Real Family

Prologue

There is no worse fate for a child than becoming an orphan. Thinking that you are all alone in a great big world full of people who care about everyone and anything, except for you. Traveling from different foster care homes, never settling in one place because every time someone took you in they would all end up bringing you back. That was my life. I had been in the system since I was 12, and now at the prime age of sixteen, I had no hope for being adopted. No one wanted a teenager anyways. At least I never really knew what a parent should act like, my father was an abusive asshole, so that set a pretty low standard for a father figure. I guess it helped with the pain, how was I supposed to want something that I never had?

I slammed my hand down on the blaring alarm clock, large red numbers reading 6:00 AM causing me to groan, flopping around in the small mattress, and accidentally rolling off and smacking my head against the wooden floor. "Shit," I muttered, I always forgot how close my bed was to the floor. The foster home didn't have enough money to buy bed frames so I slept on a small mattress that could barely fit my body. Falling off was a natural occurrence.                            Untangling myself from the blanket, I stood to my feet, swaying from side to side with early morning grogginess. Opening up the bathroom door I stepped over the piles of dirty clothes from the other children, ignoring the mold forming in the corner, slipping out of my shorts and t-shirt I stepped into the shower and turned the knob. The cold water hit my skin like pairs of needles poking and prodding at my back. I grabbed at my waist, trying to still the shaking of my body and chattering jaw. We barely ever had oil so to preserve it we would keep the furnace off unless in extreme situations. December weather didn't help the situation either since in the winter most of the pipes froze anyways. I quickly washed and lathered my body, and hair with the small bar of soap, rinsing and turning the water off. Now all I had to do was not die of hyperthermia.

Walking into my small room in the attic, towel wrapped around my body, I hurriedly pulled on a pair of black leggings, sports bra, and a grey sweatshirt. Leaving my room and walking into the kitchen I found Katie, the foster parent of the building. She was an older woman in her 50's, grey hairs sticking out of her bun and piles of mail lying in front of her. She twirled a pen in her hand, her glasses slipping down her nose as she frantically wrote numbers on a notepad.                    "Bills?" I asked noticing how she jumped when she saw me, "don't worry about it." She responded quickly, taking her glasses off and rubbing at her eyes, setting the pen down and resting her head on the table with a sigh. "Did you get any sleep last night? Please don't tell me you were staying up all night doing this?" I asked, taking her silence as a yes and let out a sigh of frustration. Instead of scolding her I found her head flat on the table, silent snores omitting from her and I decided to leave her be while I made breakfast. I quickly cracked some eggs into a bowl, stirred them up and put them on a pan. Despite the stress in the house, cooking always helped calm me in a strange way. Well, it was calming when we actually had food. The pounding of little feet knocked me out of my thoughts, tiny heads poking around the corner. "Mia! Mia, guess what!" I immediately perked up at the voice turning to one of my favorite kids, "Hey James, did you sleep well?" The small boy had just turned 5, freckles littering his chubby face, and bright sparkly green eyes and a messy head of brown hair. He had a front tooth missing and spoke with a lisp, which only added to the cute factor. I had no doubt he would be adopted soon, I tried not to think about that too much. I patted him on the head as he nodded frantically. "I had this really strange dream that I was a customer in a grocery store. I bought carrots, broccoli and tomatoes then went home and made soup, and I hate soup!" He spoke quickly and if I wasn't used to his occurrence of strange dreams I wouldn't know what he was talking about. Eyes widening and mouth forming an o shape I simply smiled in reply. "That's one crazy dream. Now go see if you can get everyone for breakfast." He quickly ran off, speeding through the hallways as I simply chuckled. Groans came from behind me and I turned to find Katie slowly waking up. "Ugh, what time is it?" I looked at the clock on the oven, "9 o'clock, why do you have plans?" She groaned again, "sugar honey iced tea, no-we have plans." She let out a sigh pushing herself up from her sitting position, "potential adopters are visiting today." I jumped, almost dropping glass plates as the words left her mouth. Gently setting them to the side, as I whipped my head towards Katie, "we what! How come you never tell me about this!" She sighed glaring at me, "because you always react this way-"

"I react this way because if I knew people were coming I wouldn't have left my room or I would have snuck out." I sighed glancing back over to the clock, "Let me guess they'll be here at 10?" She grunted, picking up the plates and helping me set the table, "9:30"