All Too Well

‘I promise I’ll be back.

We’re going to be together forever, Schie. I love you.’

Those were the last words he said to me.

The words I held onto for three years.

The words I believed.

The words I trusted.

The words that got me through some of the most challenging times.

But, like everyone else I had in my life, he fell through with his promises.

He never came back.

CHAPTER ONE

So, hey, Shieloh here. No last name, but we’ll get to that reason in a minute. I’m your average teen just about to enter my senior year of high school for the most part.

Ha, I’m only kidding. I’m far from average. Not even close to being labeled as such. Yes, I will be a senior, but I’m not like most other kids who attend the same schools as me.

I’m a ward of the state of Georgia, in other words, foster care. Once I became a teenager, I went to different homes every six months or so. That means I’ve already been to six other high schools in my whole high school history.

I was a crack baby.

What’s that mean, you ask?

My mom couldn’t give up the drugs while she was pregnant. I was born addicted to crack and whatever else my mom’s flavor of the week was back then. I don’t remember anything about that time, but I’ve heard horror stories of how I would scream all hours of the day and night incessantly. I had minor seizures, not anymore, but during the first six months of my life. I had so many doctor visits that the pediatrician’s office and hospital clinics were my second home until I turned almost eight.

After second grade, everything with me physically started to catch up with all the other kids. I no longer suffered from the trauma my mom did to me while she was pregnant. Then, she came back, and of course, the courts always want to keep families together regardless of what the child wants.

I was in the same foster home for almost six years. The couple I stayed with were the ones who brought comfort and kept me going to doctor’s appointments for my health concerns. My mom had supervised visits with me, but it wasn’t a true mother-daughter bonding time. It felt like always being with a stranger.

The day before my seventh birthday, everything changed. My bio-mom tested negative for drug use two months in a row, and it was then decided she should try and play mommy. Her playing the role lasted about four months. Then it was back to guys coming over all hours of the day, except for the days when the social worker would have a planned visit. She, my bio-mom, told me if I told the caseworker anything we hadn’t rehearsed for me to say, I would be locked in my room the rest of the day.

I did what every little girl was supposed to do. I listened to the one who was always supposed to watch out for me.

I lied.

I hid the welt marks.

I cried to go back to my previous home, the only one I knew.

But that never happened.

My bio-mom lost custody of me again when she failed a weekly drug test. She tried pleading her case, saying it was a one-time slip, but she’d been in so much trouble before the judge didn’t listen to her sorry-ass.

I spent the last ten years of my life being placed in different foster homes, some good, some, well, keep your mind open about the types of people free money can bring in every month to watch a kid. I kept quiet, out of trouble, well, most of the time, but sometimes a girl has to do what a girl gotta do to survive. I never made any long-lasting friends, and I kept below the radar at most schools. I was the loner, the freak, the one who came from a troubled background. I was the one most girls hated, and the boys wanted to date me just because they thought I was easy. I didn’t date, but that never stopped the rumors.

When I was fifteen, I was in a home that wasn’t too bad during the summer. I was kinda hoping that I would be able to stay there for a long time. That might have to be because he, Traxx, was my next-door neighbor. We spent almost every day together that summer. I was as in love as any fifteen-year-old could be at the time.

He was my first kiss.

My first second base.

We can add a first third base to the story.

And yes, he was the first and only guy I had sex with.

Then, right before we started high school, his father got a promotion, and they moved. No, not far, like only the next town over, but far enough where we couldn’t see each other. I didn’t have a cell phone or a laptop of my own, so it wasn’t like we could text or talk regularly.

Two months later, I experienced another life-changing moment. I was abruptly taken from my foster home, the one I felt so welcomed, and shoved around to various homes until I was eighteen. That was three long years of not feeling like I belonged. The caseworker I had for three years was suddenly removed from my case, and another, Envy, was put in her place,

Now that I had officially aged out of the system, I couldn’t be placed in a foster home. The organization was going to send me to a group home to get my GED, but Envy was granted permission to allow me to stay with her and attend a regular high school to graduate.

This coming year will make the eighth high school I’ve attended since I was fourteen.

My guess is it will be like all the others.

The story will continue...