Holding Hands With The Devil

Chapter one.

The Nightmare-1781 by Johann Henry Fuseli

"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell"- Oscar Wilde

I wasn't ready. I really wasn't. I was supposed to get up and, you know, live life and shit. At least that's what my therapist loves to say. My response to that is always the question of who to do it for. And then she's quit all of a sudden because that's a question she can't answer. It amuses me. Therapists amuse me. None of them actually know how it feels but it's their fucking job to pretend like they do. And I have nothing against that you know, I wouldn't have had a better use of my time anyway plus, like I said, it amuses me to see her struggle over the fact that she actually has no damn clue what to say to me. But she's a lovely lady so I'll keep visiting her just for fun. Obviously not because I think that she could help me in any possible way. My mind is definitley too far gone for that and I think that back in her little, pretty, blonde head she knows it too.

I was done for today and about to get up after she wasn't able to answer my question, as always, when I heard her mumble something. "Excuse me could you repeat that?" I asked. "You", she said a little bit more clear now. "What about me?" I was getting impatient. "I thought about your question. I do it every time. I just didn't have an answer and the best I came up with after all these times of you asking me is you. You should get up and live your life for you." A small smirk was plastered on my face when she finally looked at me because altough it's relatively cute, she knows I'm not about that life. That's not going to work but it was still very sweet that she actually thought about an answer. "Thank's for your effort." I said with an amused smile before I went and got out of her office.

The streets of LA were crowded. There were people all over the place and I took my time to analyse some of them on my way back to the foster home I lived in. Well, live may be the wrong word for how we get treated there but we were supposed to live there. They accept our existence let's call it that way. There was a mother with a boy on her hips. They were eating ice cream and laughing over probably something dumb the child said. Then there was an eldery couple. They were taking up the whole sidewalk which made the people walking behind them look very frustrated. In front of me was a younger couple holding hands and stopping from time to time to kiss each other which to me, seemed very unnecessary. Maybe I just wasn't meant to understand the whole love-thing. I'm 17 years old and I only had one boyfriend for like two weeks I think when I was 14. I just never met anyone who aroused my interest I guess. Well, it probably didn't help that I was most likely not arousing anyones interest either. I mean who wouldn't want to have a mentally damaged girlfriend that has one too many pounds, compared to all the other size 2 girls out there, that lives in a foster home in probably the worst and most fucked up neighborhood in LA? I honestly don't get it. I smirked at the path my mind was taking and after a little while, I entered my so called home.

"Hey B, where u been?" My friend Avery called as soon as I opened the front door. "Went and visited my good old friend Mrs. Smith" I replied. "Well how was it?" "Same shit, different day." I said while walking up the stairs to our bedroom. I slept there with 3 other girls almost my age. Avery just turned 16, Lizza was sweet 15 and Everleigh was about to turn 15 in a few days. I didn't really know much about Lizza and Everleigh besides their names and their age but I also couldn't care less. We didn't talk very often but I had a feeling that that was fine for the three of us. Avery on the other hand was an open book. She talked to everybody about everything. I didn't need all of that. I was a lot more closed off and liked to be on my own from time to time. I also didn't talk about why I was in a foster home and after a few months even Avery gave up on asking because she knew she wasn't getting an answer. I learned that the more people know about you, the more vulnerable you get and that wasn't exactly the vibe I was going for and no one had a problem with that anymore. They knew when they were supposed to leave me alone and they all did as I wished. I actually had a little secret room up in the attic no one knew about. As I was roaming around the house a few years ago I found an old hidden door in a closet that lead up to a cute little plain room. Everything was made out of wood and there wasn't any furniture. Over the past few years I decorated it with everything I found on the streets. Someone once threw away a perfectly good mattress which I took at night and carried up there together with a little chair, some candles, some books and a few more things. It was pretty cosy in there and I thought it turned out great. And there was always room for more. My little secret chamber had grown a lot. That's where I was 50% of the time people were looking for me.

I plopped onto my old bed which was most likely gonna break in no time, considering the noises it made, and closed my eyes for a few seconds before Avery came barging in and started telling me about her day and how she actually thought James, a boy that also lived here, wasn't half bad after all. I listened to her with one ear before my mind started trailing off.

"Hey are you even listening to me?" Avery got me out of my trance by waving her hand in front of my eyes.

"Yeah sure" I replied dry.

"No you aren't, I said James told me that a new guy is coming tomorrow."

"Cool." I couldn't care less. These people came and went. I didn't even know half of their names to be honest. I also didn't see them because we never ate together or stuff like that. That was probably the only thing amazing here. We didn't have someone who constantly kicked our ass or had to take care of us. The people that owned this foster home just put food in the fridge and that was it. I came here when I was 12 and back then, times were hard. You don't know how to live on your own when you're that young but I practically was forced to. Still I somehow managed to complete school and now I had a little job at a bar. Back then I kind of grew up to be a motherfigure for the other kids because they couldn't handle it to be alone but they were all gone now. I had no clue where they are now, maybe someone adopted them. It didn't matter because I was still here and will most likely be until I turn 21 because in this foster home you stay until you're 21 or until some nice family picks you up.

"Well I know that you don't care but I'm going to tell you anyways. His name is Blake and he's 18. That's all I know for know but we'll see tomorrow." she said, full of excitement.

"Why are you so excited about him? These people come and go. He most likely will be here for another year or less. So don't get your hopes up."

"Okay miss sunshine I see your mood is truly amazing today so I'm just going to let you sleep and see what James is up to." she mumbled a little sad.

"Alright good night wishes miss sunshine." I replied mockingly.

That night I didn't sleep well. I just kept turning and turning and when I finally fell asleep, still before the other girls where going to bed, I had a dream. I dreamed about a mysterious boy named Blake. And I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that I did because first of all, I never dreamed. And second of all, I didn't dream about boys, let alone boys that I had never seen in my whole entire life. I could already feel that the next day was going to be awful. Well wel-fucking-come Blake.

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Hi my dudes. So I don't know how it happend but I actually started a new story that I am TRYING to complete. I am not a native eglish-speaker so feel free to point out my mistakes and I will correct them.

Love y'all, Raya x.