Sin and Bone

Chapter One

Strangely enough, it was time for me to finally go home. I sat on the porch of the place I had been able to call home for nearly two years now; a group home nestled in the suburbs of northern Indianapolis. The green painted siding and gray shutters were less than a welcomed sight when I first arrived, but now, it was as much a comfort as walking into my own family home, if not more so. The sun was high in the sky, beating down harshly on the tin roofs around us. I took a deep breath in and let the thick, heavy heat fill my lungs. Weather in Indiana; you never knew what you were going to get. One moment it could be raining and cold, the next blistering hot and difficult to breathe.

I bobbed my knee nervously as one of the staff members, Ms. Alkicono, sat next to me on the wooden swing that hung from the porch awning. We were just waiting for my father, Martin, to show up and discharge me. Then, I would make my way back to his apartment and start living a mundane, normal life...for the most part. I knew that Marty would always be a little weary around me. I'm sure it wasn't easy having a loose cannon as a child. Still, it wasn't like I had any issues on a regular basis. I was usually very effective in ignoring what I had to in order to convince everyone I was okay. It was the one time that I didn't that sealed my weird little fate.

"How are you feeling?" Ms. A asked me for probably the hundredth time. Just like every other time she asked, I answered with a simple, "Fine." I tucked my short black hair behind my ear, looking both ways down the street hoping I would see Martin coming down the road. I knew a lot of things had changed since I had come here. One being that my parents had gotten a divorce around the same time Andrea, my mother, stopped coming to visit me. I suppose that would have been about one and a half years ago now. To my knowledge, Martin had rented an apartment in a completely different town and Andrea sure as hell didn't fight to get any sort of custody of me. There would be no every-other-weekend bull, nor would I be invited to holidays with her. It's not like I was all that surprised honestly. She never did show much interest in anything I did or was involved with. That is, until I gave her a reason to think I was defective. It wasn't long after that she discarded me all together like week old convenient store sushi.

I let one of my favorite songs ring through my mind, playing Nirvana's "Something about the Way" in my head to ease my anxieties that dared to crack my chest plate open and ooze through. The therapist, who had oversaw my case during the entirety of my stay, walked up the three wooden steps onto the porch. He was a tall, broad man with a wide nose and kind blue eyes. I always poked fun at his hair because he always had it slicked back like an old 1960s gangster you would see in the movies. He smiled at me warmly and patted my shoulder. "Now remember, meds twice a day, coping skills, good nights rest, yeah?" Mr. Bennette looked at me with a smile on his face. He knew I was ready to leave and that I could handle it.

I nodded, giving him a two finger salute. "Aye Aye, captain. Meds, Cope, Sleep, got it." He flashed me an even bigger smile.

"You can do this, Gabby. I'm proud of the progress you have made."

Oh yeah, progress. Progress in the art of lying maybe. There he was, making snide comments in my ear. He wasn't wrong... None of the medications had helped. I still saw him. I still heard him. I still felt him. Oddly enough, for someone who was supposed to be delusional, I only had the one. Always the same boy. Always with the same attitude.

I shook him off. I had grown very good at ignoring him. I had to if I wanted to have any chance of a normal life. I looked up at Mr. Bennette with a stiff smile. I only had a few more minutes before I would only have to lie to him once a week. Thursdays. At 3:30 pm until 4:30 pm. Luckily, we were interrupted as Martin's sleek red Equinox pulled up to the curb in front of the house.

My father was a youthful man with clean cut blonde hair and bright green eyes. He looked as though he could be my older brother and not my father. Then again, that's what happens when you're the product of babies having babies. My parents conceived me when they were only nineteen years old. Luckily for them my mother had already inherited the family law firm and the house to go with it so there was never any hardship financially. He walked towards me as I walked down to him and wrapped me up into an unsuspecting hug.