Forever My Dear

"What do you think the new world will be like?" she asked me leaning against my arm.

I would have shrugged, but I didn't want to disturb her. "Honestly?" I asked. "I don't know. I wish that I could say that I knew, but I've never really thought about something like that."

She looked up at me surprised and I looked over at her. I wasn't sure why she was so surprised. Was my inattention to the world really that shocking? I had never hidden it from her after all. Did she really idealize me that much?

"Don't you care about them at all?" she asked her brow furrowed.

I sighed and bowed my head. "That's a loaded question," I objected softly. "If I say no..."

"I won't hate you," she promised me quickly reaching up to touch my cheek. "I just...I'm afraid-"

I reached up and pressed a finger to her lips. "You don't have to be afraid," I promised. "You never have to be afraid again."



A pounding headache greeted me when I woke up. A pounding headache and the confusion that always possessed me after that specific dream. I had been dreaming it for as long as I could remember. It wasn't anything special. Of that I was certain. Well, there was one thing special about it. I was seducing myself in the damn dream.

I didn't bother to shake my head as I sat up and slipped out of the bed. The room was cold causing goosebumps to raised along my bare skin. Once upon a time I would have rubbed my arms while trying to stay warm, but there didn't seem a point to the charade anymore. My bedroom was cold and it wasn't going to get warm no matter how much I rubbed my bare arms.

The bathroom that I used wasn't actually mine. Or at least, it wasn't mine alone. I actually shared the little thing with about four other girls. It was what happened when your parents decided to adopt a lot of children. They had never meant for it to get so out of control. At least I liked to think that sometimes, but it had simply happened. We had gone from a three member family to fifteen in the course of six years.

It wasn't so bad at times. Some of the other children that I called my brothers and sisters weren't too bad. And then there were others who demanded the attention of my parents day and night. I would have liked to say that I hated them. Once upon a time, maybe I did. If I ever had, I had long since lost that emotion. Hate had been the first one to go. Anger had quickly followed it probably unsurprisingly. Hope hadn't been too far behind either.

And so I was left with apathy. It wasn't as bad as everyone had once made it out to be. Once you're apathetic, you don't have to worry about things like pity or grief. You don't have to worry about crying or even about the absence of attention. Those who are not apathetic can't understand the freedom that is apathy. They never will either. They simply think that they know better than those who live with it.

Pulling open the mirror that sat over the sink, I pulled out two ibuprofen tabs and dry swallowed them, something that came from quite a bit of experience. I still didn't shake my head though. I wouldn't be able to do that for another hour yet unfortunately. It would have been nice though. A good shake always cleared the cobwebs and the stray thoughts that I would have rather lived without.

I shuffled back to my bedroom, not bothering to close the door behind me as I pulled off the tank top that I used for a pajama top and started shifting through the clothes that layered my floor for a pair of semi-clean jeans. "Nice ass Jo," Casey called in with a whistle as he passed my room. I flipped him off on principle moments before I found a pair of sweats that would do instead of the jeans and slipped them on. My breasts were too small, in my opinion, to worry about bothering with a bra. Being a size B, my breast seemed to me to be little more than mounds with pointy nipples.

Not that they weren't nice...

A cami and a black net top joined the sweats as my excuse for an outfit. None of it smelled and that was what mattered to me. I knew that I probably looked ridiculous, but I didn't really care. I was comfortable and that was all that mattered to me. Besides, I had showed the night before so my blonde hair, while looking a little scraggly from being slept on while wet, was still clean and that was a vast improvement over most days.

The house was stirring around me as I grabbed my bag and made my way down the narrow set of stairs that led to the second and main floor of the three story house that my family occupied. My father was already sitting at the kitchen table with the newest edition of our family, Eva, and spoon-feeding her what looked like baby food, or at least the green puke version of it. Eva didn't seem to mind it though and so I wondered if I could steal a can of the stuff later when my parents weren't looking and take it to school for lunch. It had to be better than cafeteria food.

"Oh S.J.!" My mother called as I reached out for a slice of toast that sat tempting and taunting me on one of the many hard plastic plates that occupied our cupboards. "I need you to stop by the store after you get out of class and pick up a few things," she said holding out a list for me.

I took my toast first and shoved a corner of it into my mouth before I took the list and started looking over it. When my mother said a few things, she meant at least a week's worth of shopping for a normal family. "We'll pay you back when your father gets his tax refund," she promised as I shoved the slip of paper into my pocket. I grunted through the toast before I tore away most of the bread and started chewing the corner still left in my mouth. I didn't expect my mother to pay me back. My parents would need the money for other things.

No reason to get nonexistent hopes up.

I tossed my bag up and over my shoulder as I continued on through the kitche and to the front door where my well-worn and broken in vans sat waiting for me to slip them on. I complied to their clear wishes, my feet slidding in smoothly along a well-known path into black mouths. "See y'all later," I called remembering to stand on ceremony as I opened the door and walked out into the morning. It wasn't anything special. The stairs that came out of the porch that surrounded the second level of the house led down to a green, trimmed lawn that two of the younger boys took care of. Four cars sat in the driveway, none of which were mine. Instead, I moved to the little scooter that sat more close to the mailbox. It was slow, but it had been cheap and it worked for what I needed.

The only problem with it that morning was that someone was fawning over it. A frown darkened my face. The headache that had been disappating began to return throbbing softly at the back of my skull. "What the hell are you doing?" I snapped.

The young woman standing next to my scooter looked up at me with a bright smile. "I used to have one of these. It wasn't in nearly this good of condition, but I miss it..." she trailed off for a moment not noticing or at least reacting to the annoyance written all over my face. "Do you take care of it?" she asked.

"For all you know that piece of shit isn't even mine," I pointed out pausing and crossing my arms over my chest with flattened both my sweatshirt and my breasts.

A knowing smile touched the woman's lips as she moved away from my scooter and closer to me. "Sure," she agreed. "Then again, for all you know, I could be a stalker whose been watching you every day since you were five."

If her intention had been to creep me out. The bitch had succeeded. "I don't have time for this," I snapped pushing past her. She laughed at me and I did my best to ignore her as I walked past my scooter. I wasn't going to take it today. Not after that. I would just have to steal a shopping cart or two to get through Mom's grocery list. The store wouldn't care. They tended to expect at least one cart and a few candies or toys to be unaccounted for after my family visited.