Searching for Love

Chapter 7

        "There it is, Cindy! There it is!!" The old purple car takes a wild turn and I nearly spill my water all over myself. "You could have told me earlier, Sydney!" Cindy says trying to be serious but her face has laughter written all over it. I can't help but laugh either. In this situation, it's either crying or laughing. Personally, I think the latter is a whole lot better and I'm glad that Cindy agrees with me.

            A pit forms in my stomach as we near a Starbucks with a  little grey truck parked outside. There are two painful little words on the side: Westburry Orphanage. "You're sure you want to do this, honey?" Cindy looks at me with pleading eyes. Something inside me tells me I shouldn't, but I push that thought down deep.

            "I'm sure, Cindy. I'll be fine. Text me when you get here to pick me up. Around 5:30?" "Okay sweetheart  I love you." "I love you too," I say. I close the door behind me and take a deep breath walking towards the coffee shop and the worst day of my life.

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Flashback Sequence)

            “Hey, Sydney! Game night in my dorm at 7! Be there or be square.

 

 Oh, Kyle, I think to myself. What to do with you?

 

            I was coming on to my 4th year at Westburry in March – Two months away. I was turning 14 the month after April to be exact. I was born on April Fool’s day and my childhood was a joke. How ironic. I began to question how God fit in to all this. For all I knew, I was a mere puppet in life and God saved His worst experiences for me. Oh, what fun.

 

            I head back to my room to tidy up. I was lucky enough to have a room to myself. Mostly because of my disease. My defect. At least, that’s what everyone told me.

 

            See, a few years back, I began to wonder why I was different than the other “throw-aways” (that’s what we called ourselves). I wondered why I had different rules and different attention than them. Then one day about 2 ½ years ago, a girl named Michaela came up to me on the playground during rec time. She pointed her grubby little finger at me and said; “You want to know why you’re different, Sydney? Why no one wants you on their team or invites you to dorm parties? Because you have bipolar. You’re defective. And no one like defective “throw-aways””. With that, she flashed her perfect brilliant smile and skipped away.

 

            From that day on, one word stuck with me my whole life; defect.

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------