I was born on May twenty-second, 1991. A week after I was born my mother dropped me off at an orphanage. I’m not sure why, maybe she didn’t want me, maybe she just couldn’t take care of me. I don’t give it much thought. The only thing I worry about getting out of here. The people here are nice, they treat me as if I were they’re own son…but I’m not.

The head ‘sister’ is the meanest but she is also very nice. To me anyhow I’ve made friends and I’ve lost them. Even though I’ve lost many friends over the years; I’ve never grown keen to losing them. It’s always a bad time and the women that work around me comfort me every time. They tell me the same thing,

“Oh, one day it’ll be your turn!”

But I’m afraid that I’m not going to get a turn. I turn 18 in a year and yeah I’m excited about getting out of here and getting to be on my own, but I’m also frightened, I won’t have the life everyone else will have. I’ll be alone.

When I meet a girl that I like, it may be easier but then it may not. I won’t get to take her to meet my family, I will not know the ways of the family life because all I’ve ever had: is loneliness. I’m wont get to visit anyone at Christmas or Thanksgiving. If I don’t meet anyone I’ll be alone for those holidays. There have been a number family’s who have met with me; and every single one of them has denied me. Their excuses? I was too old, I’m too emotional. Well if they had grown up from birth in an orphanage they’d be emotional too. I see things differently. I question simple answers, I need more information than one can give. I’m a curious person.

I have a meeting with a family today; I’ll try to be on my best behavior but I’m not promising anything.


I sit in the chair in front of the man and woman who are seeking to adopt a child. They specifically asked for one that is in their teens so they can’t use the age against me.

“What do you like to do on your free time?”

I shrug and say,

“Well, I like to write, I mean what can one do in an orphanage ya know?”

The woman laughs, it’s a sweet laugh. The man just sits there and has a look of disgust on his face, I wonder what disgusts him. The woman speaks again,

“That’s good; writing is a good thing to do it lets your emotions out!”

Here comes the emotional thing.

“Do you enjoy music or anything of that sort?”

I’m surprised by her next question usually people look at me weird when they find out I’m a writer,

“I do actually, I write songs. I sing and I play guitar.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you play us a song?”

“Seriously?”

I’ve never got this far with a family before.

“Yes, I want to hear you sing!”

“Um, let me go get my guitar.”

The woman sits back and says,

“Okay, we’ll be waiting.”

I walk out of the room and down the hall; I enter the room where the beds are and I walk over to my bed. My guitar is sitting on my bed, I grab it and I walk back down the hall to the conference room. The woman sits up excitedly and looks at me.

I sit down in the chair and I place the guitar on my lap and I say,

“I wrote this song, myself. It may not be the best impression but it’s the only one I’ve put music too.”

“That’s fine.”

I strum the guitar and move my fingers the way I’ve composed and I sing.


I finish the song and the woman is in tears, she gets up out of her seat and she comes over to me and hugs me. I’m a little freaked out so I don’t know if I should hug her back or not, but I manage too and it feels good. She pushes me away and she says,

“We’re going to adopt you!”

I look at her in disbelief,

“Really?”

“Yes!”

I can’t help but smile, I was finally getting out of here, with a family.



I pack up my bags and they fill out the papers. They pick me up and I leave the orphanage. We arrive to my new home and the woman, whose name is Susan, gives me a tour of the house. I got lucky. The living room is huge and I’m not talking small huge I’m talking huge, huge. The kitchen is really shiny and the appliances are Chrome. She then takes me to my bed room. The room is big. I have a queen sized bed, a big dresser. A sound system that is out of this world and a computer. She says,

“We had a computer specialist come in and he put on a recording program so that you can record your songs and mix music and things.”

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

“That’s awesome! Thank you!”

I hug Susan and I walk over to the computer. I mess with it all day until eight o’clock, then I shut down the computer and I go to bed. It’ll have to take a while to get used to staying up later.



I wake up the next morning at six o’clock. I get up out of the bed and I walk downstairs, Susan and Jason are not awake yet. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. I walk through the living room and I go into the kitchen, I look in the refrigerator and I grab a soda and I open the can. I drink my soda and I make my way back up to my bedroom. I lie on the bed until I hear a knock on the door. I sit up and Susan slides her head in.

