Having safe places to leave your kids though doesn't mean that everyone bothers. There's always the throwaways. Like me, for example. I wasn't some poor baby found clinging to life inside a dumpster or anything like that. No, my parents decided to wait until I was about preschool age and then dump my weird looking ass off in the middle of a national forest. Well, that might be overstating it a bit. Actually, I was about 3 miles away from a ranger station, just off trail. But it was miles deep into the Redwood national forest. My dad, my REAL dad who adopted me, worked as a ranger at the time, and while doing his thing, came across me huddled at the foot of one of the giant sequoia. I was dirty, scared, and dehydrated. I don't remember anything about that time, but he's always told me that I was terrified of him and tried to scrabble away as if I thought he would do me some sort of harm.
I was a genuine mystery. Between my obviously Asian face and my wildly multi-toned red hair, they hadn't a clue as I didn't respond to any English spoken at me. I also didn't grasp any Chinese, or Japanese. Korean was a bust as was Thai. They even at first thought my hair was dyed, but soon found out it was just another oddity about me. After the furore died down about me in the press and no leads as to who my parents were or why I had been abandoned in such a place, it was decided that as I was otherwise healthy, I could be released from the hospital and placed into foster care.
My dad and mom came forward. They plead their case, interested in not just fostering me, but adopting me, and after all the hoops they had to jump through to first be allowed to foster me, then to adopt me, they got their wish. It was a pretty good life, right up until Mom died. Two years ago, the night before my 12th birthday, Mom sat down on the couch to watch a bit of TV. She'd baked and decorated a birthday cake for me and had the meat for the family barbecue celebration marinating. Tired, she drifted off to sleep watching some game show, resting up before making dinner. Dinner never got made. They said it was an aneurysm. Basically, a blood clot went pop in her brain, and it seems they are sneaky things that simply just happen.
That cake sat on the counter for weeks, until mold began to grow fuzz not only on the cake, but along the edges of the cake cover. The food in the fridge went off, but that didn't matter because everyone and their cousin came crawling out of the woodwork to bring us tuna casserole and macaroni salad and all sorts of stuff like that. One of those ladies threw out the cake and cleaned out the fridge when she saw it as she went to put her casserole in the kitchen. All at once too, as if we could simply gorge ourselves on casseroles for 2 days to get it all eaten and then start again when they collected their dishes a few days later and plied us with green bean casserole and huge bowls of goodness knows what.
I'd always been picked on to a certain extent at school because of my looks. The other kids would call me carrot top and fire brain, while others would pull at the corners of their eyes until they became slits, and then they'd make comments about “Chinky Chinky boy”. My Mom used to say I was beautiful, in a delicate way and that they were jealous of my exotically good looks. As for my hair, she said the shadings of red to almost orange and even blonde reminded her of a candle flame. I loved her for that, but let's face it. Moms see what their heart shows, and it isn't always reality. I was a weird looking kid, and that was that.
After she died, you'd think some of the kids would have let up put of sympathy, but they didn't. If anything, they smelled blood in the water, like sharks. They could sense my feelings of vulnerability, and my sadness over losing my Mom. They began tormenting me even over death, going so far at times as to taunt me with the fact that yet another mother had left me. Cruel words, but nonetheless, they cut deeply as I did indeed feel abandoned and somewhat alone.
Then, if you can believe it, another freakish thing about me came to my attention. At 13, I realized that I felt about boys the way the other boys did about girls. Junior high locker rooms became a nightmare. God help me if they caught me looking, as I could get a beat down just for being me and glancing at them. But if they knew what I was thinking, and then caught me looking- I knew that would be more than a beat down. I didn't even want to think about that.
I kept my head down and prayed that it would indeed get better, hopefully once I made it to high school. Our small school fed into a much larger high school. This school even had a GSA, or a gay Straight Alliance. But, as usual, when the time came, I found myself still the butt of jokes and the occasional push or shove thanks to my odd looks. I did try to screw up the courage to visit the GSA meetings advertised, but when I approached and made eye contact with a couple of the kids going into the room, I met hostile glares, so I made myself scarce. I don't know if they thought I was trying to start crap, or if they just didn't want to have any thrown their way for associating with the really weird kid. Whatever their reason, I decided it was a good idea to steer clear. It was obvious I'd find no allies there.
