All Kinds Of Kinds~Miranda Lambert

Orphanage Blues

Lacey POV
I paced the room nervously. I was being moved to another orphanage in Nashville, due to it being overcrowded in Knoxville. They told me that since I was one of the oldest ones, they had to move me. I was 15.

I had my only suitcase in my hand and clutched my guitar. My parents had been killed in a carwreck that I was also in when I was around 10-11, I was given to one of my uncles, but he fell sick, and no one else could take care of me. So, off to the orphanage I went. It didn't really bother me at all, everyone was pretty nice to me, but I still wanted a home.

I sat back down on the bed, they had moved me to a separate room after saying all of my goodbyes. Some of the little kids had made me friendship bracelets, they donned my arms, there were four of them. Beautifully braided with bright string they had gotten at Christmas. I fiddled with them as I waited, one had stroking them on my right hand and the other clutching my guitar for dear life.

I had been given a guitar for my 9th birthday and carried it everywhere since. Everyone knew not to touch my guitar unless they asked, and I would teach some of the younger kids songs to sing along with. I smiled at the memory and began to strum my guitar absentmindedly. I only owned one guitar pick that I wore around my neck. It hid some of my scars, I had three, one on my face, down my right eye from an abusive orphanage home, and two on my neck from I think the carwreck. There were more, but the others were hidden by clothing.

I was about to start playing a song that I knew when the door opened. "We're ready for you." Jennie, the woman that ran the orphanage, said to me. She lead me outside, there was a black SUV. She helped me put my suitcase in the back and I held onto my guitar. She opened the back left door for me. I turned and she smiled sadly at me. "Goodbye, Lacey. Good luck! You can send letters to me, all the time." She gave me a long hug. She had always been a mother to me, she said one more goodbye and slipped a note into my hand.

I climbed into the car and shut the door. "Hello, Lacey!" I heard someone say, I glanced at the driver's seat. There was a bald man with a scraggly white beard sitting in the front seat. He smiled wide at me, but I got a weird vibe from him. He turned fully around and began telling me about my new orphanage. It was in Nashville, a few streets over from Music Row. We drove in silence after that.

When we pulled up to the orphanage, it was a cute, pink building with a lot of colors on the outside of it. I climbed out of the SUV and the man handed me my suitcase. "We need to go and check in." All of his nice tone from earlier was gone! "Oh..Okay?" I asked. He looked at me a grunted. "Don't talk back to me." "Okay. Yes. Sorry." "Sorry what?" He snapped back at me. "Sorry sir."

I knew that this was going to be a terrible experience. We walked into the front doors and he lead me through some hallways. "Here's where you'll be staying. In the older kids rooms." He said gruffly. He opened a door on the right and lead me inside. The room had chipping paint everywhere and too many bunks were squeezed into the small room. "And I'll be taking that." He said, forcing the guitar out of my hands.

"Hey! You can't do that!" I yelled, all the other kids turned and looked at me. "Yes, I can. I don't want you disturbing anyone else." To my surprise, a tall kid with brown hair walked over to us. "She won't be disturbing anyone! It's only a guitar. If she doesn't play it, it's just like a teddy bear. Please, Mr. Matthews." I glanced gratefully at the guy. "I will think about it, Kyle. but I do not want any more talk of this." He snapped.

He left me to stand in the middle of the room, speechless, and completely lost without my guitar. The one thing that I loved the most. My blue, sparkly, accoustic guitar. I sighed and started to search for an empty bunk. "Hey, there's one next to me." I heard someone say. I turned back around, it was the same guy! Kyle...? He was tall and muscular with brown hair. He had a deep and warm voice when he talked that drew you in.

"Okay. Thanky you." I said numbly, dragging my suitcase with me. I sat on the bunk next to Kyle, we were both on the bottom bunk. "They got adopted, so it's been kinda lonely over here." The bunk was in the corner, on the opposite side of the room from the bathrooms. "Thanks for standing up for me back there." I said shyly. "You're welcome. I used to have a guitar too, a nice Yamaha, but they took it away from me. I got it back after a year, but I have to hide it under my bed. I play it for people only on holidays or late at night when they can't notice." I gulped, a year!?

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." I said quietly. "It's okay. If you wanted to, you could play it sometime, just be careful." He smiled. He had one of those smiles that was a bit lopsided, it went up further on the right side of his face, almost like a smirk. "Thank you." I said. We talked for a little while, about our past lives and our family. He had two little sisters, they were both adopted a long time ago, but they still wrote to him.

I was about to say something when I heard a siren going off. I glanced at Kyle and he smiled at my reaction. "It's dinnertime." I sighed in relief. We all had to stand in a straight line, leading out of the door. It reminded me of a breadline in the Great Depression I had heard about. They served us bread and some sort of mystery-looking soup. Kyle lead me to one of the tables in the cafeteria. We ate our disgusting meal and talked about our favorite things.

We finished and it was time to go back to our bunks. It was around 8:00, or that's what my watch read that I had put on from my bag. "It's time for bed! Everyone get in bed!" I heard someone announce. I ran to the restroom one last time and went to my bed. "Goodnight, Lace." I heard Kyle say. "Night, Kyle." I smiled, but only slightly.