Sophie Smith is a foster girl who's bounced around from state to state, "looking for her forever family," but Sophie's not stupid. She knows she doesn't have one. Her newest family, the Evanses, seem nice, but Sophie knows they don't really want her...
"You should wear this striped shirt with this army jacket," Evie suggested at five-thirty in the morning the next day.
I stared at the crazy 17-year-old girl blearily from my bed, eyes half-open, still in my outfit from yesterday. It had been my experience in foster homes that the first night there, you never spent the night in anything other than your clothes from the morning prior, because you were still scouting the environment. Also, I did not really own any pajamas, although I was sure Evie would fix that.
Anyway, back to the situation at hand. I was a morning person, sure, but my foster sister Evie had woken me up an hour earlier than my alarm had been set for, all to pick out my outfit. Moreover, the clothes she was holding up weren't even mine, and I frowned, suddenly feeling like she was taking pity on me.
"Aren't those your clothes, Evie?" I wasn't a charity case. Not by a long shot.
"I outgrew them," Evie explained, not even glancing back at me as she threw more clothes my way, "and I've never had a sister to share with. Now come on, try them on!" And before I knew it, she'd added a pair of ripped jeans to the pile and shoved me into the bathroom. "I'll go get my makeup!" she shouted at me through the door, while I stared at the clothes Evie had picked out and groggily realized that I was now Evie Evans' mannequin for the rest of the school year.
Oh, joy.
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^^^^^Sophie's First Day outfit :)))^^^^^
By the time we'd finished, though, even I, who had never cared much about fashion, had to admit that Evie was good. She'd picked the perfect outfit for me, added barely any makeup (a touch of mascara and some lip gloss that she'd told me not to lick off or she'd do something horrible to me).
Dylan showed up at six-fifteen with Aurora on his chest in a baby carrier, still fast asleep. Edward eagerly took her and passed her to Doug, who explained that since he was a work-from-home dad, when Aurora had come into Dylan's life, they had made the decision to watch Aurora during school hours so Dylan could finish his education.
Edward explained that they'd practically had to threaten Dylan, who had a very strange look on his face as we both reached for pancakes at the same time.
"Oh, um, you can go first, Sophie," Dylan said, releasing his grip on my hand immediately. I frowned, wondering why he was being so weird - was it because of what I'd said last night? - and used a fork to take several of Edward's first-day chocolate-chip pancakes. I felt honored, because it wasn't anybody else's first day, just mine, and yet Edward had made the chocolate chip pancakes anyway.
Let me elaborate: it was currently September 29th. I'd arrived yesterday, which you know, but everybody else had already started term, on September 1st. Why was I so late? I blame my previous foster family, a bunch of idiots who'd held up the court case (don't ask) and also several delayed flights. Either way, I was here now.
