Everything Unfamiliar

II.

My name is Phoebe, and today it is my fifteenth birthday, three years away from the day I am scheduled to be abandoned and left to fend for myself. I rise to multiple knocks on the bedroom door, my heart feeling as if it's trying to escape the prison of my ribcage, something I have been experiencing since my entering of foster care, like my brain, heart, and every single nerve in my body is in a constant state of suspense, waiting for the moment my surroundings are suddenly and drastically altered. I recognize these knocks as Danielle's.

Two months ago, I was removed from a foster home that ripped at my soul with intense malice. I don't have any memories from the time I was imprisoned in that house, but only flashes of things my mind had tried to dispose of but weren't quite gone, like the ash that still lingers in a formerly burnt-down forest still lying beneath the new soil. They rise in my dreams, or present themselves as ghosts behind my eyelids as I blink; everything appears to me in third person like it never really happened, like it was just a film I had seen long ago. And though I am not in that house, I'm constantly burdened with a sickening feeling that seems to corrupt my very being. I realize a part of me will always be in that house, and In all the houses before it. Each one taking a little piece of me for themselves like wild animals, and soon only my bones will remain. When I was eventually mercifully removed from that house, I was brought to Danielle and Liam. A successful couple with a nice home, copious amounts of money, and a desire to help lost children like me. Their kindness has been a miracle to me. Through these months I have been with them, I can feel myself re-emerging from the chilling darkness I had previously been drowning in. But still, I keep my distance because eventually, all good things must come to an end. And that is why, when Danielle and Liam walk into the room, a social worker standing beside them, I feel absolutely nothing. Because I've been preparing myself for this the moment I was introduced to them. After so many years of having to desert the places I felt were beginning to take place as a home for me, I have learned to treat every destination as if at any moment I can be removed in an instant, like a felon that can never settle. To never be too comfortable. And when I look at the faces of Danielle and Liam, both of them so solemn and almost guilty, I smile at them. They all walk into the room and gather in front of me. Then, they recite a long speech to me about the reasons for my being moved; a talk that is so familiar to me I know it by heart. They inform me I am going to be moved to a new home in a few days, and I'm going to meet my foster family tomorrow morning.

"Thank you for everything, really," I say, softly.

"Of course, honey," Danielle replies, her voice a whisper.

Slowly, I get up and begin to pack up the little belongings I have. They all seem to watch me for a minute before exiting with no words, and I am left, like so many times before, to gather the things that are hardly mine. Happy birthday to me.