“You awake?”

“Have been for a while.”

“Oh, well you could have gone downstairs to watch TV.”

“I did go downstairs and I got a soda but then I came back upstairs and I laid here until I heard you guys get up.”

“Well any other time you can go downstairs to watch television or something.”

“Okay.”

“You can take a shower, in the upstairs bathroom; Jason likes the downstairs bathroom to be his.”

“Okay, that’s fine…where is the bathroom?”

“It’s right down the hall, on the left.”

“Alright.”

Susan leaves the room and I walk over to the dresser and look in all the drawers for cloths. I finally pick some out and I make my way to the bathroom. When I enter the bathroom I look around and the sight of the place is sparkly clean just like the kitchen. I set my cloths on the sink counter and I start the water. I undress and I get in the shower.

When I finish I exit the bathroom fully dressed and I walk downstairs and I see that Jason is sitting on the couch in front of the television. I sit down on the couch, my knees are pointing straight ahead and my hands are in my lap and my head is turned to look at the TV. Jason looks at me with a curious look and says,

“Why the hell are you sitting like that?”

I look at him confused,

“How else am I supposed to sit?”

Jason takes a drink of something in a can, not sure what it is.

“Well most normal teens plop they’re feet up on the furniture wherever they go.”

“I don’t think that’s polite.”

Jason looks back at the TV and mumbles but I’m pretty sure he said,

“F***ing freak!”

I got up off the sofa and I walked into the kitchen to where Susan was, I sit down at the table and she looks at me and says,

“Hi, how was your shower?”

“It was fine, ya know…warm.”

Susan laughs at my lame excuse of a joke so I just went on.

“Am I going to start public school?”

Susan looks up from the bacon and says,

“Of course, I’m going to call on Monday and get you set up.”

“Really?”

Excitement soared through my body,

“Yes, what’d you think you were going to do?”

“I was afraid I’d have homeschooling.”

“Afraid?”

“Yeah, I mean I like you and Jason I do…it’s just I’ve been ‘homeschooled’ all my life and I was hoping I’d get a chance to go to a public school.”

Susan smiles and says,

“I’m glad you want to go. You’ll make a lot of friends.”

“I hope so.”

The next two days pass and Jason is an a** to me as usual and Susan is just the most enthusiastic woman I’ve ever met. She gets me set up to go to on Monday my first day being Tuesday. Monday night I try to go to bed super early but of this time I actually stayed up until about three in the morning from excitement.


I wake up on Tuesday morning at seven o’clock and I hurry up and get take a shower and get ready. I run to the kitchen and Susan is already in there cooking me breakfast.

“I’m making waffles, you want one?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

I can’t sit still at the table my knee continuously shakes and I can’t stop it. I’m becoming impatient. Susan watches my leg and then she begins to eat her waffle and says,

“You’re not nervous are you?”

“No, just excited.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, it’s an unbearable excitement. I feel I’m gonna explode.”

“You’re just being impatient.”

“I know but it’s hard to be patient when it’s my first day of real school.”

“I know I won’t hold it against you. How about I take you early so you can get your schedule done sooner and start class?”

“That’d be great!”

“Okay, your new book bag is in the closet by the front door.”

I jump from my seat and I run to the living room and I look in the entrance closet where an orange and black messenger bag sets. I grab it from the ground and swing it over my shoulder and Susan follows me out the door to the car.

We arrive at the school and she pulls into a parking spot. We both walk in and go to the main office; they direct us to the guidance office. When we enter the office my mom walks up to the receptionist desk and starts to talk to the woman sitting behind it. I look around not listening. I finally start to listen when it seems they are about to stop talking,

“Okay, I’ll get his schedule made up right away.”

“Thank you!”

Susan walks back to me and says,

“You just sit down over there and she’ll get your class schedule made, okay?”

“Alright.”

“I’m gonna go on back home now, I’ll be here at three to get you.”

“Okay. Bye.”

“Bye.”

