Deepest Shade of Jaded

Chapter One: The Park

Deepest Shade of Jaded

Chapter One

                The day was cold and wet, when I was found wandering in the streets of downtown Baton Rouge. At six years old I wasn’t much to look at, but I doubt that was what drove my parents to abandon me. It had started as a normal Sunday in the spring of 2002. I got up and put on the outfit my mom had picked out for me, my favorite jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. I went down the hall to the kitchen, where my mother was cooking pancakes and my father was drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.  I sat at my chair and ate two whole pancakes! Mom was really surprised that my appetite was so big, but I was a growing girl! Then my mom started talking strangely. She muttered about it “being the day”. I didn’t understand what she meant. My older brother Devin came downstairs in a rush, brushing his long black hair out of his eyes. He was always doing that, Mom wanted him to get it cut but he refused to let anyone near him with a pair of scissors. I liked it. While he ate four pancakes, I jokingly called him a piggy, and he snorted at me. Unlike most brothers, he was really nice to me and we stuck together. He was always there when I needed him, and never let anyone be mean to me. This is why he sharply asked Mom why she kept looking at me weird. To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t realized she had looked my way at all, I was too focused on him. She just shook her head and gave me one last glance, before telling my father, “It’s time.” He nodded and told us to bundle up, because it was cold outside. Thinking we were going to the park my brother and I quickly grabbed our coats and gloves, pulling on our boots and climbing into the backseat of the family minivan. As usual, Devin took my hand to comfort me during the car ride, as I didn’t like being inside of moving vehicles.  We drove for a long while, often going down the same streets two or three times, before arriving at a park that I had never heard of. That really didn’t matter, because before long, Devin was pushing me on the swings as high as he could make me go. I was exhilarated with the speed, the crisp air making my cheeks a rosy pink. Devin laughed with me, he loved making me happy. But soon my parents called him over leaving me to slowly come to a halt. I looked over and he was crying stomping his feet, yelling at my parents and asking them over and over, “Why?!” My parents had absolutely no expression on their faces. Finally, my mother rolled her eyes and grabbed Devin by the arm, literally dragging him to the car and throwing him in. I’m assuming she turned on the child-safety locks, because he didn’t get back out of the car. When she and my father got into the car, I ran after them, trying to get them to turn around and face me. I grabbed for my father but he shut the door before I reached him. I screamed for them to let me in, and I could hear Devin screaming for them to let him out, that he needed to be with me. The words of my ten year old brother and my six year old self held no sway that day. My parents drove off, and left me at that park. I ran after them, but my short legs were no match for a moving vehicle. I was terrified. I looked around for some sign that I was close to my house, but everything looked foreign. I walked for hours, crying until my head hurt, and then crying some more; because my Mother was supposed to make it go away. My mother was supposed to keep anything bad from happening to me. Devin was supposed to protect me, and Daddy was supposed to lift me up when I couldn’t walk. No one was there. I must have been in an abandoned section of town because there were no signs of life, just boarded up windows and overgrown lawns. I was tired, and it had started raining. Slipping through the front door of an abandoned house, I curled up and slept.