My 11th Birthday

Well, now that the break is over. I am going back into the depths of my mind to recall what order things went. It has been nearly 20 years, so I’m liable to mess this up at some point.

My birthday was one week after I arrived. Since I was a new arrival and all of my paperwork was still being processed, it was overlooked. Two days after my birthday, when a small box from my mother arrived, they finally realized it. By then it really was too late to do anything about.

Inside the package was a single item. It was a white shirt with a Mountain Dew emblem on the right hand side just above my chest. Now this might seem like an odd gift for a little girl turning eleven, but, it was my favorite drink and at the time, their emblem was much cooler then it is now.

Of course, being the good girl I was, I took it up and promptly put it into the dirty laundry. We had a large garbage can type container that sat in the upstairs girls’ bathroom and we all put our clothes into it. Each night, the third shift staff member, of which there was only one, would haul it down to the laundry room and wash, dry and fold it all. In the morning, we awoke to clean clothes outside the hallway that we sorted ourselves and put away.

The next morning I rushed out and gathered up my clothes and slipped into my freshly washed brand new shirt. I went in to wash my face, comb my hair and brush my teeth.

Then we all headed down for breakfast. It was Monday morning, which meant that coffee would be served with breakfast.

Have I mentioned that at this point in time, Western Academy had only been operating for only a short while, less then a year, which meant that we were still the test subjects.

I still had not made any friends and the loneliness always seemed worse in the morning because everyone would gather into groups, fighting over who was going to sit next to who and I always ended up sitting alone, picking at my food. This morning was no exception.

I did not partake in the coffee. I have never been a coffee drinker and I’m still not. It was just one more thing of many that set me apart from the rest of the kids.

I finished up what I could stomach of my meal and began to carry my tray over. I should have noticed how quiet it got before I even stood up, only a few hushed whispers. I was too busy poking at my food and thinking of something that at the time was really important to me.

Rick appeared in front of me, cutting me off before I could make it to dump my tray. I looked him in the eye and I saw a slight smirk appear on his face before he lifted up his hand and the aroma of coffee hit me. Before I could step back, he poured the entire contents of the cup down the front of me. My skin felt the flash of fire before it went numb and for a long moment I just stared at him. I would not give a single one of them the satisfaction of seeing me cry so I moved forward quickly and dumped my tray into the garbage, tray and all and walked with as much dignity as I had left to the bathroom.

This was the first time that I discovered what great little hiding spot there was in the cabinets. I pulled one open and just stared into it for the longest time, then climbed in, curling myself up tightly by wrapping my arms around my knees and burying my face into my lap.

I sat there and went over in my mind all the things I had done in my young life, trying to pinpoint a place where I might have noticed that my mom stopped loving me. Then I tried to go back to see if there was any love at all.

I found no answers in the depths of my mind. I found instances where my mother would scream at me about what a rotten bitch I was. Yes folks, by the time I was about five I can remember my mother calling me a bitch, when my breasts started to come in early, then I became a whore to her. She would scream these obscenities at me while raining blows down on any part of my body she could reach. This didn’t happen very often but each moment of each time was burned into my mind.

The hardest part was that she wasn’t always like this. She would have periods of great generosity. Not money wise, but, with her words, she would tell me how beautiful, how smart, how sweet I was. She would make me feel like a princess just by taking me in and showing me how to make something in the kitchen. It was this that confused me. I never could understand how someone that loved you so much could hurt you so bad.

I think I fell asleep because the next thing I remember was hearing some of the girls come into the bathroom. They were laughing and talking about what a baby I was, about how I had run away because of a little bit of coffee. My chest and stomach burned still and I closed my eyes and put my hands over my ears in hopes of drowning out the voices, the words. The tears fell down my face anyway and I defiantly decided to stay there forever.

They laughed some more, making general snotty comments about how short my hair was, how I looked like a boy. The door opened and I held my breath as the water from the sink above me turned on, when it turned off I heard Lorie’s voice.

“Not be so mean to her, she’s just a kid and she really doesn’t deserve to be here. She’s not like the rest of us; her mom just didn’t want her.”

The other girls gave her some ribbing about being nice to the reject and her voice went soft and held a dangerous tone “I was her roommate at BPI, I know what kind of pain she is going through and I don’t care what you guys think of her, if any of you pull another stunt like today’s, you’ll understand exactly why I was locked up”

I shuddered a bit even as my heart swelled for the one person who had the guts to stand up against the masses on my behalf. I knew that she was in the system because she nearly beat a girl to death for sleeping with her boyfriend. She had told me that much at BPI. The girl had some serious anger management issues, but it seemed she had a soft spot too.

I don’t think Lorie ever realized exactly how much her actions effected me. She was never big on words and touching was not something she did freely, at least, not in a gentle manner.

All told I was under that sink from breakfast until just shortly after dinner. I was starving when I came out and slunk upstairs. I was immediately put on probation and sent to my room where I feel asleep with my stomach growling. Not a single word was said between me and any of the other girls.

I knew that things would not be getting better any time soon.