I Am None

Chapter 1

Let me start my story at the beginning, this all started when I was twelve years old...
"James." My mother came into my room and took a seat on my bed, next to me.
"Yes, mother?" I asked her, putting down a book I had been reading. She looked sad, like she had made the biggest mistake of her life,
"I- I can no longer take care of you. Ever since your father died, it has been extremely hard to get money, and I either have to give up the house, or give you up. And I thought that if I gave up the house, we would be miserable, at least if I gave you up, you would have a house and better parents." She said, tears started to fall down her cheeks. I was stunned, the words weren't processing in my brain.
"What?" I mumbled. She avoided eye contact with me, staring at the ground. I sat up, right next to my mother. "At least, if you gave up the house, we would still be together." I said, trying to persuade her to change her mind.
"You deserve better." She said. "Pack your bags, we'll leave soon." She said, she looked like her heart was broken, but if she truly cared, then she would've stayed with me,
"What about Grace?" I asked, that was my sister. My mother turned to look at me, "she's going with you." She said, I looked directly at her eyes. The reasons she wanted us to leave probably have nothing to do with the house. She looked relieved in her eyes. It took all my strength not to yell at her. I grabbed my school bag, packed it with my clothes and books. I walked out of the door. I went into my sisters room, she was crying and packing. I walked over and hugged her, she bawled into my shoulder.
"We'll be ok. We still have each other." My sister was nine at the time, I felt worse for her than I did for me.
"Thanks." She said in between cries. I kissed her head,
"I'll help you pack." I suggested, she nodded and wiped her tears. She put all of her clothes into her bag. I went over to her closet, I looked around to make sure she didn't forget anything. "Look what I found." I grabbed something from the very back of her closet, it was her favorite stuffed bear that she lost a couple months ago. Once she saw it, her eyes sparkled. She grabbed it and hugged it,
"Thank you! You're the best brother ever." She smiled. I loved seeing her smile, it made me smile. I put it in her bag, safely. She grabbed her bags and we walked out to the kitchen. A woman was there, she was wearing a very proper dress, it was pretty much a gown. Her hair was put up in a bun, her face had a warming smile.
"Are these the children? They're adorable." She smiled at us. "Oh, don't be scared, you'll be just fine." I didn't realize, but me and Grace both had a nervous expression.
"Goodbye, my loves." Our mother came over to hug us, we both backed away. "Please, just one more hug." She asked, I looked at Grace, she nodded. We hugged her one last time, I whispered to her,
"This has nothing to do with the house, doesn't it? You're relieved we're leaving." We stopped hugging and I walked over to the other woman. My mother looked at me, with a guilty expression. "Goodbye." I said, I grabbed Grace's hand again and walked out the door. The woman put us in her car and drove us to her orphanage. Once we got there, I looked up, a boy was looking at us through the window. When he noticed I saw him, he left. I held Grace's hand a little tighter.
"This is your new home." The woman noted, "My name is June." She smiled and brought us into the house. It wasn't very big, it had a kitchen in one corner and a couch in the other. There were a couple kids on the stairs to the left, seeing who was new. What I didn't know then, was that my entire future was in this one, small, house. "Let me introduce you to the kids," she waved for the kids to come over. They lined up, there were four girls and five boys, until the boy that I saw in the window came down and stood next to another boy. June went to the end of the line,
"This is Ava King." She motioned to a girl with strawberry blonde hair and deep blue eyes. Ava looked shy, but she gave a little smile. "Next is Gavin Darling." She pointed to a boy who looked messy, with dirty blonde hair and green eyes. "This is Little Johnny." She pointed to the shortest boy here, he has black hair and dark eyes. "This is Hazel Mckinnin." Hazel has light brown hair and brown/green eyes. "Next is Paige Gab." Paige had bright blonde hair and bright blue eyes. "The last girl is Samantha Brown." Samantha was black, with brown hair and deep eyes. "This is Brayden Gray." He had brown hair and blue eyes with freckles along his cheeks. "This is Peter Gray, brother of Brayden." He had reddish hair, and brown eyes. "This is Jarrod Jones." He had very light brown hair and hazel eyes. "Last but not least, this is Simon Haven." The boy who looked at me through the window, he had blonde hair and blue eyes covered by glasses.
"Hi." Grace said, "Nice to meet you all, I'm Grace, and this is my brother, James." She smiled, she went up to them and shook each of their hands.
"What's your last name again?" June asked us, she was holding a paper, probably our information. "Heather, Grace and James Heather." My name changes during my future, let's just say that I earn the name as I get older.
"Right." June walked away, and put the paper into a filing cabinet.
"Hey, I'm Brayden, and this is my younger brother, Peter." From the first moment I saw Peter, I knew something was off about him, this Peter would change my life.
"Hey, I'm James." I looked over at Grace, she was talking to the boy June introduced as Gavin Darling. I looked away to see Simon staring at me. I looked back to Brayden, "What do you know about Simon?" I asked.
"Actually not that much. I know a lot about everyone here, except for Simon. He keeps to himself. All I know is that he's older than all of us, I think he's seventeen. In a couple months, he won't be able to live here anymore, he'll be an adult." Brayden said. He walked over to Grace to introduce himself. I looked at Peter. He looked scared of me. A look that I hadn't gotten before then, but would end up getting all the time.
"Hi, how old are you?" I asked him. He looked afraid to answer.
"Eight." He peeped, then walked away. I was confused on why he would be scared. But I moved on,
"Hey." I said to Hazel. She looked at me, she was really pretty.
"Hi, James, right? I'm Hazel. I think you'll like it here." She smiled, I blushed a little, that was the first time I had ever done that.
"Thanks." I managed to say. "I-uh, sister." I pointed to Grace. Hazel giggled.
