CHAPTER 1
DOVE
My heart sinks as I finish getting ready before leaving my apartment, and I’m using the word generously. It’s more like a literal hole in the wall with a peep hole and a deadbolt. But it’s what I can afford.
Because I already sell enough of myself; I don’t need to sell my soul for cash or an easy ride. A long time ago I learned nothing is free in this world. There is always a price to be paid, and what it is might not always be readily apparent.
Which is why I work so hard to keep my focus forward instead of thinking about the past. No one benefits from drudging up any of it and I’m not interested in reopening the scars which are just now healing.
Everything feels like a fresh bruise still, even though it’s been years since the worst of it. But that’s pain and trauma for you. It leaves you tender, and you don’t want to look at those bruises to watch them change colors.
It’s been seven years since I aged out of a system built on heartache and red tape. While it might be protecting some kids, it ruins the majority of those who have the misfortune to learnthe ins and outs of state care.
If only people cared.
If only those who do care were given the resources, and the money, to make a difference.
If only sick people didn’t try to take advantage of the same people who should be protected at all costs.
But the only thing the kids in the system can do is endure. Endure and try to keep their heads down while everything crumbles around them.
It felt like I woke up every day on edge and prepared to wage war against an enemy I was never going to defeat. Because I was weaker. Because I was powerless. Because no one saw my value or helped me see it within myself.
I’m sure there are plenty of people who would see me today and nod their heads as if my fate was always inevitable.
Was it?
Or am I simply trying to survive a life no one prepared me for? And that’s after forcing me to live my childhood surrounded by a minefield of pain and suffering.
I know the answer. I’ve been living with the answer for the last seven years.
And it’s brought me to where I am today.
I look around my apartment one more time. It’s a single room, and the only privacy I’ve been able to manufacture is in the form of a room screen. Hell, the bathroom door doesn’t even close all the way. It would be a problem if I ever had someone over.
I don’t.
And it’s not because I’m vain and want to hide the reality of my life from the people who love and care about me. No. It’s because I have no one to invite over.
No friends.
My coworkers are my enemies on a good day.
No family, but I think I already covered that.
If there was someone, anyone, who I could have gone to, the state would have made sure it happened. They didn’t want me as their burden any more than my addicted mother did.
It’s funny, when I found her dead body, there was a moment of pure relief. Even with the growing scent of the decay beginning to waft through the shithole of an apartment we were living in, it was like I could breathe again.
In that moment I knew I didn’t have to worry about the next man she’d bring home. I didn’t have to psyche my ten-year old self into tiptoeing out to the kitchen to look for a snack we didn’t have, while worrying about which version of my mother I would encounter. I didn’t have to apologize for my existence.
Not in that moment.
Not when I found her.
There were a few seconds there when I felt something I had never felt before—freedom. It was pure. It was exhilarating. It was terrifying in the best of ways.
Then I realized everything was going to change and there was nothing I could do about it. My young heart kept hope alive that some relative was going to come out of the shadows and give me the home I yearned for.
