flashinglightsandecstasy:

(Source: wearethedreamcatchers)

I turn the knob and push open my front door. I step into a house of silence and make my way through the long halls of my parents six bedroom house. Most of the rooms are unoccupied, but memories still lurk in the shadows. I have not forgotten the visitors who shared the same roof over my head. Their mark has been left in my mind and has unconsciously shaped who I am today. The quietness is unfamiliar for a house that once held noise at every hour of the day. After eight years of living with strangers living alone with my parents is a drastic change.

            I refer to these people as strangers because we have no connection other then my parents’ piece of paper that says that they can legally care for them. Foster kids. Since the age of ten my parents have been housing foster boys.

I was never very fond of the word “sharing”, but for those eight years I exercised it daily. There were always at least four boys rooming with my family, and six was our capacity. I shared my parents attention, the television, fridge, and friends. Watching T.V was a battle that most often I didn’t feel the need to go to war about. There were more kids then there was televisions. If I wanted certain snacks for the week I would keep them in my room. If I wanted any of my valuables to remain mine I had to keep my door locked up, items were known to go missing around the house.  

 Most of the boys were the same age as I was, and attended school with me since elementary school. It was hard to explain to peers that these boys lived with me and were considered my brothers, most never understood the concept.

            I used to think of my situation as a constant sleepover, I had people my age around me all the time. But unlike a sleepover these boys never went home and I got tired of playing. Throughout the first year of my parents doing foster care I learned not to get very attached. Boys were constantly moving there things in and moving there things out. They would either cause trouble or not follow the rules and get themselves kicked out. Some days I would come home and there would be a stranger on my couch, I would walk over and introduce myself and head to my room. Over eight years I had introduced myself to more than fifty boys and that was only a rough estimate.

            I know that these boys are going through harder things then I can imagine. They are dealing with their parents mistakes and forced to live with strangers as well, change different schools and live different life styles. I have seen every way that this type of thing can effect a person it includes a lot of acting out, and anger. Lots of anger. I have seen how these situations have made them less self motivated, and have given them no reason to care about their own actions.

            That is why the cops were at my house every other week.

            Ambulances, fire trucks, cop cars had each sped past me as I walked home from school and I watched as they turned onto my street. I knew in the back of my head that they were headed to my house, they always were. A few friends were with me but I sprinted the rest of the way home driven by curiosity of the chaos that awaited my arrival. It was an attempted suicide. A boy had tried taking his life by hanging himself by putting the straps of a bag around his neck and hanging the opening of the bag on a hook. The boy did more damage to the wall than to himself, just a few marks on his neck. The paramedics were more concerned of the psychological reasons behind his act.

            I do not think that I ever learned how to psychologically take in the things that I saw happen or experienced. I would usually make a joke about events that occurred, and assume that none of these boys are my problem we just shared a home. That might be selfish, but I as a young girl I barely knew how to survive living with them, let alone help them. I kept to myself a lot, I was either in my room or I was out doing something.

            I recall one day back in middle school I had tried making one of the boys comfortable coming to a new school. I had introduced him to my group of friends and let him hang around us. A few weeks had gone by and he seemed likeable, very quiet but a nice kid. It was just then that I was sitting in my history class taking a test when the fire alarm starts going off. My teacher was startled so we all knew this was not just a drill. We hurried out of the building and made our way to our designated spots that deemed it far enough away from the school to be safe from fire. We sat single file in our lines in the blazing hot sun for hours seeing a faint cloud of smoke rise from our school. Rumors went around that our school bathroom was set a flame and the last person caught on camera exiting the bathroom was of course my foster brother.

            My teenage years were far from normal, and growing up being the only girl only made things more difficult. Some boys had the idea that because we were not actually brother and sister, that it was okay to try and make advances on me. My mom made it a clear rule that I was off limits, but some thought it never hurt to try. It only gave me more of a reason not to befriend many of them.     

There was one boy that caught me off guard, who stayed and lived in our home for seven years and became my brother. It was an unexpected close bond that I would have never predicated on his arrival. He was a short, round kid, round head, round body and very thick. He arrived at my house with ice cream all down the front of his shirt. He walked with a limp, being overweight had made his hip pop out of place. When he talked and became nervous he flapped his arms in the air and clapped his hands together.  He was very dyslexic and had a hard time reading. I often found myself annoyed every time he was playing a video game that contained text, he always called over to read it for him. He came to us with poor hygiene skills; my mom had caught him wearing the same pair of boxers for a whole week. It was almost like taking care of a newborn child.

Out of the fifty plus kids that have lived with us he is the one of the two that my parents watched graduate. He has completely changed and nothing about his old self remains. He is tall, broad shoulders, and well kept together. He has lost quiet a bit of weight over the years from playing football and watching his diet.  He is now working and going to school in the California Conservation Core learning how to fight forest fires. His senior portrait hangs proudly next to mine in our living room.

I wake up my vision is blurred; I can barely comprehend where I am. Figures in white move throughout my line of sight and I notice wires are inserted into my arm. I am breathing through a face mask. The room is bright, it hurts my eyes. I guess that party must have been fun.

“Where I am, where my friends are?” I asked in a drunken haze.

I realize that that did not come out entirely how I planned it too. I try to think of previous events from this moment trying to piece back together how I ended up in this hospital. Questions are thrown at me, my phone number, my parent’s name, address. I finally choke up a phone number as I learn over my bed and puke. I repeatedly ask for my cell phone in a whisper as I fade back out of consciousness.

            I awaken again to notice my bright orange brick of a phone is laid upon my thighs, a friendly nurse must have responded to my request. I flip it open and go to my inbox. My phone continues to vibrate in my hands and new messages are appearing on my screen faster than I can read my old ones. Mostly just worried texts from friends asking what happened, that’s when his name appears on the screen. My boyfriend, I can only imagine how furious he is with me. It seems that good gossips travels fast in the high school world, especially if it involves a girl leaving a party on a stretcher. He did not want me to go to the party in the first place, and look where that ended me up. I text him a quick, “I love you, don’t leave me”. Or at least that’s what I was trying to send. I do not make the effort to respond to the other texts, they can wait for me to sober up.

            I am not as dizzy as I was earlier, but my focus is still off. My bladder feels ready to burst; the alcohol has made its way through my system. I call for a nurse, and she helps me off the bed and walks me to the bathroom. I have the nurse on one side helping me walk, and my other hand gripping the pole that is attached to my IV as I drag it along. I am barefoot from what I can see, and I am wearing a hospital gown. I make a silent wish to myself in hopes that a nurse changed my clothes and that I was not walking around naked in public. I enter the bathroom and stare at the nurse waiting for her to exit the room. She stays, and I make an effort to get myself on the toilet. If I were not so intoxicated at any other time urinating in front of a complete stranger would be extremely awkward. I wipe and get up to wash my hands in the sink. I take a glance at myself in the mirror, my face is red and my hair has seen better days. I cannot help but smile to myself and think what have I got myself into?

            Teenagers get a little too drunk at parties all the time, why I am in the hospital for it?

            I am lying back in my hospital bed, when the curtain is drawn back and enters my mother and father. Both of them in the same room, at the same time this means serious business. I knew what ever life that I had before this, would soon be gone. Any freedom or responsibility that I once had I could kiss good bye. At least I went out with a bang, I certainly made a huge impression for such a small freshman in high school.