Home - an Adopted By Jonathan Groff Story

2: Iris

7 years later- 2014

My feet are moving so fast that it feels like my body is merely dragging along with them. This is going to be the fourth time I've been late to practice! The fourth time! My backpack continues to slip down my arms, which is unfortunately setting back my arrival time even further- oh, maybe I should catch you up to speed on where I'm even going.

The foster care centre has been lacking any interesting activities since I ended up there years ago. The only thing to keep me occupied besides school was the arts, even though I had to find a way to access them all by myself. I would put on mini-musicals for my foster families (my favourite one being my rendition of Mary Poppins), and I've only had one family that genuinely cared about them and thought that I actually had talent. With their help, I would organize talent shows and performances in school gyms, and they would invite some other foster families to perform at and watch these odd shows.

I think the only reason I kept at this for so long was the small sliver of hope I had that it would become something bigger, and that one day I would cross paths with Jonathan again through the world of theatre. I've spent half of my life working to become someone he might see and be proud of; he was the first person in my life that had listened to me, that made me feel wanted, that saw something in me. He always told me I should live up to my full potential, so that's what I've been working to do.

The only problem was that I was stuck in the same place. Performing to the same people every year. This little hobby was all I focused my energy on for 6 years, until the foster system got tired of it; they had pitched in to help with funds one year and had helped cover a small amount of the costs for costuming and venues every year after that, and after the foster homes interest spiked 2 years ago they decided to help fund a theatre program for kids in the foster program and group homes in the system, on one condition: I had to run it. They would have adult supervision, yet I had to organize the pieces to learn and perform. I mean, it's easy enough when theatre is the one thing my life revolves around in the first place.

It does happen to backfire when I spend too much time singing songs in my head during class, having to stay late to finish my work, and then end up running faster than I ever have in my life to catch this stupid city bus. For the fourth day in a row.

I can see it in the distance now, trucking towards the bus stop- the closest one to me. If I don't make it on there I won't be able to catch it at a different spot, and there won't be another one for 20 minutes at least, oh man. I begin to frantically wave my arms at the bus driver as he gets closer to the stop just across the street, while I'm just making it to the crosswalk. There's no way I'm making it to practice today.

Just as the bus passes the corner, I vaguely see a man near the back of the bus turn his head in my direction, and as he realizes I'm trying to catch the bus he's on, he quickly informs the bus driver of my presence, and the bus starts to pull over. Thank god.

Barely looking both ways, I tug my backpack back onto my shoulders and cross the street to the bus. I quickly pay, smiling awkwardly as he gives me an annoyed look, and take a second to catch my breath. God, this bag is weighing me down. I place it at my feet to grab my earbuds and take a look around. The bus is quite empty except for the now clear figure of the man that must have spotted me. His eyes were on me, him taking one earbud out just as I put one in. I mean, I could sit as far from him as possible, but I should probably at least thank him. This guy saved my ass.

I meander over to where he's sitting, and open my mouth to thank him for noticing my frantic hand waving when I get a good look at what he's listening to; In The Heights. It's one of my favourite musicals, I've always wanted to visit Washington Heights! Smiling, I finally make eye contact- Jesus Christ, that's Lin-Manuel Miranda.