"Grace. Pretty name. How old is she? And how are you?" She asked. I felt like I was being pressured into saying something. All I could see was Hazel's face.
"Uh- Grace's nine. I'm..." my voice trailed off when Hazel flipped her hair. She looked at me like she was waiting for me to finish my sentence. "Oh, I'm twelve." I answered, I shook my head to come back to reality.
"Nice, I'm sixteen. I'm gonna go meet Grace, see ya' later." She smiled, then walked away. I stared at her walk away, then I rubbed my eyes. I opened my eyes to find the world back to normal. Next, Ava walked over to me.
"Hi, I'm Ava." She said. I nodded,
"Hi, I'm James. I'm twelve." I said. She nodded, like she was putting that as a mental thought.
"I'm fifteen." She said, then walked away. After I met everyone, I walked over to Simon, who was leaning in the corner of the room, next to a window.
"What's your problem?" I asked him, trying to be quiet so no one heard this. He raised an eyebrow at me, "Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about, with your staring." I said, putting my hands on my hips. He stared through the window, after a while of me standing there, he looked at me and stood up.
"Why are you here?" He asked me, I raised an eyebrow at him.
"Why?" I asked him, he leaned back on the wall and stared outside again. I had this weird feeling that I could trust him.
"My mother-" I started and Simon looked back at me and stood up. "-she gave us up. She said it was for our own good because-"
"She would either need to get rid of the house or you. And she said that you deserve better so she brought you here." He said, I was shocked he knew that,
"Yes, how did you know?"
"The same thing happened to me." He looked at me like he had never met anyone who had something in common with him. I curved the corner of my mouth to make a slight smile.
"Now that I answered your question, can you answer mine?" I asked him. He looked out the window, then back at me.
"My father always told me to never trust anyone, he was a... pirate." I jumped back, pirates were known to be harsh, evil, robbing, viscus beings. "He was probably the worst father out there, if your father told you to be kind, my father told the opposite to me. He was barely home, and I knew where he was, either out on the water, or in a town destroying it. And my mother, she was madly in love with him for reasons I never knew. She was to worried about him being hurt, that she forgot about me most of the time. I would walk into the kitchen for dinner and I would find her eating already, with no food ready for me. I would wake up to go to school and she would be gone at the store or just doing whatever she wanted. I didn't have a good childhood, and that's why I keep to myself a lot." I was the first person Simon ever opened up to, I was the first person he trusted. And I took that to heart.
"Wow. I'm so sorry, I thought my childhood was bad. My father died a month before my sister was born, I was about three years old. My mother had a hard time getting a job, and had an even harder time taking care of us. I had to take care of my sister as much as I could, make food for her, play with her, walk her to school. It helped that she's a great sister and was appreciative for everything, but it was hard nonetheless. I never could imagine how hard it was for you, I'm so sorry." I said, he grinned a little, "What?" I asked him,
"You're the first person that I've ever told my story to, I thought you would run away, but instead you stayed and shared your story. Thank you." He said. I smiled,
"Anytime. Consider me a friend." I said, then walked away. I never would've guessed that me and Simon would go on to be the best of friends and "work" together. "Hey Grace." I said as I walked up to her and Gavin still talking.
"Hi, this is Gavin, he's great." She smiled, Gavin held out his hand to shake mine. For some reason, I was hesitant, but I did.
"Hi, your sisters really nice, she told me you raised her, you did a great job." He smiled, his teeth were perfectly white and straight, the only thing clean about him. He had dirt all over him and didn't care. Something about that had me hesitant to become friends with him.
"Thanks." I said, keeping my distance, even though Grace was happy to be standing right next to him. My sister is very bubbly and trusting. Anyone could tell she had a pure heart and that she would grow up to be a beautiful woman. I'm almost the opposite, I have to know someone before I trust them, but I let that slide for Simon. Anyway, I always stay clear of the people that my gut tells me aren't right. I'm what people called ruggedly handsome, but when I was twelve I was actually quite good looking.
"Let me show you your room." June walked over to us, Grace grabbed my hand and followed June as she walked. June led us to a room with two twin beds, "I wasn't sure if you wanted separate rooms-"
"No, this is perfect." Grace smiled. June patted my back,
"Great, you can unpack and meet us downstairs for some dinner." She left the room and closed the door. I walked over to the bed farthest from window. I placed my bag on the bed and unpacked a little. There were two dressers next to the wall. One had blue handles and one had purple.
"Do you want the purple one?" I asked her. She looked at the dresser and nodded. I started to put my clothes into the blue handled dresser and put my books on top of it. Grace did the same. She put her stuffed bear on her bed.
Then we walked down to the kitchen area for dinner. I saw some of the kids playing a game in a corner, Simon was in his normal spot (leaning against the wall, staring out the window), and a couple other kids were sitting at the table, reading. Grace jumped down the stairs and ran over to the kids playing. Every kid (other than Simon) looked at me, wondering where I was going. I looked at the readers, then the kids playing, then Simon. I walked across the room to Simon.
"Hey." I said, he looked away from his window and looked at me, then noticed how everyone looked confused on why I had chosen Simon over any of them. "Why do you do for fun?" I asked him. He tilted his head, like he had never heard the word. "You know, like playing a game, or reading." I said as examples.
"I know what fun is, I just haven't... had it." He shrugged like it was no big deal. I squinted my eyebrows, a bit mad at how his life had unfolded.
"I'll have fun with you, I promise, that you will have fun today." I said, certain. He slightly curled the corner of his mouth.
"Thanks."
That day was the most important day of my life, it was the day I met my best friend, my worst enemy, my future brother, and the woman I would grow to love. I hated my mother for putting us in the orphanage, but really, I should be thanking her.