I sit down on the bench by the door and I clasp my hands together and I wait. When the woman calls my name I stand from my seat and walk over to her desk. She holds out a piece of paper and I take it into my hand. She says,

“Your first class is upstairs, go up the stairs down this hallway and it’s the first door on your right. “

“Okay, thank you.”

“Your welcome.”

I walk out of the office and up the stairs to the first door on the right. I enter the classroom and the teacher is getting ready for class. I say,

“Excuse me?”

The woman looks up at me and says,

“Hello, can I help you?”

“Um, I’m supposed to have you first period.”

“Oh, you’re new?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Well welcome, um class hasn’t began yet, but since your new and you may not have any idea where everything is, you can hang out in here until class starts.”

I nod my head and I ask her,

“Where do you want me to sit?”

She looks around the room and points at a desk in the back of the room and says,

“That’s the only one empty.”

I walk over to it and I sit down without saying anything back. When the bell rings kids start pouring in, I’m starting to feel a bit nervous and it’s kinda scary. As they walk in some pause and stare at me and then go on, others stop dead in there tracks and look at me, and some others just ignore me I like those people. They all sit around me and I’m feeling a bit self conscious. When the bell rings for class to start the teacher quiets everyone down and then the next words that come out of her mouth are horrible,

“Class we have a new student, Travis will you stand up and introduce yourself?”

My heart beats faster and harder and I hate this. I stand from my seat everyone looking at me I begin to speak,

“My name is Travis. Hi.”

I attempt to sit down but the teacher speaks again, I’m starting to hate her voice,

“Tell us your last name Travis and where you’re from.”

I stand straight up again and I sigh loudly and then I say,

“Um…I guess my last name is still Richards, I’m not sure. I grew up in an orphanage; I just got adopted like 3 days ago or something like that.”

“Oh, that’s interesting.”

“No, not really.”

I laugh without knowing it so the entire class laughs. I sit down in my seat and she goes on with her lesson and I attempt to listen. After class I look at my schedule and see what room I go to next. A guy comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder. I flinch and look around at him. He’s a big guy, he looks a little rough and he’s smiling. He says,

“Hey man!”

“Um…hi?”

“You don’t remember me?”

“Sorry no.”

“It’s me, Nick.”

“I…I don’t know a Nick.”

“I used to be in the orphanage with you. We were like best friends.”

“Oh, I guess I do know a Nick, I’ve tried repressing all of my orphanage days.”

“That’s cool, I tried too it didn’t work.”

“So what have you been up too?”

“Not much, just hangin with friends and stuff. What about you?”

“I finally got adopted.”

“So I heard, congrats! Do you like your family?”

“They are okay, the woman is as enthusiastic as they come and the man is just annoyed with everything.”

“That’s cool. What class you got next?”

I hand him my schedule and he says,

“That’s weird, we have every class together.”

“I guess they put the orphans together then.”

Nick laughed and then we both walk to our next class. I asked him where an empty seat was and he said,

“Dude, we aren’t at the orphanage anymore, we sit where we want.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we can sit together. Over here.”

I follow him to the seats and I sit next to him. I watch the class pour in and again look at me weird. This is getting annoying.


Two class periods later, it’s time for lunch. Nick and I walk into lunch and I ask him,

“So do your friends actually go here or what?”

“Yeah, we don’t have any classes with them; we have lunch with them though they are sitting over there.”

I look over to a table in the back corner and I feel a little weird about sitting with them, they look…bad. I put my thoughts aside anyway and continued to follow Nick. We sat down and his friends look at me just as everyone else all day has done. Nick says to the others,

“Hey guys this is Travis, he used to live in the orphanage that I did. He just got out so…treat him nicely okay?”

They all look at me with a curious look. Soon after the looks fade and Nick and I sit down and they pull me into the conversations as if I have gone here all year. After lunch, Nick asks me on our way to class,

“Hey, what are you doing after school?”

“Um…I’m not sure; Susan said she’d pick me up after school so…probably something with them.”

“Oh, well if your not you should ask her if you can come hang with us.”

“What are you guys doing?”

“We’re just going to hang out.”

