In My Saviors Arms

7. Home Again, Home Again

I stepped over the old manner's threshold, trying my best to be quiet. 'Maybe I could just sneak past everyone, maybe no would notice I was here.' No one hardly ever did notice when I was here anyway, but this time, I actually wanted to go unnoticed. At least for now anyway.

I closed the door behind me as quietly as the old squeaky hinges would allow. And right as i turned around, getting ready to dart down the hall and out of sight, someone tapped me on my shoulder. I jumped and spun around, ready to defend myself or run if I had to. Only to come face to face- well, more like face to chest- with a hard, rock solid chest. I looked up to see the most amazing pair of emerald green eyes that stood out against a head full of black messy hair. 

"Jeeze Matt, don't scare me like that!" I held my hand over my frantically beating heart. finally being able to breath again. Matt only smiled, making his face light up, but then it quickly turned into a frown.

You see, Matt was my best friend- scratch that, he was my only friend. He was two years older than me and had the hight and muscles to prove it, which he was always trying to do. He wasn't ever afraid to talk or hang around me no matter what everyone else said. He knew I was weird, and he liked it. He told me once that he was a bit different too, and that it was nice for him that he wasn't so alone anymore, but I don't know how much I believe him. I'm not saying it isn't possible, I'm just saying that he looked and acted perfectly normal to me. Though, who was I to judge? 

Matt had moved into the manner about three years after I did. And I remember it as clearly as the day I first arrived here. It had been storming badly, one of the worst storms we had gotten in years, when a policeman came knocking on the door. When Miss Elizabeth had opened it, she talked to the man for a moment before leading him into the 'interrogation' room, as we like to call it. But really, it was only the room where adults would sit in when they wanted to 'getting to know' the children they were thinking about adopting.

Now, Matt was a little different I suppose. I had first laid my eyes on him when I had been peeking through the curtain to see what was going on outside. But he wasn't my kind of different, he was just... normal different. If that made any sense. I remember sneaking into the hall closet so that I could look through the vent that on the back wall that looked into the 'interrogation' room. It was a common favorite spot for us kids who liked to spy because you could hear and see everything that went on in that room.

I remember the cop talking to Miss Elizabeth about the boy and asking if he could come live with us. But I only remember that vaguely because I was more concentrate on the boy that they had called Matt.

Now, new kids that come to live here usually have around the same reactions, and the range of emotions that go along with it. Such as; pain, sadness, and misery. Which meant that they usually came here crying, screaming, or depressed. And they normally stayed that way the entire time that they lived in the manner. Though, of course, I was a bit different. I mean, this life style is all that I really know, or can remember. I can't remember anything from before the day that Miss Elizabeth had found me wandering the streets in search for something familiar. So it never really helped when I tried to comfort the new kids. I always got screamed at and told that I had no idea what they were going through, what it was like, or the unimaginable pain they all had to endure. 

And I suppose that that was true, i didn't know. But then again, no one understood what I went through, what I had to deal with because I was 'special', or what it was like being looked at and talked about like I was the most repulsive creature on the planet. No one even tried to care. And I never asked them to.

I never understood why adults told the siblings that came into the manner that the older siblings didn't have to worry about acting like the new parent. That everything would be fine and that the 'real' adults would take care of them. Because no matter what, the older brother or sister is always going to worry and care for their younger siblings. That was just how it is.