that’s Adam.” She says matter-of-factly. Am I the only one not getting news around here? I thought. Which was true, how did she know his name and I’ve never seen him in my entire stay? Sure I’ve heard of him before, but never have I actually seen him.
“Adam, who?”
“Weston” Adam Weston? Who is this guy? I thought to myself, there were eight of us including me. Or that’s at least who I counted during group therapy.
“I’ve never seen him before.”
“Oh he’s been here.”
“Then why wasn’t he in group therapy last week? And what clique is he?”
Her grin frails, “He’s with the ditched.” My own smile diminishes once I hear about the ditched part, “And visitation was the reason you haven’t seen him, he had some friends come over. Then he’s usually stuck in his room. We barely see him at all.” So there was my answer, even more than I intended to uncover.
I watch as Adam walks to the hot food line and grabs a hamburger and fries and then goes to sit at the a table and chair. He finds me staring and he smiles then turns his attention to his food again. I blush and look down, Maxine laughs.
“Mhm, are you interested in Adam boy?” My blush deepens as she asks this, and I’m going to lie to hide the fact I am interested in him.
“No!”
“Yeah right, honey.”
“Oh hush,” I say with a smile. “Let’s go get something to eat.”
“Oh, right.”
We both get out of the booth together and Maxine walks to the hot food line and I walk to the salad bar. There’s an array of greens with vegetables of every kind, not to mention five different kinds of dressing. I pick up a bright green bowl and place some Iceberg lettuce and then pile on shredded cheese and ranch dressing. I walk back over to the booth and sit down waiting for Maxine, and I sneak another look at Adam. Making sure he doesn’t see me, and he doesn’t. Thank God.
Maxine flops down on the bench, and I stare wide-eyed at her tray. “Hungry?”
“Duh.” That girl can eat. Her tray is filled with a hamburger, fries, salad, a brownie, and chips. She picks up a fry and nibbles on it, looking down at my salad.
“What? I’m not hungry is all,” Which was true, ever since I came here my appetite hasn’t been what it used to be. I’m barely hungry, but I have to eat or my weight will drop. And we don’t need to add another case to my therapy sessions.
“Right,” she grabs another fry and stuffs it in her mouth, not even nibbling. She’s finished eating entirely within ten minutes and my salad has been finished in five minutes.
I look around the café now to find Adam listening to his iPod, and I wonder what could possibly be on it. I shouldn’t be thinking of these things, but a girl can’t help herself. My eyes move to the other tables to find the other six kids eating in their own little groups. I fall into a gaze at the window, looking at the sun setting. This is like high school cliques without the harsh out comes, I thought. Which was true on any level because there were cliques in the house, there were the abused, the runaways, the forgotten, and the ditched; two in each.
Ryan and Daniel were the runaways. They ran away the foster homes they didn’t like, and ended up here. Like the rest of us. Jocelyn and Nicole were the ones whose families got tired of them for any sort of reason and were never heard from again, they were the forgotten.
Adam and Danielle are the ditched. The house barely gets any kids that have been ditched. That’s where the parents have the kid, but they don’t want them anymore; so they ditch them anywhere. And the house finds them. I always feel sorry for them the most. Lastly, Maxine and I are the abused. Where parents think it’s okay to hurt your children, we both have in-depth stories, but we are not quite ready to spill.
“Hey, hello?” Maxine snaps her fingers close to my face. I snap out of my gaze and look back at her.
“What?”
“You were like staring, at nothing.”
“Um yeah, sorry about that.”
“It’s alright; can we get out of here though?” I look around, and everyone’s gone.
“What the?”
“Yeah, they all left about ten minutes ago.”
“Please, let’s get out of here.” I get out of the booth and bring my hands over my head and stretch, Maxine does the same thing, we laugh and I loop my arm around hers and we skip out of the café.
