Prologue
It’s hard to explain the feeling you get in your heart when you realize you’ve been abandoned. It’s pretty much indescribable. Standing on the steps of the city courthouse, watching as your parents walk away from you without so much as a goodbye or a see you later, or even an explanation of why they don’t love you enough to stay is as close as I can come. That feeling of unworthiness, self-pity, and abandonment never leaves a kid.
I’ve tried to process that day through my mind over and over again, pretending to step back into those too tight shoes with ratted holes and broken soles, and the jeans that were two sizes too small and had holes in the pockets that I always lost things in. I remember tugging on the collar of my favorite batman shirt that morning, looking down at the logo that had been faded by dirt and too many washings. The Murdocks didn’t buy new clothes. No. They were left with scraps, surfing through the bargain bins at the local Goodwill, and never adorning anything new. We didn’t go to school. We didn’t make friends. Hell, we hardly left our house for the first eight years of my existence. But even with all the fucked-up shit that went on behind closed doors, I had a family, which is a lot more than what I could say I had now.
Jumping back into my eight-year-old head was never easy, especially when I had to be thrust back in time, fighting the tears that threatened to spring forth, and having to suck them down all over again because I was told boys never cry. Even at eight, I had been hardened to stone, with only my sister there to hold me. Joey had always been my rock—my only friend—my only family. She’s the only one who has ever mattered to me at all. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know if I would’ve ever survived the foster care system. It was through her strength that I could withstand the hell we were put through–the pain–the heartache–the disappointment. Always wondering if our parents would come back for us, but knowing deep down, they never would.
Our parents were junkies who enjoyed the high more than raising children. They gave us up after our third well-child check, and they both popped hot for opioids. That day the judge gave them a choice: stay parents or give up their rights completely. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people more relieved to sign their names on a dotted line than when my parents relinquished everything, leaving us there with nothing more than the clothes on our backs and broken smiles. You can’t smile when you’ve been abandoned, just like you can’t smile when you’re tossed from home to home.
Joey was two years older than me, and she made it her mission to keep us together, despite what the State of Texas wanted to do. There were times they tried to pull us apart, but it was Joey who demanded we stick together, and we did—moving from home to home, reliving the fear over and over again of whether the door we walk through this time will be a good one or a bad one.
And let me tell you… they were almost always bad. I’m not saying there weren’t nice foster parents in the world, because there are, but the ones my sister and I got forced to live with must’ve been dredged up from the bottom of the barrel.
Fourteen foster homes in six years. Out of those fourteen homes, only one ever really gave a shit about us and treated us like we weren’t a paycheck. The McGees. Helen and Norm, to be exact. They were the nicest people I had ever met and treated me and Joey like we were their own grandchildren. We spent two glorious years in their home, living in tandem with the elderly couple like we had always lived there. I was twelve and Joey was fourteen at the time. Norm was the one who had taught me how to fish, and Helen taught Joey how to cook. And man, could my sister cook a mean meal now because of Mrs. McGee. They were the perfect fit… until they weren’t anymore. Norm got sick and Helen, well, she couldn’t handle taking care of Norm and us at the same time. The day she gave us back to the State was the day I shed my first and only tear. I thought the McGees were going to adopt us one day, but like our own parents, they thought the Murdock kids were dispensable. Easy to pretend to love and even easier to give away. It’s why I try not to get attached. It’s why I don’t care about anyone but Joey.
Without my sister, I would be lost in this world, and the fact that we were nearing her end date in the foster system wasn’t lost on me. She only had one more year to go before she aged out, and I knew the only reason she stuck around at all was because of me. A fact I’ve been so thankful for.
“This is it, guys,” Layla chirped from the front seat, her eyes heavy with worry. “The last foster family in Rising Star that will take in two teenage kids. I think you guys will both love the Sinclair family. They are new foster parents, and their background check came out impeccable.”
Layla hadn’t always been our social worker, but she had taken over our case two years ago, when the Gordon family decided fostering was no longer something they wanted to do. It was after Mrs. Gordon got pregnant with her “miracle baby”, a baby they thought they’d never have. Who wants two tweens hanging around the house when a fresh baby was on the way? Babies and young kids under five are always the first to get adopted, but older kids like us… we were more like temporary slave labor than anything else. It was hard to love hard-headed teenagers, especially ones that had been burned too many times in the past. We learned very early on not to get our hopes up about anything, and usually the ones with “impeccable backgrounds” were the ones you had to worry about the most.
Joey shot me a look from the seat next to me and I had to hide my laugh. She was always cracking jokes and crossing her eyes at me, doing whatever she could to make me laugh. My sister’s brown eyes were the center of my world sometimes. They grounded me, anchoring me to the earth that felt like it was trying to swallow me whole. Those ginormous sepia orbs held all my happiness and security in them, but all of our secrets, too. She was the only one who knew the truth—a truth we kept hidden from others. It was Joey who constantly put herself in harm’s way, shielding me from anyone who wanted to hurt me, and keeping me out of trouble. It was Joey who stood up for us when I was too weak to stand on my own. She took the brunt of it all, letting the decay and corruption of the foster care system rot away her soul, bit by painful bit–staying strong on the outside while crumbling beneath her fragile and bruised skin.
But sometimes, even she couldn’t protect me from the monsters who preyed on our vulnerability. And yes, the horror stories of what people do to foster kids can sometimes be true too. I should know. I’ve had my fair share of beatings, bruises, punishments, and unwanted touching like any fucked-up foster kid. But it was Joey who had it worse, always putting herself in danger to try to keep me out of it. It’s why we had our code, something only she and I would ever understand.
Layla got out of the car just as Joey turned toward me.
“Hey, Dillie, we got this, okay? I’m sure this one can’t be any worse than the Kennedy home.”
I closed my eyes, trying to push down the bile that rose up in my throat when I thought about that house. What those people did to me and my sister in four weeks of living there will haunt us for the rest of our lives.
“Why do you always talk to me like I’m still a baby?” I asked in annoyance.
She ruffled up my hair, grinning from ear to ear. “Because I can. You’re always going to be my baby brother.”
“I’m fifteen.”
“I know, but let me act like your big sister while I still can.”
Rolling my eyes, I sent her a small glare. “Fiiine,” I gritted out, hating that she always spoke to me like I was still a child.
“What do we always say, little brother?”
I glanced up at Joey, taking in her confident smile, and tried to mirror it. “We are like the letter ‘M’, two pieces joined in the middle by one strong connection. It’s why we are the Murdocks. We are stronger together than we are apart.”
She beamed with pride. “That’s right. And what’s the sign if there’s danger?”
I looked down at my hand, crossing my middle finger over my ring finger, tucking my thumb under my palm, and then spreading out my other two fingers to make the letter M.
Returning that perfect smile of hers wasn’t easy, especially when my stomach was circling a drain of uneasiness I couldn’t break. “Okay, and what’s our symbol for us to know that everything is okay?”
I uncrossed my two fingers and pushed them next to each other while holding the other fingers in the same position as the first. “Crossed M means danger. Uncrossed means everything is okay.”
She nodded before pulling me into a hug. “Yup, you got it, Little Bro.” Ruffling up my hair again as she pulled away, she grinned.
“Would you stop doing that? You’re starting to annoy me.”
She laughed. “You’re not so little anymore, are ya, Dillie?”
