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The flight back to Idaho was long and bumpy, but I finally fell asleep, my body wrung out and exhausted. When we touched down, I found the social worker, Janet Pelletier, waiting for me. Her expression clouded when she took in my puffy face and rumpled uniform, and she shook her head regretfully.
“I’m so sorry your situation with your grandparents didn’t work out,” she told me as she escorted me to her car.
“Yeah. Me too,” I said dully.
“Your grandmother has advised me that you… had some discipline problems while you were there. I’ll want to talk to you about it as well, of course, and hear your side of the story, but we may need to place you in a home better equipped to give you the support you need.”
“I don’t need any support.”
She shot me a glance as we climbed inside her beat-up Honda. “Those who claim they don’t need help are very often the ones who need it most. Please, trust me, Talia. I’m trying to do what’s best for you. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you end up in a good foster home. But you have to work with me, not against me.”
I bit my lower lip so hard it stung, turning to watch the ugly browns and grays of the landscape drift by.
For just a little while, my world had been painted in vivid color. I hadn’t known those shades were missing from my life until I saw them for the first time, and now that they were gone, I felt their absence acutely.
I hadn’t thought I fit in at Oak Park, or in Roseland. But my time there had changed me so completely that now I no longer fit in here either. I had seen another version of my life, had gotten a glimpse of it, and even though it hadn’t been perfect, it’d had something my old life never really did.
Hope.
As we drove in silence, listening to the droning voices of public radio announcers, I rested my forehead against the window as a new thought began to grow in my mind, spreading and expanding until it was all I could focus on.
The Princes had lied to me.
They’d spent half the year making an effort to get close to me, all so
they could dig up dirt on me, could find my weaknesses and exploit them.
But they should’ve been more careful.
Because I had dirt on them too now, and I knew there was plenty more hidden beneath the surface, just waiting for someone cunning and determined enough to dig it up.
They’d shown me how to play the game.
How to wear two faces.
How to lie, manipulate, and strategize.
And even if they thought the game was over, I wasn’t done playing yet.
Maybe they’d stopped thinking about me the minute they’d thrown me back in the gutter where they thought I belonged, but I would never stop thinking about them. Somehow, even across all the miles that separated us, I’d find a way to make them pay.
For the next round of this twisted, fucked up game, I’d go in with my eyes wide open and my heart sealed tight.
And I’d fucking win.
To Be Continued…
