Like I Want You.

one

odessa

"Wake Up! Today is adoption day!" Ms.Young yelled throughout the halls of her fucked up foster home.

Hi, my name is Odessa Marie, I don't claim my parents last name since they didn't claim or want me. I'm 16 years and I was put in this home when I was 5, my parents, Talia and James, just left me at a gas station and had me waiting for three days before someone found me and brought me here. They had left with some man in a truck who had sold them weed. That's what happens when you're born on the south side of Chicago Illinois.

"Des you think you're gonna get adopted today?" My best friend and roommate asks. Willow came a year after me and we were the only "outcasts" of this home so we just instantly clicked with each other. "After 11 years of being in this dump, I highly doubt it. Plus I can't leave my best friend." I say with a smile as we got ready for the day. I got dressed in a black short sleeve shirt with a tight fitting leopard dress that stops mid thigh, I paired it with some black doc martens.

"Willow! Odessa! Get down here now!" Ms.Young yells. We leave our room and rush downstairs and get in the line behind all the other kids, the line goes from youngest to oldest, Willow and I are the second oldest kids here.

People started coming into the building walking around and looking at all of us as if we were poor puppies who needed to be saved. I was sitting at a table where I was instructed to go to by Ms.Young. A woman who looked like she was at least in her late thirties or early forties walked over to me, she had short curled up brown hair that looked kind of red, she has pretty blue eyes that were kind of dark, and she looked very innocent and sweet.
"Hi, I'm Sheila Jackson, what's your name?" She said sitting in the chair across from me. "I'm Odessa Marie" I said to Sheila. "Wow what a beautiful name, I've never heard it before." She says with a bright smile. "It's Greek, it means angry man, which is kind of weird." I say with a slight laugh. She smiles at me, "I really like your style, it's very to unique to me." She says looking at my dress, I thank her and we continued to talk.

"If you don't mind me asking, how come you can't have any of your own children." I say, she looks at me and puts on a slight smile. "Well i had a daughter around your age named Karen, I had a happy family, me, Eddie, and Karen. It was going good until one day when Karen was having a study session with two of the Gallagher boys, he had flipped out and left. That's when I met Frank Gallagher." She smiled at the name Frank slightly "Eddie had came back but stayed in the basement and there was always tension at the house. One day Eddie took Karen to a meeting and she came back so upset she started breaking all his things, this happened when we were almost back to a normal family because Frank is a drunk and he's always in and out of the house. Karen and Eddie hated each other so much, one day Eddie went missing, then I got a call and they said they found his body at the bottom of Lake Michigan." She put her head down and looked very upset. "Karen didn't care much, but later she had got a boyfriend named Jody and they had got married and she had a baby, which wasn't his. Karen didn't want the baby because he had Down syndrome, so I stole the baby from the hospital with Jody. There's so much more but I don't think you wanna hear it all." She says with a small smile looking down.

"I would love to hear the rest of it, and I'm sorry about all of this." I said grabbing her hands. "You know Odessa I really like you, you're a great listener and you seem to care. Would you want to be adopted?" She said which kind of shocked me. She just met me, for all she knows I could be a phony tryna rob her or kill her, but I'm not so I guess that doesn't matter much. "Never in my 11 years have I been asked that. So yes!" I say excitedly getting up to hug Sheila.

While Sheila talks to Ms.Young and get everything set up, I go up to my room and pack my things. "I'm gonna miss you Des." Willow says walking into the room. "Imma miss you too Willow, but I promise you imma visit as much as I can." I say closing my suitcase and then hugging her. "I love you Des." She says. "I love you too." I say.