Adopted By Melanie Martinez

1 - Early Birthday

"It's time to get up, Tiny." Sister Hellen said, shaking the bed frame. Tiny had become my nickname here. It started when Lauren, the Orphanage's resident "good girl", told me that I was too tiny. She started a group of people who, in hopes of being helpful, walked around me all day, calling me "too small" and "too skinny" and "ungodly."

I didn't like it, but I wasn't one to argue with the head girl of the orphanage. Sister Hellen, Sister Andrea, and Sister Michelle picked up on the name quickly, soon calling me by the name as well.

Sister Emmalyn and Sister Mary frowned on the name. They said it was mean, though they didn't stop them. It was like they thought it was funny. They were just giving me pity points. Anything to be closer to their god.

I didn't really believe the stories of God. It didn't make sense. How can one man create the world. How did Adam not wake up when one of his bones was ripped from his chest?

I wasn't a believer.

The sister's knew it. They frowned upon it and often kept me after class to pray with them. I would pretend to do it just to make them happy. Just like I let the other girl's call me the names.

The only person I really liked in the orphanage is Mrs Rose. She was the lady that ran the orphanage and ran all the paperwork when someone wanted to adopt.

She was the one who held me that day four years ago and just let me cry. She's the one who told me that it would be okay. I was her favorite and everyone else knew it. We didn't know why. Just that she liked me.

"Come on, Tiny. Don't you dare go back to sleep," The nun said. "A woman is coming by today. You have twenty minutes to eat and finish your chores." She shook the bed frame once more before before leaving the room with the light shining in my face.

I opened my eyes, looking around the small dulled brown room. Room three. There were five bunk beds against the walls, three on the left and two on the right. I slept on the top part of the bed on the right, closest to the wall. Samantha, the youngest in the orphanage at five years old, slept under me. We had developed a sisterly bond after she was moved from the nursery. Though, Lauren and her friends were slowly making her join them.

On the bed next to us slept Lauren on bottom and Sarah on top. On the other side of the room slept Katelyn J, Briana, Rylee, Bailey, and Caitlin F. They were best friends and they constantly changed where they slept.

I swung my legs off of the bed, dropping down onto the first step of the brown ladder and turned around to put the thin white sheets back in place. I fluffed the rock-hard pillow as best as I could before climbing down the rest of the ladder and exiting the room.

I immediately turned to my left and went into the five shower, five stalled restroom. Those were the only things the state paid for: the bathroom and the beds. Everything else was bought and provided by rich, pitying families and whatever money Mrs Rose could donate that month.

The nuns never helped out to buy anything in the orphanage. They just taught the girls and made sure that they were up and presentable for anyone willing to get rid of them.

Mrs Rose was nice. She would sometimes bring the girls food from the local Fast Food places. That how she found out that I was anorexic. She gave me a burger and I immediately gave it to Amy, a girl in room two.

Mrs Rose then would come by for a few minutes every meal time to make sure I was eating my share. I still didn't eat as much as the other kids. Everytime I tried to take a bite of anything, my moms would flood my mind, telling me to stop. Calling me fat. I couldn't handle it after a couple bites, so I would either give it to someone else or simply throw it away.