“I’ll see if she doesn’t mind.”

“Cool.”

The school day goes by and I have a pretty good day. Everything goes by great except for the staring and that soon ends when people are used to seeing me. I go out to where Susan is parked and I lean into the window and knock. She rolls it down and asks,

“You need something?”

“Um… I met a friend today and he wanted to know if I could hang out with him today. If it’s alright with you?”

“Oh of course, you guys have fun! Will you need a ride home?”

“I don’t think so, I’ll be fine.”

“What time do you think you’ll be home?”

“I’m not sure but I won’t be out too late. I promise you that.”

“Okay, I’ll see you later then.”

“Thank you.”

“Have fun!”

I run from the car back to the school porch where Nick was standing. We both walk back into the school to find his other friends. When we do we leave the school walking. We reach Nick’s house and we go up to his room. The room is smoky and I can barely breathe. I and the other guys sit down on the floor, and Nick sits on his bed. He reaches over and pulls out his nightstand drawer, he pulls out a baggie and a little booklet thing that looks like a match book but it isn’t and a lighter. He opens the little booklet and pulls out a piece of thing paper; he then opens the baggie and pulls out something brown. He then rolls the paper up and when he does this I know what it is, it’s a joint. He puts it up to his lips and he lights it. They pass the join around and when it gets to me, I hold it and look at it, I can smell it, to be honest the smell isn’t that bad but I still can’t bring myself to do it. I pass it back to Nick and he takes it and says,

“You don’t want to?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s illegal.”

“That’s what makes it fun. And the buzz that comes with it.”

He laughs and I say,

“I don’t really want too.”

“Okay, whatever. Your loss.”



I look around the room and the other guys look like they are in a complete daze and I can’t handle it, I look up at Nick and I say,

“Hey I better go.”

“Why? Do you want us to stop?”

“Not if you don’t want too, I just I can’t be around it, I feel like I’m gonna suffocate in here.”

“We can go outside, no biggie.”

They all stand up and I follow. We leave the house, outside the air is so much better, I can breathe and sadly I can see them all even better, they all look high, already. I feel like I am because of being around the smoke, I ask Nick to look at me and I ask,

“My eyes aren’t red are they?”

He looks at me and he says,

“No man, why would they be you haven’t done anything.”

“I’ve been near it and in the room with nothing but smoke.

“Sorry man. I didn’t know you didn’t want too.”

“It’s okay, I just don’t want Susan to think I’ve been doing it, or else I won’t be able to hang with you guys anymore.”

“Well I’m glad we mean so much to you!”

He laughs; I can’t seem to find anything funny. I continue to walk with them around the town, the buzz they had from the little bit of weed they had smokes finally wears off and we just hang out without any drugs and we all have a great time. I finally get home around eight o’clock, Susan walks into the living room when I get home and she says,

“Where have you been?”

“I told you I wouldn’t be out too late, I was with Nick.”

“It’s eight o’clock.”

“That’s not that late. I think it’s a reasonable time.”

“Well it’s not! You have to be home by seven.”

“You didn’t tell me that!”

“Yes I did!”

“You did not!”

“Go to your room!”

I sigh and then storm up the stairs, pissed. I hate the fact that she is so f***ing crazy that she can’t even remember that she didn’t tell me to be home by seven. I look in the mirror in my room and I wonder what is making me think these thoughts, I wonder why I’m all of a sudden cussing in my head, I’ve never done this. I give up on the thought and I lie down and go to bed.

The next morning I walk to school alone, I meet up with Nick and the others at the front of the building. We walk in together and spend all day together. After school I went to Nick’s house again, this time when the joint came to me, I put it to my lips and I inhaled. The feeling it left was good, I felt…happy. Susan and Jason haven’t made me feel this good. We continue to smoke it until the entire joint is gone and then I tell Nick to light another one and he does.

After we smoked our second joint, we went walking again, we went into a store, Nick said,

“Man, I totally have the munchies right now.”

I looked at him and then I looked around the store and I said,

“They why don’t we get something to munch on?”

“We don’t have any money man.”

I lead them to the back of the store and I say,

“We can just take it.”

