Shattered memories

Chapter 6 Picking up Sharp pieces

Cordeen.

That's the first thing I noticed when I arrived. The faint paint on white letter box. I waited there so many times waiting for a letter that would accept my request of emancipation. Hours staring in empty space too afraid to move.

Cordeen was my name for nearly three years, still legally is apparently. Barely eleven years old I was shoved in the arms of another couple.

The last one's barely kept me for a year. They found me too disorderly and out of control, unstable violent they used every reason in the book. Truth was they were broke and didn't want to care for me. Not that they did a good job at that beforehand either, they were just the best of an already bad situation. At least they thought me I could only rely on myself for providing.

Before them it was the Strickler's, a family in suburban Maine. My siblings had a fun time kicking the freak around. Freak, little monster,weird, psycho and worst of all different, is what I've been called to my face multiple times there. It's funny how people who use that last word for me never hid their contempt as well as they thought they did. Or for anyone they consider so when I think about it. Perhaps it's just human nature.

"He's just different." My mother sheepishly told the other women the few times she brought me to a play date. I didn't like playing with the other kids and had a tendancy to hog legos. Then I started stimming, meaning I flapped my hands a bit while making noises to counteract the overwhelming amount of stimulation I was feeling. Other kids were just so painfully loud.

That day she pulled me away so hard I had bruises on my forearm for days. Funny that's not what sealed my fate.

One day as I walked back from school there was that big dog following me. At first I thought it was a pit bull, then it was a Tibetan mastiff.

Then it was a hound the size of a garbage truck.

I ran for my life naturally, the massive dog chasing me all the way back home nipping at my heels. I managed to outrun it and accidentally bumped in my brother Josh. So for this great affront he started shoving me around.

Weirdly enough it's the hound that saved me. It sent Josh flying into a trash can, giving him a nasty concussion. When I turned around it was gone leaving me alone with my enraged guardian.

They blamed me obviously. The barely ten year old who could pass for a seven year old concussing their poor innocent boy who was at least five years older than me at the time.

I rubbed my cheek remembering how much it stung after my father hit me. Along with how much my tears burned my cheeks as they both screamed at me until my ears rang.

I shuttered a bit at the memory, I didn't even remember their names. That's how little they mattered to me, but I could still recall every day I felt like an outcast with them. Like some dumb animal they picked up off the streets.

I was happy when they sent me away. Only barely a few months later I wish I could beg them to take me back.

The Cordeen's seemed nice at first. They were both very old farmers who said they wouldn't mind teaching youth some character and good values.

They also happened to descend from some very radical religious people.

ADHD autism both of those things meant devil at work for them.

I began walking towards the two story house trailing my hand through the slowly dying wheat.

I stepped over the police tape and onto the front porch. I waited a few moment in front of the door before entering.