Lydia
Age-Twelve
The doors hiss open, and I step down off the school bus with all of the other kids from the neighborhood.
It’s so hot today. The sticky, humid kind of hot I hate. My uniform clings to my skin with sweat, and my back feels drenched where my book bag is resting. It’s heavy, making my shoulders burn a little from the weight.
The west side of Charlotte is always loud, even when nothing is happening—day and night. Especially in the neighborhood we’re in now. It makes it all feel so overwhelming sometimes.
Cars going by with the bass playing so loud that it hurts my head, dogs barking in almost every yard—some chained to trees in the front, some in the back—guys sitting on their front porches smoking cigarettes or passing around a blunt, calling out things I ignore as I walk by, and boys riding around on their bikes or those little 4-wheelers, popping wheelies and yelling back and forth to each other.
Everything feels so chaotic, so I keep my head down and my pace fast like I do every day from the bus to the house, not wanting to linger outside around here.
Our current foster house is in a cul-de-sac at the back of this neighborhood in Enderly Park. All I see every time I walk up to the front of the house is the ugly peeling paint on the front door, the broken steps, and the random furniture sitting on the porch.
The front door is never locked when someone’s home, so it just creaks open when I push on it.
I immediately smell weed and the body spray that’s trying to cover the weed smell up.
Miles, my foster brother, is sitting on the couch in the living room, hitting his bong, smoke curling around his long, wavy, unkempt hair.
I stand there with the front door open for a moment, hoping some of the gross smell will go out behind me. He looks up as soon as he finishes his hit and locks his half-lidded, red eyes on mine as he blows out the smoke in front of him.
“What the hell are you staring at?”
I look down fast, not wanting to talk to him.
I close the front door behind me and quickly walk down the hall to the room I share with Camilla and our six-year-old foster sister Alexis.
The house always smells damp and moldy, and nothing is ever really kept up with…
but it’s not as bad or as dirty as some of the other houses we’ve stayed in before.
There are no bugs here at least. What more could a girl wish for in such a luxurious life?
A door…maybe I would wish for a door.
We haven’t had one on our room since the last fight Camilla and our foster mom got into. She took it off, telling her privacy was a luxury, not a right in her house. I guess basic human decency is a luxury around here.
I place my book bag down on the mattress we all share, that’s sitting on the floor, no bed frame of course, because again, that would be too much of a luxury around here.
I grab some clothes from the bucket in our closet and head into the hall bathroom to change. I hate sweating, and the god-awful way humidity makes me feel like I’m suffocating. A fresh pair of clothes always calms down the overload of things I’m feeling on days like these.
After changing and taking my hair down, I grab my uniform from off the bathroom floor and go to walk out. I’m met by Miles blocking me from leaving the bathroom, standing there with the bong in one hand while his other hand is resting on the door frame.
“What’s your problem? You don’t know how to speak to someone when they talk to you?”
I quickly shake my head and whisper, “I don’t have a problem.”
“You’re so weird, you know that? You don’t talk to anyone except Camilla or Alexis, and you never come out of that damn room unless it’s to eat or go to school.
What’s your deal? Do you not know how to have a personality?
I mean, damn, at least your sister is a little fun.
I don’t know what your fucking problem is. ”
I just want to go to my room and avoid him. These kinds of interactions with Miles never end well.
“Maybe you need to take a hit to loosen up,” he tells me, pushing the bong towards me and bumping my chest.
“I don’t want to,” I tell him, still looking at the ground and not at him.
“Oh, come on. I was basically your age when I started smoking. Stop being so uptight; it’s annoying, and such a fucking buzzkill. You think you’re better than everyone else here or something?”
I see an opening, and I try to dip under his arm to get away from him, but he yanks me back by my shirt with one hand. It knocks me off balance, and I stumble back into the wall next to him.
“I’m fucking talking to you. It’s disrespectful not to speak back, you little freak.”
I place my hands out to brace myself on the wall, but before I can say anything, Camilla opens the front door.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She storms down the hall and shoves Miles in the chest, making the bong slip from his hand, hitting the floor and shattering.