I grab a six pack of candy bars and I shove them down my pants. The other guys do the same thing, to other things. We leave the store, the clerk at the front asks,

“Did you not find what you wanted?”

I answered,

“No, ma’am, we were looking for a specific kind of candy bar and you guys do not have it.”

“Well have a nice day then.”

“You too.”

We walk out of the store and down the street, we go behind an apartment building, there is a bunch of green grass behind it. Like a secret meadow. We sit down against the wall and we pull the candy out of our pants and open the packages. When we leave from behind the apartment building it’s well past 12 and as I walk home, I make myself expect Susan to be waiting in the living room. When I get there, it’s not Susan waiting its Jason. I walk in and he asks,

“Where have you been?”

“I was out with friends. It’s Friday.”

“I don’t give a damn if it’s Friday, Saturday or a f***ing new day of the week you are to be home at seven every night.”

“That’s just messed up.”

“You worried Susan to death; it took me two hours to get her to go to bed.”

“I’m sorry, I figured you guys would be like normal parents and allow me to stay out later on weekends.”

“You’re grounded; you go straight to school and straight home. That’s it!”

“Fine, whatever.”

I walk up the stairs from the living room the upstairs hallway. I walk in my room and slam the door. I lie on my bed and fall asleep.

The next morning, I wake up and I walk down stairs, Jason and Susan are in the living room watching TV. I don’t speak to either of them as I walk into the kitchen and look in the refrigerator. I pull out some bologna and cheese and I pull the bread from on top and I begin to make me a sandwich when Susan walks in. She lays her right hand on the centerpiece counter and her left hand on her hip. I look at her and then I continue making my sandwich. She says,

“Where were you last night?”

“I was with Nick.”

“Until one o’clock in the morning?”

“It was twelve-thirty when I got home.”

“It’s the same thing! It’s way past seven!”

“Susan, if I have to be home at seven every single night, then why should I bother hanging with friends that’s not enough time to do anything. I understand it during the week nights but on weekends, I think I should be able to stay out later.”

“You could have at least called!”

“Your right but I didn’t why make a big deal out of it now. I mean if I’m anywhere I’ll be with Nick so why does it matter?”

“Because we don’t know him!”

“He used to be an orphan too, we met there.”

“We need to meet him!”

“Fine, I’ll bring him over one day after I’m grounded.”

“You’re ungrounded. Go get him!”

“I can’t just go get him, that wouldn’t be right; I’ll have to ask him ahead of time.”

“Fine, you can go hang out with him today and ask him if he would like to come over tomorrow for dinner.”

“Okay, I will.”

I complete my sandwich and I eat it as I’m walking out the door. When I reach Nick’s house, I walk straight in and I go to his room. He’s on the bed smoking a joint and I sit in the chair by his desk. I say,

“Susan wants to meet you. She wants me to ask you to come to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Sure.”

“You can’t come high.”

“Okay. What do you wanna do today?”

“Give me that!”

I get up and walk over to him and I grab the joint from his hand and I put it up to my lips and I inhale again. I hand it back to him and I sit down on the bed and lie back. I fall asleep on his bed.

I wake up about an hour later and I leave, Nick is still asleep so I leave him alone. I walk into the house and Susan is sitting on the couch and Jason is sitting in his chair with a beer can in his hand watching television. Susan looks at me as I walk in and I say,

“He’ll be here; I have to go get him though before, he doesn’t know where we live.”

“That’s fine. You wanna watch some television with us?”

“No, I’m gonna go up to my room.”

I walk up the stairs and enter my room, closing the door lightly and I go to the computer and begin to surf the internet for a while, when I finish I go to bed.

I wake up the next morning and it’s an okay day. When I leave to get Nick, Susan tells me to hurry back and I have every intention of doing so. I walk into Nick’s room and I ask him if he’s ready, he’s lying on his bed still asleep, I walk over to him and shake him, he finally wakes up and I take him into his bathroom and I run cold water in the bathtub and I throw him in it. He wakes up with a scream,

“This s*** is cold!”

“I know, that’s the point.”

“Why the hell did you do that?”

