My First Love

My story

My name is Lexi.  I'm 20 year old orphan.  I wasn't always this way.  I had a home and a family.  My parents were actually very well off.  So well off, in fact, that they thought they could get away with anything. 

You see, I'm a red-head.  A natural born, very stubborn red-head.  I can't stand it when people tell me what to do, especially without a reasonable explanation.  So when my parents told me I was not allowed to go to the basement, I naturally wanted to go.  

They kept the door locked.  I had no way of getting in.  I was just about to leave, but I heard crying inside. 

"Hello?  Is anyone there?"

A key slipped from under the door.  I took it.  I opened the door to find a boy about my age.  I was ten at the time.  He looked so scared.  He was so frail and thin.  I could see his bones protruding from his skin.   What was even scarier was seeing his mother tied up in that room.  She was tied up, and looked hurt.  I knew what I had to do.  I took him by the hand and we took off running.  I took him with me through all the hallways and hidden places that the hired help could never find me in, until we were finally outside my house. 

I really didn't know where to go once we were outside.  We couldn't exactly leave through the gate, and I was too short to reach the buttons to type in the code.  We took a dive through the dividing shrubs instead.  I don't know how many lawns we went through like this  before we finally made it to the nearest street.  I guess we caused a commotion with the neighbors.  The police were already waiting for us when we broke away from the last line of shrubs.

A very big, dark-chocolate complected man, with a bald head and thick, muscular arms stooped down on his knees.  We ran to him, screaming "HEEELLLP!"

"What's the matter, little red?"

"They have her at my house!"

I described, a bit spastically I will add, of how I met the boy beside me, and the state his mother was in when we left her.  The cop put us in his squad car, and I gave him directions to my house.

There are three things that I will never forget.  One was the way the boy beside me wailed "MAAAAAMMAAAA!" when they brought her outside, loading her into an ambulance.  I did not realize how bad off she was until she was put in the light.  The second was the look my parents gave me when they were being taken away in handcuffs. "Lexi!  What did you do?"  Looking back now, I guess they were caught red-handed of whatever it was they were prosecuted for.   I never saw my parents again after that day.  The third was the way that little boy and I clung together and cried.  I'm not sure who made the first move, or who was comforting who.  I only know we made each other feel safe.  We fell asleep in the back seat.

I woke up at my grandparents house, but I didn't stay there long.  I guess they resented me for squealing to the cops. And I probably ruined our family's reputation by not being quiet about it.  I ended up being sent to the orphanage because there wasn't anyone in my family that wanted me.

I ended up bouncing around in foster care, going from one bad home to another.  Some of them turned out to be very violent.  I was a big girl by then. I used my size to my advantage, to push people away and fight them off.  Though it did wreck my RAP sheet a bit, claiming I was a violent person and all. 

The last family had a son that tried to get fresh with me.  I came so close to getting hurt.  As always, the parents didn't even try to get my side of the story.  It finally landed me in juvie.  I had lost all hope by then.  On the night my current foster parents told me they were putting me away, I cried by my bedroom window, wondering why about everything.  I looked up at that full moon in the night sky, and poured my heart out of all the things that nobody else was listening to.  But while I aired the linens, I began to realize something important:  I was one tough bitch.  I had been through things that could have been much worse for me, and somehow I managed to pull through.  It was the night I had my own revelations of self love and respect.  No matter what, I would always have my own back.