She's So Gone

~chapter 3~

Past

It's been a couple weeks now, and I'm starting to feel settled, I think I can trust it here. Ms. Jacobs is really as nice as she seems. School is actually pretty great too, I've been hanging out with Rilynn and Rat more and we've become friends. Most of the kids at the children's home are great too, the little ones especially love me. Currently I'm in the play room play with a few of the toddlers. There's the twins, Lily and violet, they're three, and apparently arrived at the children's hospital shortly before I did. Then there's Ally, she's four and has been here for a year, but Ms. Jacobs says she has a family lined up to take her already. Apparently a friend of her parents is trying to get custody. 

The twins make me sad sometimes, they ask about they're parents, and they're siblings. I over heard the social worker talking to Ms. Jacobs when she came by last week to take them in for a check up. Apparently they're mother had died during child birth and father was unknown. They went to a foster family immediately, but something happened and the foster parents can't be found anywhere. They left the twins and their three biological kids on a playground and never came back. They're siblings went to go live with an aunt, but five kids is a lot, and it would have been hard to get custody of the twins so, she didn't even attempt to take them.  "Dani no!" Violet shouts as I try to put the wrong block into the triangle whole. "Like this" she says and then shows me.

I smile, "that's how you do it?" I tell the little girl and she smiles back proudly, not realizing that I was purposely doing it wrong. "What about this one?" I hold up the circle block.

"I know!" Ally shouts toppling over the twins to get the block from me.

I hold my breath as I look at them all now laying on the ground. Waiting for the first one to start crying but instead they start giggling. It's infectious and I start to laugh too. Being here, playing with them, feels so easy and enjoyable and I feel happy. I never really thought I'd be happy and feel safe, but I do. It's weird because it's only been a couple weeks. Maybe it has something to do with a walker telling me that my mother went to jail and she lost custody of me completely. It could be from making a friend at school that talks to me everyday and invites me to hangout. It could also be the three smiling toddlers looking at me like I make a difference to them. Either way, I don't want to ever stop feeling this way.

Present

Rilynns mom picked me up from the group home and I'm now sitting at her kitchen counter while she cooks and we wait for Rilynn to get home from babysitting her cousin Gabriel. "So how was your day Dani?" Mrs. Pace asks, as she cuts up carrots.

I shrug, "it was fine, can I help?" I gesture to the vegetables she's cutting up.

She smiles, "of course," and then hands me a cutting board and a knife to cut up the celery she placed in front of me. "How's classes going," she continues the conversation.

"They're okay, although the new semester only started a week ago." I tell her and then try to change the subject from me. "What about you, how was your day?"

She smiles again, "my day was pretty good, thank you for asking." I like moments like these, sometimes I think, if I close my eyes and pretend har enough, this could be my life. 

I was about to ask another question when Rilynn walks in, "I'm home!" She calls out entering the kitchen. "Gross, is she forcing you to help her?" 

Her mother rolls her eyes and I turn to my best friend. "No I offered," I tell her, sometimes I feel like Rilynn takes her mother for granted.

"Well stop helping and come up to my room with me, we have a lot to discuss," she says as she drops her coat by the wall next to the bottom of the stairs, Missing the hook, before running up the stairs.