“You have to come to my house for dinner.”

“Why?”

“I told you this yesterday, Susan wants to meet you.”

“Oh, okay well now I have to change.”

He gets out of the tub and he walks back to his bedroom to change, I go down stairs and wait by the door. When he comes down we walk back to my house and dinner is ready, he smells it the minute we walk in and he says,

“I haven’t had a home cooked meal in years.”

I lead him to the kitchen where the food is. We all sit down to eat and he loads his plate full of food. Susan and Jason glare at him, wondering if he’s ever eaten food before. Susan asks,

“So, Nick. You were in the orphanage with Travis?”

“Yes, ma’am” he says, with food almost overflowing in his mouth, he’s pathetic.

I eat my food without speaking and so does the rest of the group after Nick’s food carnival. We make our way to the living room to allow him to leave. I can’t tell you how much I wanted him out of my house. I finally get rid of him and I go up to my room. I fall asleep earlier than usual.

I wake up late the next morning and rush to school, Nick and the others are waiting on me to arrive at school. I meet them and we make our way to class. Nick and I decided to skip second period and we made our way outside behind the baseball dug outs. I ask,

“You got a joint on you?”

His reply,

“I got something better.”

He pulls out a baggie with some white powder in it. He’s also got a small mirror in his pocket too, I ask,

“Are you fixing your face?”

He answers,

“No, it’s coke.”

I look at him with a curious look even though I know exactly what he’s talking about, I’m not sure if I want to go this far. I debate on it for a whole minute before I decide I don’t give a damn. He grabs a pinch of the white powder from the baggie and places it on the little mirror; he also pulls out a razor blade from his book bag and a straw. He places one end of the straw to his nostril and the other end at the beginning of the line of coke. He snorts the coke through his nose and he lifts his head when his line is gone, he continues sniffing and I take the straw from him and do the same to the line he made out for me. We lean against the wall until the bell for second period to end rings. We then decide to leave school all together. We go back to his place and do more coke and smoke some weed. The other guys come over but Nick tells them to leave, and they do without argument, probably because he gave them a whole bag of weed. But still he was so rude about it; I wouldn’t continue being someone’s friend if he were that rude to me to my face. F***ing idiot. I get home about seven thirty that night and the yelling is as bad as I expected but it’s pretty rough for me to be only thirty minutes late. My relationship with Susan and Jason is not getting any better, I’m not sure how long I’ll last here, I may just run away. I mean if they never find me I won’t have to go back to the orphanage. Ever again.


The next day I go over to Nicks and he again tells the guys to leave, he and I stay up in his room and snort coke and smoke weed. I ask him,

“Why don’t you want the other guys here?”

“They’d use up all the coke, in one day.”

“But with you sending them away with a bag a weed a day, they use all that up.”

“Dude, my uncle grows it. I have all the weed we will ever need.”

I shrug and let the thought go away from my worries and I continue to smoke a joint. I go home…again and I go straight to bed. I stay tired all the time, I’m not sure why.



I wake up and go straight to Nick’s house and I go to his bed room. Once again we sit in his room and smoke weed. On my way home that night I decide that we are not going to just sit in his room and get high all day tomorrow.



I get to Nicks the next day and I walk into his room, he’s already started getting high. I walk over to him and grab his hand to leave the room. He comes willingly. We arrive at the mall after walking for about an hour. When we get there he asks,

“What are we doing here?”

“We’re shopping.”

“With what, we don’t have any money.”

I look at him and I smile and say,

“No, but we’ve got a five finger discount card.”

He laughs and we hit every store in the mall. We take little things. Place them in our pockets and make our way out of the store without getting caught. When the mall closes we leave. We get back to his house and sort through all the things we gather the things we got today. Nick got a Rolex. I got a few little things, necklaces, bracelets. I got some of Hollister’s cologne.

I went home that night and Jason was at the front door waiting on me as I walk in he grabs my arm and pulls me into the living room.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Why haven’t you been going to school?”

“I have been! What are you talking about?”

“Your principle called us today and told us you haven’t been to school for the past three days.”

“Well he’s a f***ing liar!”

