My life hadn't been so much on the upside, I gained little happiness through anything - if you could say I had anything. People say things will get better, just stick through it, but in my case, things just got nothing but worse from when i was about 4 until about a year ago.
I was given the most beautiful of names when I was born into this world; Derkangela Olivia Laden. I have one brother, and he's the one who's stuck with me through everything, and he means everything to me, he's all I really had left, and he was the one that took care of me. He's about 12 years older than me, 27.
When I was 4 years old, (my brother being 16) My brother, mom, dad and I were driving back from my uncles house, which is up in when the car slipped off road, which was on a mountain-side. My father had not made it alive, and my mother was paralyzed from the waist down. My brother had broken his wrist, and I luckily enough hadn't received any severe injuries. My brother says i was unconscious though, and an ambulance took us to a hospital.
When I regained consciousness, I was laying in a hospital bed, only to see my brother, and my mother, who was now bound to a wheelchair. My brother recalls me asking many times, "Where's daddy?" but only being able to choke out "Daddy's gone." But me being so young, I didn't understand, but eventually after a while I caught on to the fact that he wouldn't be coming back. Our house was left now to me, my mother and brother.
A year after I finally started elementary school, and even then I was quiet and anti-social. It was until about second grade that i really made my first friend. Her name was Charlie. We didn't really talk to eachother much, but would always hang out together. Having someone with me while I was at school was amazing.
About after a month we were friends, my mother had a heart attack, and I didn't go back to school for a couple weeks. Our other uncle moved down to where we lived, and he provided the roof over our heads, at least for a little while. He had next to no money, so it only lasted long enough for my brother to get enough money for us to get a small apartment, and our uncle to move back in with our grandparents. When I finally returned to school, I found out that Charlie had moved away.
In third grade, I made another friend. Her name was Christina. This is a friendship I would have never seen myself be in. She was kind of like that stereotypical popular girl, almost like a complete opposite of me, but she put me before her other friends. She was the first friend I'd actually talked to on a daily basis. About halfway through the schoolyear, my aunt had committed suicide. I never knew why, but after about a week, my uncle also comitted suicide. This happened over our winter break, so I never missed any school.
Once we entered middle school, the sixth grade, Christy was still my only friend. That was, until school started. In our math class, we got to choose our seats, at four seated tables. We stuck together, and talked for a bit. Before we knew it, we were the only ones still standing. There were only two spots left, but surprisingly, it didn't look like a bad couple to sit with.
They were both girls too, their names were Dakota and Bridgette. The two looked to be complete opposites, just like Christy and I. Dakota was an intelligent, quiet, and always seeming to be annoyed. Bridgette on the other hand, had bright blue dyed hair. She always seemed to be rediculously hyper.
As soon as we sat down, Bridgette gave us a loud "Hey guys, how ya doin?"
I replied with a simple "Fine."
