Armored

6

Ashton:

"Izzy, we don't pity either of you, we just want to give you girls the life you deserve to have."

I couldn't believe it. Who could have hurt this sweet girl so bad to leave her so afraid to trust?

I knew what she was doing, and I could tell the others could tell too. She was pushing us away so we'd back off on the adoption. But we weren't about to let that happen. There was something special about this girl, and I'm not giving up on her that easy.

"Yeah okay whatever," she spoke in her typical 'just don't care attitude'. "Anyway, what did you wanna talk to me about?"

We all looked at each other for a moment, silently figuring out who was gonna bring it up. After a few moments of silent bickering among the four of us, Michael went ahead and started.

"Okay, so, Mrs.Johnson told us you two have been adopted and placed in several homes in the past."

"Yes... and your question is..?"

"We just want to know your story. We want to know what happened to you two to get moved around so many times."

She seemed taken aback by the question, but proceeded to answer it anyway.

Izzy:

Why the hell do they want to know what happened to us, or more specifically me, I suppose? Surely they don't actually care about my sap story, but they want to know for some strange reason, so might as well tell them. You see, unlike some, I'm not ashamed of my past. I don't regret the times I've gotten into trouble, or the times I've run away from something. I don't care who knows what about me because, in the end, all they ever do is leave. I went ahead and started my story:

"Okay, well, to know the whole story, I guess you should first know about life with my biological parents.."

They nodded for me to continue.

"Well, my mother had me when she was about 16 or so. She was raped. She ended up getting pregnant with me and her parents threw her out of the house for that. They told her something to the effect of, ' you got yourself into this mess, now you get yourself out of this'"

"That's horrible!" Calum exclaimed.

"It gets worse, well actually more stupid I suppose. You'd think she'd learn from what that bastard did to her, whoever he was, but nooo. She just had to walk herself back into the same trap."

"What do you mean?" Calum asked.

"Since she had me at such a young age, with basically no one by her side and nowhere to go, she found some.. interesting ways to make money."

"What about school?"

"What about it? She never finished. She dropped out pretty much immediately after her parents kicked her out."

"Wait. So if she was raped, then how did Rosie come into the picture so late?" Ashton asked this time.

"I'm getting there. Anyway, because she needed some kind of shelter and a job, she took whatever she could get first after I was born. She got a job at a strip club and found a nearby women's shelter to stay at until she could get back on her feet. I pretty much grew up around the caretakers around there until I was about four or five. Then she finally had enough money to get a small, cramped up apartment that was more or less about to fall apart. It wasn't much, but it was enough, as she put it."

"I'm so sorry," Michael started before I cut him off.

"Don't be. I'm glad we had that place because it allowed her to be able to take care of me the best she could during the day and then at night when I'd go to sleep, she'd leave for work at the strip club. She thought I didn't know, but I knew. One night, I followed her to work, to find out what she did, and boy was that a shocker. I got scared and ran out of that place and went back to my room, and slept."