𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐝, 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐁𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐅𝐚𝐧

40. Chocobeans & Oreos

     It was top of '87 when I first moved to Minneapolis, when my adoption fell through with that family. Too damaged to be the perfect big sister to their daughter, they returned me like an unwanted Christmas gift a week before my 15th birthday.

Lost on all hope, I was stuck in another shitty home with careless souls. I hardly lucked out on decent fosters. On February 14th I kept telling myself, three more years until emancipation. But then what? I had no one. Where would I go then? A park bench? No one was going to adopt a 15-year old. I accepted that but also knew once I was out of the system my struggle would only get worse before it could get better.

Constantly fearing my future is what nearly pushed me off the ledge. The corners of my mind were darker than I'd ever seen. It was when I first dreamt of suicide.

That was what I wanted, to die, but I couldn't be the one to end it. I didn't want to give God any reason to turn me away. If I would've taken what he gave me then he'd have a reason to send me down and I would never get to see Mrs. Jenkins again. I wanted to meet her husband too. So I just kept dreaming.

Circumstances made living hell. Every day I kept asking to be hit by a bus. Let a stray bullet hit me. What was the purpose of enduring all of this pain? Careless, I started taking the long way home. But the entire time, the one thing that would pull me back was right there above me.

Mila Raine Lakes. The two of us shared a room in this new soulless house. Before I ever got there, she had already claimed top bunk. I didn't mind. She spent so much time up near the ceiling I hardly ever saw her face. We shared classes and even walked behind one another to school. But for weeks, we never spoke one word towards another. For one, after moving around so much I gave up on making friends two houses ago. It hurt constantly being ripped away at no notice. Two, she wasn't much of a people person.

The first time I truly got a look at her was the morning she came into the kitchen and sat across from me at the table. Brunette, pale with the bluest blue eyes, both in color and emotively. But I remember the only thing I was thinking was 'wow. I wish I had her lips.' At 15, I had spent enough time in the mirror picking myself apart. That morning I complained that my top lip was slightly smaller than the bottom. Mila's was perfectly plump and proportioned.

Fast forward to gym class later that day. Two girls were ragging on me about my clothes. The family that could've been mine made me leave with what I came with. Two pairs of jeans, a few t-shirts and not much else.

Words are words. They never got to me. But when touched? Different story. One of the girls pulled at my sleeve and I shoved her so hard she fell flat on her ass. Onlookers hyped it up. Things escalated within one blink of an eye. Someone pushed me from the back and before I knew it, I was the one on the floor getting stomped on by four legs.

A crowd rallied around us and before Mr. Elberts could save me, a force came and yanked one of the chicks free of me. That force was Mila. Hair wrangled in her fist, she tossed the girl into the bleachers. Blood splashed her hand with the first blow to my bully's face, but she kept going, stuck somewhere in trance.

Bully #2 tried rescuing her friend but I grabbed her shoulders before she could make it there. Pummeling her face, I got lost somewhere myself. We didn't stop until the adults pulled us away.

Of course, Mila and I were suspended. The battered instigators only got a trip to the nurse's station as far as I know.

Usually one of us trailed the other's shadow but that day Mila and I ran out of the school together like misfits, profanity and middle fingers to the building bidding our farewell.