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CHAPTER ONE
ROSE
Christmas Day - 2012
“Come on, Amara, they’re waiting,” the social worker says. I don’t even bother to correct her about my name again. My legal name is Amara Rose Thompson, but I’ve always gone by Rose. Something this woman can’t seem to be bothered with remembering. I guess I can’t be too upset considering she’s just ‘the social worker’ to me. Of course, she has a name, something generic like Jenny or Patty or maybe it was April. I don’t know, and I don’t care, my whole world has crumbled around me. Again. Social worker Sue puts her hand on my back to guide me faster up the cracked walkway towards the house.
It could be any other house in middle-class America. Two stories, white clapboard, blue shudders, a large porch with a swing, red front door. I should be glad to be out of the girls’ home so quickly, especially during the holiday season, but what’s the point? Now I get to pretend holiday cheer with Mr. and Mrs. Perfect and their family when all I really want to do is curl up and die. The door opens before we even climb the steps to the porch, and Mrs. Perfect steps out with a toddler on her hip, a huge smile on her face.
“Well, look at you, what a beautiful young lady,” Mrs. Perfect says her voice is dripping with fake enthusiasm, at least I’m pretty sure it’s fake. Who can be so cheery when they are getting the problem child no one else wants? “I am Mommy Marcia, and this here is Benny.” I kid you not, Mommy Marcia is how she introduces herself as if I will ever think of her as my mother. My mom is dead. With that thought, a wave of pain lances through my chest, and I feel like crumbling right here on the stairs. How do these people not see the pieces of me laying all over the place? I’m shattering, and no one cares.
I’m not really here with these people. I’m locked deep inside my own mind somewhere in the darkest depths. Marcia takes me and social worker Jane on a tour of the house; kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, attic door (it’s off-limits she says, indicating the lock), last door on the left will be mine. There are two sets of bunk beds and two dressers, the walls are painted prison cell gray, the bedding is gray, the carpet is gray—super cheerful place. We are back down in the living room; I don’t even remember coming back downstairs. I’m drowning in my own personal sea of despair who cares about the grand tour. Social worker Sally pats my shoulder and reminds me that all I have to do is call if I need anything before leaving me with my new family.
Yeah, like she really gives a rip about me and what I need. She was so damn excited to pawn me off on these people because no one else would take me. How do I know this, you ask? Well, because I heard her telling her boss, I’m impossible to place. No one wants a teenage foster kid with my kind of history. I’m what they call a frequent flyer. I have been in every group home in the county and probably thirty or more foster homes. My mom had issues, but I know she loved me in her own way. I know she tried, mostly, at least she always fought to get me back after she would fall off the deep end. She would pick herself up again, get clean, get me back, and then the cycle started over again. This time there would be no break in the cycle. This time it was over, and I got to watch as the light in her eyes flickered then went out.
“Okay, girl, take your bags upstairs and get cleaned up, dinner is in ten minutes,” Mrs. Perfect says coldly. I knew she was fake. Over the years, I’ve become an astute judge of character, within moments of meeting someone I can tell exactly what their damage is. Fake isn’t Mrs. Perfect’s middle name. It’s her first. Fake Perfect, middle name yet to be determined, but if I had my guess, it will start with a B and rhyme with witch.
“Okay,” I answer dully. I grab my bags—a ratty backpack and a black trash bag, only the best luggage for kids in the system—and make my way up to the room she indicated would be mine on the tour. I grab my few toiletries and shove the still packed bags under the bed before making my way to the bathroom. I try to tame my hair, but the thick waves are impossible since conditioner is a luxury, and anything beyond basic hygiene is not on the priority list at the group home. After a few minutes, I just give up and pull it into a stylishly messy knot on the top of my head. I wash my face and hands, then return my few things to my jail cell chic room.
As I am shoving my things back into my bag, Mrs. Perfect screams up the stairs to put a move on, not knowing if it’s me she is yelling at or not I don’t answer. I’m startled when a voice comes from directly behind me. “You better hurry, he will be home any minute, and we gotta be at that table.” His voice a half-whisper. Even with the slight hiss from whispering, I can tell his voice is a deep baritone. He cocks his head to the side and tips his full lips up in a half-smile, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I’m staring. I know I’m staring, but I just can’t seem to help it. He’s every teenage girl’s wet dream, and I just so happen to be a teenage girl. His hair is a warm shade of chocolate and flops over his forehead in a messy, careless kind of way. He’s tall, I can guess over six feet, but definitely much more than my pitiful five-foot frame. He is obviously older because he looks more like a man than a boy. Lucky him, he’ll be out of the system soon. He has on a well-worn pair of jeans that hang loosely off his hips and a black t-shirt that is tight across his muscular frame. After shamelessly checking out his body, I glance back up to his face. His smile has turned into a knowing smirk. He’s amused by my perusal, and that instantly pisses me off.
