mute ➺ camren

Chapter Nine

The weekend went by quickly, Lauren worked on Saturday, an old 9 till 5 shift, and sat in the book store for an hour or so after she finished, with her takeaway coffee keeping her hands warm. It was mid-October, and getting ever so slightly colder of an evening each day, but it was probably just the rain. Lauren was generally one to wear hoodies and long shirts all year round, so she never really felt the cold. Camila on the other hand arrived in Miami with very few clothes, most of which were suitable for the heat of Mexico, or Cuba, wherever it was she came from, and that wouldn't do her good when the temperature began to drop. Although, Miami winter's were never that cold, but they were colder than what they would be in Mexico.

Everyone was sat down to dinner, the care worker, not Ally, one of the part-timers, set various different items on the long table. The Sunday dinner was usually the same, chicken, potatoes, some vegetables but not a lot, most of the kids didn't like them, or could get away with not eating them. If it was Ally on the Sunday shift, there would always be an immaculate dessert to follow, she was quite the baker. But since it was her Sunday off, there wouldn't be anything sweet; some of the kids would sneak some chocolate from the fridge or cookies from the cabinets when no one was there, but others, namely Zach, had a stash of candies in his room. He was skinny as a rake, but ate like a horse. It was confusing.

Lauren sat at her usual seat, with Robin on one side of her, and an empty chair the other side. There were always empty seats, as there were never 20 people sitting for dinner what with only 15 kids in there, plus a worker if they sit for dinner. As everyone sat down, Lauren noticed an unusual space beside Sofia, where her older sister would usually sit. Camila was absent. On a Sunday night? Lauren thought, confused as to why Camila wouldn't be here, when she knows the rules are to be in on a Sunday night. Just as Lauren had the thought, the front door opened and slammed shut again. Everyone turned to face the door to watch her come in. After a moment of shuffling and shoes being kicked off, the small brown eyed girl appeared in the doorway, looking rather pleased, until she realised everyone was staring at her.
"Sorry I'm late." Was all she said, before she hung her bag on the back of the chair beside Sofi and sat down in it. Everyone began eating and picking up things from the dishes in the centre of the table, people passed down things they wanted and served themselves dinner. Mackenzie and Lori helped Victoria pick up what she wanted, since she was little, and Michael helped William and Jesse, the youngest boys. The table wasnt purposely divided into boys and girls, it was just age groups, or whoever shared rooms tended to sit together, besides Camila, who sat several seats down from Lauren. Robin didn't see sitting next to Lauren as sitting with company; Robin was almost as quiet as Lauren was, but she did speak, she just didn't like to interact with the younger kids.

No one really knew what Robin's deal was, she was extremely reserved, and spent all of her time in her room, when she wasn't at school. She was intelligent, often sent home with letters addressing whomever it may concern about her being gifted in many subjects, but she kept them to herself, and went into school pretending the offer for gifted programme's had been declined by her guardians. Every few months she would leave for a few weeks, and then come back miserable and lock herself away for days, not eating anything until finally being coaxed out, usually by Abigail, her social worker, who Ally would get hold of through Mark, the guy in charge of the place. None of the other kids knew why she did what she did, and no one ever asked her either, she was almost as scary as Lauren to the little ones, almost.

There were 6 social workers linked with the foster house, 7 now that Camila and Sofia came. They all had their different departments, and dealt with kids from similar backgrounds or those who had similar stories, or issue etc. Abigail was Robin's social worker, and also Mackenzie's, but the other kids didn't know what the girls had in common as Robin didn't talk about her family life. Camila and Sofia had their own one, Penny, who dealt with international foster children. This home had never had that situation before, so they didn't have a social worker of the right status to deal with the girls. Lauren shared a social worker with Jesse, as they both had parents or a parent who had passed away. Lauren rarely saw her social worker, Zoey, as she knew where her brother and sister were, and wasn't ready to forgive her for taking them away from her. It would always be a losing fight for Ally to get Lauren to see her when she came to visit her and Jesse. Victoria, Olivia and Lori shared a social worker too, Nora, who dealt with the medically neglected children. Victoria was born a heroin baby, and suffered with asthma and was iron deficient. Most of the kids knew that, as they had to be taught how to help her if she were to have an asthma attack. No one knew what Olivia's circumstances were either, they just knew she came from the hospital before she came here, she didn't talk about it. Lori had scoliosis, and so had Nora as her social worker too, to take her to hospital appointments and get her prescriptions for her pain medications. Leonardo, Michael and William had the same social worker too, Melanie, they had similar situations of being left alone as babies, and Esther and Jacob had the same one, Miles, they both suffer with quite severe mental health issues caused by their being neglected as babies. Finally, there was Zachary, who had a different social worker, Tobias. Zachary wasn't always in foster care. His mother died of cancer when he was a baby, and his father was a marine, and couldn't afford to quit his job after Zach's mother died, and so Zachary lived in respite care while his father was deployed, and went home when he came back. Until he didn't come back. Zach grew up from age 8 without any parents, and became very angry that his father had been taken away from him. That's why he hated the care system so much.