On Our Own

Chapter 1

"Okay guys, ready?" I asked.

"I don't know about this, Leah. What if Monica or Jess catches us?" Nina, one of the more responsible girls, questioned as she observed the situation at hand.

"It's fine," I replied as I chewed my gum completely unbothered by the idea of getting in trouble.

"It definitely isn't," she argued, crossing her arms.

"We never have fun, go inside if you don't want to jump," I said back.

"Not my fault if you guys get caught," she yelled as she walked back inside.

I looked up at Jack, my brave little foster brother who was up on the roof, and smiled. "Okay, on my mark, get set, jump!"

However, just as Jack was about to, we heard the patio door slide open with a huge angry thud and I prepared for the inevitable yelling I knew was coming.

"What is going on here?" Jess demanded.

Jess didn't have to ask, she could see exactly what was going on, and from her expression it was clear she was horrified.

"Absolutely not, Jack, get down from there right now!" she yelled.

Jess then looked over at all of us cheering Jack on by the pool.

"What do you all think you're doing?" she asked with a hand on her hip.

At once all the kids scrambled into the house, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as a disappointed Jack made his way back inside up on the roof. When it was just me and Jess, I looked down at the grass as I waited for her to yell at me.

"Why, Leah?" Jess asked, rubbing her temple.

"I thought it would be fun," I said with a shrug before putting my sunglasses over my blue eyes.

"You thought it would be fun to make them jump off the roof?" Jess questioned as she looked appalled by the height at which they were going to jump.

"No, I thought it was a good idea to jump from the roof into the pool," I corrected giving her one of my signature smirks.

She looked back at me with her signature frown.

"Just go upstairs and change, we can't have this right now," she said tiredly as she shook her head.

"Why not?" I argued back.

She gave me a stern look. "Behave, Leah, at least for today," she warned before going back inside.

I picked up my jacket and walked to the house, I trudged up the stairs and I changed from my bikini, into ripped jeans and a sweatshirt. I let my silver hair fall from a messy bun into whatever place it willed and studied my face. I debated whether or not to put makeup on, I finally put on some mascara, and studied the blue eyes staring back at me.

"They're beautiful," Jess had once said.

"They're haunting," I had responded back.

There was only one picture of my birth parents. Evidence that they shared these damned blue eyes with me. Two people who shared my DNA, my features, according to some, their personalities, and they still did what they did.

My blue eyes were a permanent reminder that I had a family who didn't think I was worth enough to keep. My past therapists all surmised that these thoughts were where my insecurities and abandonment issues started, maybe they were right, I wasn't sure.

Nonetheless, I had these moments often, where I debated whether I should go downstairs or just lay in bed all weekend. It was a mental thing, my doctor thought maybe it was depression. I never really believed that. There were kids way worse off than I was, I had no right to be depressed.