“Why the hell are you sneaking up on me?” I bite out. Even though my voice is barely above a whisper, the venom drips from every syllable. This is an emotion I can deal with, forgotten is the anguish from losing the only family I had, anger is my oldest and dearest friend. A welcome reprieve from the overwhelming sadness I’ve been drowning in.
He looks slightly taken aback but quickly regains his footing. “Look, I wasn’t sneaking. You learn to be quiet around this place. And for your information, I was only trying to look out for you. Just because you’re new doesn’t mean you’ll escape punishment.”
“Whatever,” I snarl as I shove past him, the contact of my shoulder against his arm sends a jolt of electricity through my body. I hurry down the hall towards the stairs. He catches up and grabs my arm before I make it past the first stair.
His touch is like a shock to my system. Heat radiates from that one innocent point of contact, and my heart races at the unfamiliar sensation. I’m not naïve, I know all about sexual attraction, I’m young, but not stupid. I’ve kissed a few boys, had a boyfriend once… but I have never, ever felt a boy’s touch so acutely.
From the surprised look on his face, I have to wonder if he feels it too. He quickly pulls his hand away and stares in shocked silence. He recovers faster than I do.
“I’m sorry for startling you. Let’s not start off on the wrong foot here, okay?” He’s still mostly whispering, but his words are filled with some kind of emotion I don’t recognize. “Let’s start over. My name’s Matthew.”
He holds his hand out toward me as if to shake my hand. I’m torn between wanting to see if that same electric charge happens again or if it was in my mind and wanting to walk away to protect myself. Making friends in places like this never ends well. A hard lesson I learned years ago.
Even though it would be smarter to hang onto my residual anger—it’s the safest emotion—when I look into his eyes, I can see that he’s just like me. He’s been broken by circumstance. Forced into adulthood, much too young. His eyes are such a dark shade of blue, they’re nearly black, but even with that lack of color, they’re full of emotion. Those soulful eyes bore into me. Everything he’s thinking, everything he’s feeling, it’s all written plain as day in those dark eyes. This is why I reach out and grab his hand and risk another heartache. “Nice to meet you, Matty, I’m Rose.”
His face breaks out in a hundred-watt smile when I call him Matty. I was actually trying to tease him, make him a little less overwhelming to the senses, but then he turns that smile on me, and I realize that I never had a chance. This boy is so going to break me into a million more pieces. “Likewise, Rosie Posey.”
I roll my eyes at him and huff out a sigh, “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”
Secretly it pleases me that he picked that nickname. It almost feels like fate. What are the odds that he would call me something only one other person in my life has used? My mom called me Rosie Posey on the rare occasions when she was clean. Maybe it won’t be so bad here after all.
CHAPTER TWO
ROSE
Summer - 2013
“Okay, little girl, come on out of there.” I don’t know how he always manages to find me. No matter where I hide or what hole I crawl into, he always comes to save me from myself. “You know you’ll get punished if you’re late, and I’m not going in without you, so you’re signing us both up for punishment by hiding.”
Slowly, I crawl backward out of my hidey-hole, gentle hands help me to my feet brushing dirt and cobwebs from my clothes. “Sorry, I just needed to be alone,” I say to my feet.
A warm arm wraps around my shoulders as he hugs me to his chest. My breath catches in my throat as I fight back the urge to cry. “I know, sweetheart, I know,” he breathes. “Soon enough, I’ll be out of here, and I swear I will find a way to take you with me. I won’t leave you.”
He’s right, he’ll be eighteen in a few weeks, and no longer a ward of the state. Then he’ll be able to leave this hellhole. I know he wants to find a way to take me with him. I don’t see the state letting me live with him and his degenerate friends when I have a perfectly wonderful foster family raising me. I can’t rain on his parade, though, so I put on my happy face and say, “I know Matty, and it’s going to be great.” He gives me another quick squeeze before leading me up the porch steps and back into Hell.
