Patience

Prologue

It was both insufferable and insurmountable really, the amount of turmoil that one person had to go through. Tori Paige Cryderman was born in Los Angeles California in 1993. She wasn't even placed up for adoption. She was simply surrendered at the Los Angeles Fire Department. All she had on her when she was surrendered was a birth certificate, a silver diamond moon pendant with Tori Paige etched onto the back, and a little grey crocheted blanket.  

She started her tenure in foster care,  in Los Angeles and then Pheonix, eventually, she made it to foster care in Texas, then Florida, and up to Maine where she finally graduated high school and walked out. She had been saving money so she bought a really run down Saturn and she lived in her car, completing her schooling. She ended up doing cosmetology as she could afford it and there was a need for it in New York. Eventually, she saved up for an apartment and a nicer vehicle. It wasn't anything she did, except the fact that she got older. It's simple really, people want to foster babies because if they foster babies they're more apt to adopt. When one foster care system ran out of room, she was shipped to another and then another. She for the longest time didn't have a last name, it was always the last name of her foster parents that she undertook when she was at school. A lot of the times she didn't even know the last name so she'd simply write Tori on her papers and her teachers, knowing her situation, would fill in the last name. 

She met Chad Cryderman when she was twenty. They married at twenty-one and were divorced at twenty-four. It wasn't that they didn't love each other it was that he drank a lot and became very possessive and abusive. She'll admit she drank a lot too, simply to numb the pain but what took the cake was when he pushed her a little too hard and it caused her to lose their sweet little baby. She was only a few months along but a miscarriage sucks none the less. 

When their divorce was finalized she didn't want to be in the same state as Chad Cryderman so she hit the road, in her GMC Tahoe. All she had was the fact that her mother's name was Stephanie and her father's name was Lindsey. No last names were filled out but she had a hunch. 

It was stupid really, she discovered Fleetwood Mac when she was about ten, whatever family she was in at that point, maybe the Stephenson's but she can't remember, were huge fans of Fleetwood Mac. She found a connection with the lead singer. She didn't know why but she did. As she got older and started thinking about it, it was a stupid hopeful gleam. 

She liked to think that her hip-length brown waves were from Lindsey, her big puppy dog brown eyes and slight crooked lip shape and smile was from Stevie. Not to mention her height. She stands at only five-three and she is quite petite. Then there's the fact that she can sing. It's a kept activity, simply because she doesn't broadcast it. She only sings when she's by herself. Chad didn't even know she could sing. Even her high cheekbones could've been from either of them. She was turning 26 and she really shouldn't still be having those childish thoughts, especially because at the time-Lindsey had quit Fleetwood Mac, and Stevie was hooked on Klonopin it was all too good to be true. Besides, she would've had to been conceived in January at the Clinton Inauguration. 

Upon arriving in Los Angeles she got a job at some modeling agency, doing makeup for headshots. She stayed in her car until she met Mallory Briggs. She's a woman in her early thirties and often she references Tori as a little sister of sorts. Mallory owns a dance studio. Not the traditional tap, ballet, jazz-no, she owns a studio where she instructs on the Tango, the Waltz, Foxtrot, salsa, everything like that. She even gives dance classes for engaged couples for their first dance. Mallory is a professional dancer on Dancing With the Stars and that's precisely how they met. She ended up going on loan one night from the agency as one of the make up artists had gotten sick and now, Tori solely does Mallory's makeup for the show. 

She lived in Mallory's apartment with her until she was able to save up her money and move to her own apartment. It's a safe neighborhood but the tenants aren't the nicest, all the same,  it's a roof over her head.