Alive And So Loved

Survive She Did

Louise Aubin is many things. Insanely kind, intelligent, stubborn, beautiful, intense, and many other wonderful words.

Unfortunately though, the only thing that defined her for the first 18 years of her life was, "foster child".

Louise has never met her parents, in fact she has no clue what their names are. She grew up in and out of houses for the entirety of her childhood. Most of those homes being full of families who just wanted a good image and people to kiss their asses.

Love and care wasn't even part of her vocabulary or awareness until she was able to start reading books.

Oh books.

Louise was the Princess Belle of foster children. Books are her life, they were her only form of escapism as a teenager. One second she was in a cold uncomfortable bed with ignorant foster parents, and the next she was a wizard and best friends with Harry Potter.

Once Louise started reading about loving parents who tucked you in every night, tickled you when you were feeling down, wiped your tears as they cleaned up a scrape, she began to wonder why she never received that kind of utter love and adoration.

Had she done something wrong? Had she disrespected her parents at a young age? Hell, did she smell bad? She knew she could have had it worse, and she was grateful that the pretty shitty system at least gave her some food and water every so often.

That was until she turned 18.

April 12th came rolling around and it was as if every tiny good thing in her life was immediately stripped away into the abyss.

She stood there on the side of the street in Brighton England, small travel bag of a few belongings in hand, and was now expected to survive.

And survive she did.

Immediately Louise got a job at the local grocery store during the day, and a barista for the 24 hour coffee shop at night.

She worked herself into exhaustion, running off of little food and staying in a shelter for over four months.

The world seemed unfair, she questioned her worth every single day over those four months. The bathroom had turned into her crying break.

Whenever she walked the streets to head between her two jobs she would see large groups of girls laughing in designer clothes and hugging as they left a luxury restaurant.

Lousier never experienced friendship.

She wanted what those girls had. Not the expensive nails and gold earrings, but the laughter, the boy advice, the friendly gossip, the reapplying lipstick in the bathroom together.

I mean maybe the creepy guy who showed up to the coffee shop consecutively at 2 am for almost three months who stared at her daily counted as some form of a bond, but I wouldn't consider it a friendship.

She wanted to have a person in her life who she could listen to, and laugh with. She wanted to love someone so hard to make up for the fact that she had never been loved ever.

But how could she do that? She tried everything her books said. She smiled when customers came in, especially if they seemed her age. She asked them how they were and if they needed help. She laughed at their attempts to make a joke, but nobody ever smiled or laughed the same way back.

After four months of pure misery, Louise could afford rent for quite possibly that shittiest apartment in Brighton.

It. was. beautiful.

She felt real joy for the first time in her entire life. She had a home. She did this. She won.