Holding Hands With The Devil

Chapter two.

Lucifer by Franz von Stuck

I want to live my life in such a way that when I get out of bed in the morning, the devil says "aw shit, he's up!"- Steve Maraboli

After husteling around in bed all night, I finally woke up sleep-deprived at 9 in the morning. I decided to get up and take a cold shower to come to life a little bit more. All of the other girls were already up, so I didn't have to fight anybody to get in the shower today. I got out pretty quickly because I was never one for long baths or showers. I just needed it to get the job done and for that, 15 minutes were more than enough. Picking out clothes to wear for the day didn't take long either because I guess you could say my wardrobe looked kinda sad. It consisted of some pairs of black pants and a few shirts. Nothing fancy at all. No dresses, no skirts, no jumpsuits. Of course I could've bought some new clothes, considering the fact that I hadn't really bought any since I probably was 15 but I would rather save the already few money I got as a bartender for my future. The future outside of this shithole.

I put my hair into a ponytail as I walked out of our bedroom, heading to the kitchen. A few people were sitting around the table including Avery and the other girls.

"Good morning Bella. Are you feeling better today?" Ave asked me with a smile on her face.

"How the fuck can you be so happy in the morning? But to answer your question, I'm fine, thanks. I didn't exactly sleep very good but it's whatever." I only whisperd the 'the fuck' part because I normally tried to contain myself around children. I knew that my language was pretty rough and I tried to work on it but 90% of the time I just didn't give a damn.

"Well still, I'm sorry about that. Do you want to eat something?" she beamed at me.

"You don't have to excuse because I'm pretty sure it wasn't your fault you sweet bullock." I smirked back. "I just came down here to make the shopping list since it's saturday."

That was also my job. Like I said, I used to be a replacement mom for all the kids out here. And I also cleaned, made the weekly shopping list and people came to me whenever they had problems, wether it was about school, boys or girls or about any other thing a teen could think about. The only thing I continued doing is the list just because I didn't think we'd have anything to eat if I wouldn't. I got down here every saturday for half an hour and wrote down the things we needed. A few years ago I made an agreement with our foster mom Nathalie, that every kid got a special something. A small wish if you will. Of course we agreed that the wish couldn't be that expensive. They couldn't ask for a new computer every week. It was supposed to be some candy or something like that. So when I finished writing down the essentials I sat down at the table and the children formed a line and I wrote down their wishes. I on the other hand never wished for anything. I did that agreement just for the others. See how good I used to be to them? Now I don't even know half of their names.

"Earth to Bella!" Ave waved her hand in front of my face. "Did you write down everything they said?"

"Yeah, yeah got it. You guys can go now." With that, everyone went out of the kitchen leaving me and Avery alone.

"Oh Bella you don't even know how much I'd like to know what's going on in your head right now." My friend looked a little worried.

"Ave, I'm fine. Really. I promise." I flashed the biggest, fakest smile I could without her noticing something was wrong. "I'm just a tad bit tired." I went out of the room hoping she wouldn't follow. Oh boy was I wrong. It only took her a few seconds to be on my heels.

"Sooo Blake." "Oh hell no not that again. I already told you that I couldn't care less." I barked back. "Chill I was just gonna say that he'll probably come with Natalie when she picks up the shopping list." she defeatedly held her hands above her head.