I guess it's no surprise that when I noticed some guy looking at me s I made my way down the hallway and towards the freedom of the front doors at the end of the school day, I was more than a little bit leery. He was looking at me intently, but just what those intentions were, I was afraid to find out. My mind raced. I didn't recognize this guy. Sure, it's a rather large school and the people I actually do know are a relative drop in the bucket, but I'm pretty sure I’d remember someone who looked liked this guy did. Vividly green eyes and dark lush lashes like that are memorable, even without the rest of the package. He was tall, and I do mean TALL. Not just taller than short little old me, but towering over everyone else kind of tall. His hair was brown, but not plain old mousy brown or mud brown. It was a warm brown, shimmering with red and gold highlights any stylist would be proud to have put in. His skin was a warm shade too, looking as if he tanned regularly but somehow I got the feeling this was all him. Some people were just born to be gorgeous. It balances out the freakish looking people like me.
Uneasy under his stare, I made a dash for it. I managed to clear the doors, and I would have made it all the way down the steps and to the pavement if it hadn't been for Josh Henderson. Josh stopped dead in front of me, apparently deciding to not step aside while trying to engage some girl in conversation. I tried to squeeze past, rather than run full tilt in to him with the crowd going for the buses at my back. Unfortunately, there wasn't quite enough space, and I clipped Josh's arm and that of some other guy I didn't know.
“Hey, asswipe! Watch where you're going!”
“Sorry, sorry,” I muttered to them both, ducking my head and trying to make my get away.
The one guy glared, but gave a curt nod. Josh however was another story.
“Oh, it's you, freak boy!”
I could feel the panic beginning to settle into my bones.
“Sorry,” I said again, and went to hurry away, despite Josh's hand gripping my arm rather painfully. He let go, and felt a hard shove at my back. I went forward, and hit the the steps, arms out and face turned to the side, hoping to brace my fall against all odds and hopefully not break my face. The shock of the impact knocked the breath out me, and I choked back a sob of pain. My ribs had caught the edge of one of the steps, hard. I barely had time to register that when Josh's foot kicked at me. My rucksack caught most of that, but it added enough of a jarring motion to scrape my chest against the steps again, making my ribs feel like they were being grated.
“You there!”
A teacher's voice.
“I'm just helping him up,” Josh said as he grabbed the straps to my rucksack and yanked me upwards. I flailed for balance and as I steadied myself, I heard him whisper, “Just watch yourself, dork.”
I could hear a few snickers from the crowd, and as soon as he released me, I ducked my head down and made my escape. I didn't even flush with embarrassment. This was my life. It has always been this way. Except for two people, my adoptive Mom and dad, no one has ever wanted me or even liked me, so this was nothing new. The humiliation had long worn off.
As I trudged home, clouds rolled in and it began to rain. Just great., as it had been warm and sunny with no rain forecast, so I didn't have a jacket or anything. Soon my thin t-shirt was soaked and my damp backpack began to rub. To top all off, a car turned a corner too close to the curb, and my jeans were splattered with the muddy water. What an absolutely perfect end to an already shit day of school.
“Cody? That you, son?” my dad's voice called out.
“Yeah, it's me, Dad,” I called back. He has asked me this every day since Mom died. I sometimes think that he hopes against hope that it'll be her, returning from the grocery store or something. I often wish stuff like that too, but I know it's not gonna happen.
Dad stepped from the hall into the living room. He was shrugging on his jacket. Looked like he was going out again.
“Grab whatever you want out of the freezer, okay? I'll be at Dave's if you need me. Don't forget to your homework.”
Yup, he was going out for the night again. Lately he'd been going out to go bowling, play poker, watch the game, pretty much anything that took him out of the house and its memories. Problem is, it takes him away from me as well, and I'm left here alone with them by myself. Maybe we should just move and maybe get new furniture and stuff or redecorate. I don't know, and I don't know how to bring it up either. So, as usual, I just mumble, “Okay, Dad. Have a good time.” Yay. Supermarket brand ready meal something or other again tonight. Maybe I'll just have a sandwich. Whatever.
Prologue
©2013-2014 Lillian McKinnon. All Rights Reserved.
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