CLEAN || Taylor Swift Adoption

FOUR

"It's okay, we're the best of friends anyway"

~EVERLEIGH~

August 2, 2023

"Hey! Girl!" Mr. Thompson banged on the door to the room I had been staying in while I lived at the Thompsons'. "You better hurry up in there. Your social worker is coming to get you any minute now."

"I'm almost done, sir," I called back, anxiously watching the door in hopes that he wouldn't bang it down like he had done in the past. As quickly as I could muster, I threw my remaining clothes into one of the trash bags that was on my bed and did one last final sweep of the room, hoping that I hadn't forgotten anything in here.

The banging on the door resumed, and I shook my head to myself, grabbing the full trash bag and the one that had a few remaining things in it, pulling open the door to see the look of an angry Mr. Thompson. His face was dark red and the wire-rimmed glasses that he wore on occasion almost looked like they were trembling from the veins in his face that were so dark, they looked as if they were bulging. Seriously, was this guy really that angry over me not getting all of my stuff together in the amount of time that he found to be acceptable?

"You better not have left any of your shit here," he growled, looking around the room. "I don't want any more of your little girl shit here than I've had to put up with for the last few months."

He probably had no idea how long I'd even stayed there for, I thought to myself as I squeezed past him, into the hallway, and started down the stairs. A few weeks after I had arrived at the Thompsons', Mr. Thompson had started avoiding the house, and it was only a matter of time before he developed a drinking problem. There were many nights where I'd been lucky enough to avoid his wrath, but other nights, I hadn't been so lucky. And of course, there were also the times where I had to deal with Mrs. Thompson. She never had an alcohol problem, never did drugs or anything, but I'd always gotten the sense that she had it out for me in some way.

When I got to the bottom of the stairwell, I noticed Ashley waiting for me. She had a few manilla folders in her hands, which I assumed were the files that the Thompsons had been holding while I'd stayed with them. Now that I was leaving and getting placed with a new family, there was no reason they needed any of my paperwork anymore. Plus, Ashley probably still had to rewrite a bunch of it to make it more relevant and updated for whoever the new family was going to be.

"You ready to go?" Ashley asked, her facial expression softening ever so slightly when she saw the trash bags that I had been lugging around. I hated carrying them just as much as I hated the pitiful looks that people would give me when they saw them. There had only been a few placements where I'd been allowed to leave with a backpack in my possession, but like everything with the foster care lifestyle, those were few and far between. Most of the time, I wasn't even allowed to pack for myself, since the parents wanted to had the chance to sell my stuff and make as much money as possible off of it, while they still were able to do so.

"Yeah," I nodded in response.

"Great," Ashley said. "Have you said your goodbyes already?"

I shrugged in response. "I guess so."

In reality, there weren't any goodbyes that had been said, nor were there any that I wanted to say. If I was being totally honest, it wasn't like I was really going to miss anyone here. Well, other than...