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Prologue
Jurnee
At the tenderage of twelve, sitting in the cove of the window on the old, stained pillows, looking out at the long walkway with weeds sprouting up out of the cracked pavement, I had the same yearning thought I always did.I wish someone would walk up to this rickety old house and take me away. Just like in the movie Annie. I need my Daddy Warbucks.
This foster home may not have been as torturous as some, but it was almost prehistoric and filled with kids that nobody wanted. Many of us were older, nearly teenagers and some had hit that marker already. Nobody seemed to want a kid once they got past a certain age. It was as if we had an expiration date, like we were rotten, spoiled milk. A lot of us also had something else in common: illness, disabilities, and things of that nature. Things that had left us stuck in this place, wishing for more.
My mind drifted to the day that brought me here, feeling as though it were just yesterday. A shiver ran through my body. I was only five then, but I’ve never forgotten.
I didn’t run to her or cry out. All I felt was numbness sink into my bones while tears furiously slid down my cheeks as my mother’s words pierced my soul, and she walked away, leaving me without a backward glance like I meant nothing to her.
Nobody wanted me.
Feeling a hand grasp mine firmly, I had looked into the eyes of a stranger, one who would have to take care of me since my own flesh and blood couldn’t be saddled with the responsibility of an ill child. With no other family, I became a ward of the state that day.
A day that would be engraved on my delicate heart forever.
Years later, the sickness that had once plagued my tiny, fragile body had subsided. However, the longing to truly be loved hadn’t diminished. I knew all the kids in this foster home wished for the same thing as me.
A family of our own.
Day after day, I was losing the desire to keep dreaming that the time would ever come that it would happen for me. The demons and nightmares that plagued me during sleep and the fears that consumed me took over more often than not.
Then, a little spark of hope I’d thought was lost forever, ignited once again. Like an ember in the pit of my stomach, I felt a burning excitement. Inside the cove by the window, the scene on the other side of the dirty old glass was different today. Something big was coming, I could feel it with every fiber of my being.
Two figures appeared, ones I hadn’t seen before. Not able to keep my eyes off the couple holding hands, seeing the love in their eyes, approaching the door, my heart began to beat wildly. I was unsure why all these feelings were bubbling up inside me, but my mind, body, and soul were telling me that whoever just rang the doorbell would change my life forever.
And change my life it did.
In remission, twelve-years-old, a small gangly little girl with a million insecurities, self-esteem issues, and more, I finally got my shot at a forever home.
When I left, all I really took with me was my name, the one my birth mother had given me. Jurnee, how fitting was that since another part of my journey was just beginning?
A month after settling into my new home, I started middle school where I didn’t know a soul. To make matters worse, it was already partway through the school year. Kids had already established their cliques and were having fun. I was sure that once again I’d be on my own. But as I got out of the car with my parents, my eyes locked with two girls emerging from another vehicle. With them was a guy, one who did funny things to my insides the moment I first saw him.
Right then and there, my gut told me I was gonna be okay. They were going to be my saving grace, and at that moment, our worlds entwined.
Chapter One
Jurnee
Twelve years later
“Jurnee,get your butt down here, we’re going to be late!” my best friend Summer shouted. Well, she was one of them. Alley, or as we liked to call her, Alley Cat, made up the other part of our crazy trio. Soul Sisters, that’s what we are.
A bond that will never be broken.
Coming from a poor family with a set of seriously hellacious parents, Alley Cat had to scrap and fight her way through life as a kid. That was how she got her nickname from us and it fits her to a T. Growing up without much money, and coming from the wrong side of the tracks, as the preppy assholes like to say, our girl didn’t have it easy. But she’s strong, kind, and has a spirit about her that drew me in the second I met her in the seventh grade.
The thing about Alley is she doesn’t let many people get close to her, holding herself and her feelings back. Her parents were worthless, doing some serious damage to her heart, even if she likes to pretend, she doesn’t care. She has her brother, he loves her, and has always been highly protective of her, but he was five years older and left to join the Marines the summer after we finished junior high. So, with that, he wasn’t around much for many years when she could have used him. Alley never seemed to mind because she has always been so proud of her brother and loves him fiercely.
Alley was devastated the day Braxton left, it was still hard to say goodbye no matter how much she approved of what he was doing. She’d told us how broken up he was to leave her as well, but it was his shot for a better life and in return, he could give her one too. During his time away, he was always sending her money in secret so their parents couldn’t get their hands on it. He helped put her through college and was happy to help her get her own place the second she was done with high school and had turned eighteen. Not wanting her to be alone, Summer and I moved in with her and we’d been living together ever since.
Needless to say, with everything he did for Alley and how much he cared, Braxton was pretty extraordinary, like a real-life superhero.
There’d been some struggles for Alley over the years with her brother away. At that age a young girl is going through an extraordinary number of changes in her life, while her parents didn’t give a shit, spending more time with their recreational activities and low-life friends, then to be concerned about their daughter. And the worry she had when her brother was deployed rocked her to her core. Their parents didn’t give a hoot about Braxton when he had been here, and they certainly hadn’t once he was gone, so no support had come from them during those agonizing times.Like I said, worthless.But she had Summer and me and we would always be there for her and each other, through thick and thin.
Now he’s back.
