The Rest of Forever

Chapter 1

I sit in the social worker’s car wondering what will come next.

What kind of place am I being driven to now?

Will they ignore me, will they yell, will they hit me when I break one of the never ending rules?

Bea is trying to talk to me but I just ignore her and gaze out the window at the beautiful scenery of upper-state New York that is rushing past my eyes, listening to one of my many rap songs that my last family hated.

“Caitlyn!” Bea barks. “I’m trying to tell you something, please take out those earbuds and listen!”

“What?” I snap, rolling my eyes and looking toward the front of the car, squinting my face in a way that I hope is obvious to her that I do not want to talk. She glances back at me in the rearview mirror, and I reluctantly take out my white earbuds.

“They found your mother’s will,” she says.  

“So?” I ask, ready to turn back to the window, trying my hardest not to think about my mother.

“She specified where she wanted you to live,” she says. I don’t reply, I just slowly turn my head and stare at her, wondering why it took 9 years, 16 homes, and more awful foster parents than I could count to find my mother’s stupid will that should have been found the day she died. “Have you ever heard of a Laura Emerson?” she asks.

“Yeah, I think I remember my mom talking to a Laura on the phone.” I say, thinking back to one of the times when Daddy was really drunk, stumbling downstairs trying to find us so he could have something to hit, and we were hiding together in her closet, Mom furiously whispering to an unknown person while tucking me into her body.

“Well Laura and her husband are your legal guardians, now that your father has no custody and your mother is deceased.” I flinch at the word, deceased. “Please Caitlyn try not to screw this one up.” She begs.

“I’ll do my best.” I mutter turning my attention back to the trees that already were starting to turn all the colors of fire.

I started thinking about my life and how this new family could change everything. I should really stop having so much blind hope. Nine times out of ten the new family is worse than the old one. I was eight years old when my mother died, and nine when they took me away from my dad. My mom was always my idol, the one who kept me safe when daddy would get home at 2am and start throwing things at us. For every bruise and cut he gave me, my mom would have 3 more. My mom got into a car crash when I was 8 years old, she got hit by a drunk driver. Ironic, really. She was going to be killed by a drunk husband, and so she drove away in fear, just to get killed by another drunk. Neither of them survived. My dad fell into a depression, which he took out on me. The police took me away when they arrested my dad for public intoxication, which later turned into a charge for child abuse. I was thrown into the foster care system and I’ve been bouncing around there for nine years. The lessons I’ve learned while bouncing around from abusive home to abusive home are trust no one, and love does not exist.

The car screeched into a long driveway that is at the end of an enormous house, more like a mansion, where a tall pretty blonde woman was standing. I assumed she must be Laura Emerson.

“Hey, there,” she squealed a slight southern twang in her voice. Laura takes me into her tan arms immediately, and I can feel her heart pounding with excitement. I go stiff in her embrace, so she lets go as quickly as she came, straightening her long, red hair out and takes a breath. “You must be Caitlyn Ross!”

I flash her a strained smile. No, idiot, I’m some other girl from off the streets.

“I am sorry about your mother,” she flickers her eyes away for a moment, out of decency.