Some People Change (Currently Editing)

Chapter Eight

A few days passed, and it was time for Joanne to go to her foster home. Thankfully, Lauren gave me the opportunity to say goodbye to her. She took to her office where Joanne was waiting for me. My sister’s tearstained face told me that she had been crying and it hurt   

“It’s going to be all right, Joanne,” I said softly, trying so desperately to hold back my tears. “You’re going somewhere special. Just for a little while.”

Joanne didn’t understand. All she knew is that she was going someplace without me. 

“I’ll miss you, Sissy,” Joanne said.

I gasped. I had never heard Joanne talk like that! 

“I’ll miss you, too, Joanne. But we’ll see each other again.”

Joanne nodded, and then we hugged. I kissed her forehead, and then she was gone. And it was terrifying not knowing if it was for two years or forever.

Two more days went by, and then it was my time to leave the shelter. I was still heartbroken about Joanne and my hate for Lauren still remained.

I packed up my stuff that morning while the rest of the girls were in the bathroom. But then, Collie came in. 

She suddenly pulled a knife out of nowhere and pointed it at me. I was too shocked to scream, so I just fell back on my bed instead. Then Collie crawled on it beside me and held the knife under my throat so that the tip of it was touching my skin.

“I know you’re leaving today so I can tell you this,” Collie said.  “I’m not really mute. Being able to talk just complicates things, you know?” I moved my head up and down with my mouth hanging open. “Just don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t. I swear.”

Collie smiled and then put the knife away. And even though Collie Faraday could talk, it didn’t mean she was at all, in the least, normal.

I breathed a sigh of relief when she left to go to school. And then Lauren came in. 

“Are you okay?” she asked. I glared at her. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah.”

I pushed past my caseworker with my suitcase, and then we went to the parking lot. Lauren unlocked her car, and I threw my suitcase in the trunk and then hopped in the passenger seat. 

Apparently I was going to live with a woman named Amy Westcott. She was single, in her mid-thirties, and she had been a foster parent for ten years. There were also two other girls in her care at the time. And that’s all I knew. Oh, and her place was half an hour away in the middle of freaking nowhere. I hadn’t ever heard of the town! Wonderful.

I immediately went into “road trip” mode. Which basically meant I ignored any other people in the car, and stared mindlessly out the window.

Thankfully it was only half an hour. I think I could manage it…hopefully.

But after ten minutes…I realized that I hadn’t been sentenced on a thirty-minute rode trip to go meet my new foster mother; I had been sentenced to hell. Lauren wouldn’t shut up about how great Amy was, and it was stupid stuff that she couldn’t stop talking about. Like how bright and blond her hair was, and how it associated with her bubbly personality.

I still tried to ignore my caseworker, but looking at the desolate land that passed by the car window soon became very boring. So, I tried to let my imagination just run free, but of course, Lauren made that impossible to do so.

Finally, we turned off the freeway onto a small road that said Blazewood Mountain. A few minutes later, we started following a long, winding driveway. Then we arrived at a nice, two-story, blue house. It looked almost Victorian style. It even had a wraparound porch.