Dare to Dream

I took a long drag of my cigarette, watching the smoke dissipate into the air. I sighed at the beauty of the setting sun, adorned with pinks and yellows.

I shivered with cold and wrapped my arms around myself, dropping my cigarette on the grubby pavement and stubbing it out with my tattered ballet pumps. I turned and walked back inside, now before you start feeling sympathy for me, I’d better explain my story.

My name, I really have no clue so people just call me amber, I don’t think I look like an amber but it stuck. Sam the owner somehow feels like I’m the daughter she never had as she got to name me, I don’t want to be her daughter, I want to get adopted and leave this place behind.

Sun field orphanage sounds nice but really, it leaves a lot to be desired. The walls are covered in peeling paint and the floorboards old and creaky; the heating doesn’t work, meaning the thin old windows keep in little heat in the freezing cold winters. I mostly sleep outside, it’s warmer that way.

I’m 5’11.

I’m 16.

I have brown shoulder length hair.

I have deep brown eyes.

I’m skinny.

I’m not modest and I don’t lie; I tell the truth whenever possible.

If I’m upset I cry, if I’m angry I cry. Showing emotion isn’t a sin, neither a weakness.

I’m always cold, even in summer.

I have one upper-ear piercing, that’s it.

I have a very small star tattooed onto my wrist.

I’m not religious.

I'm not reckless.

I’m straight.

I’m cynical, or did you guess already?

I’m an orphan; I was found by a river and have lived in this shithole my whole life.

I need to get out.

I walked into the drearily lit front room and closed the window behind me, yeah, I went through the window. Brushing past the little shits that inhabit this hell hole, I hurriedly made my way up to my room, dancing swiftly on my feet to the quiet classical music that filtered out of Georgia’s room before hastening my pace up the stair case and flying into my room and slamming the door.

My room, the one place that I can call my own, is my haven.

The walls are covered in light pink paint and the floors, well obviously floorboards. The walls are adorned in pictures of pictures of models and clothes from vogue; a small metal framed bed is pushed up against the wall and covered in a striped peach and grey duvet. A night stand sits next to the bed with a single lamp on its surface. A chest of drawers stuffed to the brim with all my clothes along with one single draw left for my books and school uniform, waste of fucking space. This is about all I own along with a white rug in the centre of the room.

I plopped down onto the bed, loving the sound of the creaking springs beneath me. I closed my eyes and smiled at the sound of laughing, talking and music coming from the floors below. Sure, I’m no people person but I loved all the sounds that gave this sorry excuse of a building character.

I shot up as then need for a cigarette grew, I fumbled through my handbag and pocket to be greeted with empty packets, huffing I opened the draw in the nightstand that contained only a single packet of cigarette’s.

I ripped it open and pulled one out, picking up my lighter, I turned and opened the window above my bed; I couldn’t be arsed to face Sam complaining about the smell. It creaked and protested as I shoved it open, wasting no time in lighting my cigarette and taking a long and loving drag, smiling with glee as the smoke drifted through my nose and into the cold outdoors.

I could happily have stayed there, taking my time at admiring the horizon but Tyler, the little shit, was bound to be somewhere and waiting for me to appear so he could piss me off. Sounds cruel but Tyler has a weird crush on me and thinks talking to me until I throw something at him or giving me dead birds and mice is a good way of showing affection. It’s not.

Trust me.

I stubbed it out on the window sill and let it drop down into the street, leaving me mesmerized until it silently hit the pavement. I slowly closed the window and reared my head back inside my room. I sat on my bed for a few minutes, unsure of what to do with myself.

Quietly I tiptoed across the room and knelt down in front of the patchy white chest of drawers, pulling open the stiff bottom drawer and grabbing my tattered copy of ‘of mice and men’ by john Steinbeck. Shutting the drawer with force, I turned and shuffled across the floor on my knees until I reached the tepidly warm radiator, my eyes widened in surprise, Sam must have paid half the heating bill for once.

I reached over and pulled my duvet off the bed, wrapping it around myself before settling down to read my book.

For me, life didn’t get better.