Miles’ face twists, his smugness replaced with anger now. “Are you kidding me? You owe me a new bong, you stupid bitch—”
Camilla quickly cuts him off. “I don’t owe you anything! You shouldn’t be getting high around little girls, or putting your damn hands on them, asshole!”
He laughs bitterly. “That’s rich coming from the pill-snorting princess herself. Like you’re not high around her all the time. I was just trying to get your little sister to take a hit and loosen up a bit, get her to stop being so fucking quiet and weird all the time.”
She’s snorting the pills now?
I knew she had been taking pills for a while, and I’m not stupid. I know they’re some kind of drug.
When I first saw her taking them last year, I asked her what they were, and she told me it was just medication she had to take.
She never went to the doctor, though, so I didn’t know where she could have gotten them from.
I asked her if it was the kind of medicine our dad used to take, and she told me no. But I know that was a lie now.
What I didn’t know was that she started snorting them.
I remember seeing my mom do that when I was little.
I don’t remember much from before the crash, but I remember small flashes of random memories sometimes.
I remember she got really hyper and talked a lot right after she would snort the powder, but then quickly crashed and got really mean.
She would even hit me when I didn’t answer her quickly enough after she would ask me a question that didn’t even make sense.
I hated it when she got mean like that. I only have vague memories from when I was younger, and most aren’t good ones. None are, actually.
Camilla pushes Miles harder now. He’s only fifteen, and she’s seventeen, but he already towers above her, so he easily overpowers her when he grabs her arms and presses her into the wall behind them.
She kicks him in the groin, and he quickly moves back, doubling over and cursing under his breath.
He stands back up and rushes for her again, but she already has a broken piece of glass from the bong in her hand as she lunges for him, trying to get him to leave her alone.
She nicks him with it, and he clutches his arm.
“Are you crazy? What the hell is wrong with you? You’re a psycho just like your sister!” Miles steps closer to Camilla, rage curling in his fists. “If you don’t want to replace what you broke, I’ll make you pay for it. If not in cash…maybe I’ll just have to take something else.”
He trails his eyes down her body, smirking before looking back at her face. The look he gives her creeps me out.
The front door opens again.
“What the hell is going on?”
Our current foster mom, Aretha, walks in with Alexis right behind her.
Miles backs up, putting his hands in the air. “Camilla was smoking in your house. I tried to stop her, and she went nuts, breaking her bong and then trying to cut me with it!” He points to the arm that’s barely bleeding.
“Bull!” Camilla shouts. “He was—”
“Shut up! All of you!” Aretha barks. “Lydia, take Alexis to your room. Now! Miles, get out of my face and stop always instigating with these girls.” She turns to Camilla now.
“Clean this up. And if I catch you doing drugs in my house again, I’ll call your caseworker so fast, I swear you’ll be out of here the same day.
You want to be separated from your sister? Keep it up.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Camilla snaps.
“I don’t want to hear it! You’re lucky I don’t smack the stupid out of you, girl.”
I grab Alexis’s hand and lead her down the hall, turning on the TV for her when we’re in our room to drown out any of the yelling.
Camilla comes in a little while later and flops down on the bed with us.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her quietly.
She looks over at me, and her face softens. “You have nothing to apologize for, Lyd. Miles is an asshole. I hate him…and it’s never okay for him to put his hands on you.”
She turns, looking up at the ceiling.
She looks so tired all the time lately. I feel like all she does is work, go to school, and take care of me…just like she has since our parents died. Hell, even before then. I don’t remember a time when she wasn’t more of a mom to me than our own mother was or any foster parent since.
“You’re snorting pills now?” I ask nervously.
She sits up and scoots next to me, brushing my hair behind my shoulder.
“I’ve got it under control, Lyd. You don’t need to worry about that.
You just keep your grades up. Stay smart and stay out of trouble, okay?
You’re gonna be the one who makes it, you know that?
You’re gonna be the one who has a good life.
I’m gonna make sure of it. I’ll be eighteen soon, and I’m getting us out of here.
I’m gonna get an apartment with the money I’ve been saving from work, and I’m gonna get custody of you.
We won’t have to live in another shitty foster home ever again. ”
I lay my head on her shoulder, trying to believe her. All I ever dream about is a life away from here with her. Somewhere, where both of us are finally safe and happy.