“Oh yeah your principle is so out to get you!”

Jason’s hand comes in contact with my face. I look at Jason with a look of disbelief; his look doesn’t look anything like what I expected. I wanted him to look like he was sorry but the look on his face was pure hatred. I say,

“Don’t ever touch me again!”


He gets closer to me and grabs my shirt and throws me on the couch, he pulls his belt off his waste and he folds it up and holds it together. He swings the belt and hits me in the face with it. After he finishes he’s breathing heavily, he says,

“Get your ass in your room and don’t you dare come out, your grounded, Susan will drive you to school and she will pick you up every day. You will not be hanging out with your ‘friend’ anymore.”

“You’re not my father.”

“According to the state I’m your legal guardian and I will make the rules. This staying out late and skipping school has come to an end!”

“F*** you!”
I storm out of the living room and I go up to my room. I look in the mirror and a bruise has started to form around my eye, I lift my shirt and some bruises had started to form on my chest as well. I grab my book bag from the floor and I dump all of the my school books from the it onto my bed and I go to my closet and start pulling cloths off hangers, I get in my drawers and I pull cloths out of them and I throw them into the bag. I zip it up and throw the bag onto my back. I walk over to the window and I lift it up. I climb out and I jump down, the landing hurt but I was too angry to pay any attention to it. I start walking down the road, next thing I know I’m in a drug store; I walk down the isle where they keep the pills. I grab a bottle of Tylenol and open it in the store, and lift the bottle up to my mouth and swallow the pills. The store clerk looks at me and he starts to say something but everything is blurry and his words are running together. Everything I’ve been through flashes through my mind. I remember everything that ever happened in the orphanage. I remember Nick being there, we were best friends and he was a good influence then. I remember my first day of getting adopted everything was fine, not perfect but it was okay. I’ve messed it all up, Everything, I fall to the ground.

I wake up in the hospital and I see Susan sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, I look around for Jason, already forgiving him for hurting me. Susan sees that I’m awake and she runs over to me. She wraps her arms around me as well as she can. I hug her back but my enthusiasm is low. I don’t speak and she cries a little bit.

I get to go home and I stay up in my room. When I leave the house I don’t go to Nick’s, I don’t go to school. I walk around town I visit stores and I steal. I’ve not learned anything from what I’ve been through

One day I decide to visit Nick and I walk into his house and his mom is in the kitchen, she says,

“Can I help you?”

I’m not used to anyone being home here, so I just look at her with a confused face. I then continue walking through the house she follows me asking me what I want. I get to Nick’s bedroom door and she walks behind me, I open the door and I see that he isn’t there. I turn to her and I say,

“Where is he?”

She looks as if she’s about to cry,

“He…he passed away.”

Shock flows through my body and I lean back against the wall and I ask,

“What happened?”

“He overdosed, he was doing drugs, and I didn’t know about it.”

“Oh, um…okay.”

I leave the house without showing any remorse for the woman and I walk to the mall. I go in a store that has some things that I need. I walk into the store and I go to the back, I look at some little things and I sneak them into my pocket. I walk around the shelf and I get some other stuff. On my way out, something falls out of my pocket and I leave it. The woman at the cash register sees it happen and she calls the security to come and get me. I begin to run. I run through the entire mall and I exit through the back. The guards follow me, I start to run across the street. I stop at the sight of a truck coming, I look behind me and the guards are right behind me. I take the chance and I run. I make it across the street and I run up the hill, I look behind me and I see the guards running back toward the mall, I have a feeling of victory and I run all the way home. When I get there, I go in the house and go up to my room. I haven’t spoken to Susan or Jason since I got back home from the hospital.

Susan comes up to my room and knocks on the door, I answer it and she and a police officer are standing outside my bedroom door. The victory feeling is gone.

So now I sit here in the jail cell for theft, they found everything I’ve ever stolen, knowing that I haven’t paid for it they added it up and I was charged with a Felony. I have three months left of my six month sentence. When I get out, I plan to change, I can’t live my life stealing and doing drugs. I have to change and make something out of my life. I have a second chance at a real life and I’m not going screw it up again.