Unexpected Meetings (Lauren/You)

Chapter 36 Part 2

Your POV

"So I guess I'll start from the beginning right?" I nervously scratch the back of my neck; a usual nervous habit of mine.

Lauren gently places her hand on my cheek and softly caress it. "Babe, take your time."

I take a deep breath then begin.

"So I guess it pretty much happened when I was born. I was actually an accidental pregnancy. When I was born, I was put up for adoption. My parents just couldn't financially take care of one more kid and since I was last and basically wasn't even supposed to be alive, they gave me up. I was sent to a foster care in California once I was released from the hospital. 

My first adoptive parents, I don't remember much. I did stay with them until I was about 3, I believe. The parents were very neglectful and barely payed attention to me. We lived in a very small apartment. There were days where I wouldn't be fed or even changed. Now this is what one of the head foster care ladies told me. I don't remember since I was so young.

Yearly, the owners of the foster care do these yearly check ups. They visit the house and make sure everything was fine. For 2 years, the parents would clean themselves up because they were given a week advance notification as to when a worker would come. They would clean the house and feed me and make me look happy and healthy. The year I was 3, the adoptive parents forgot about the check up and were actually away on vacation. When the foster care worker came, the worker ended up getting the complex director to open the door. It's a rule that the worker HAS to visit that day no matter what. Once the worker saw everything and found me, they immediately took me out of the house. I was found in my crib, that's in a locked room. The worker had to have the complex director open the door for her again. I had one of those kid potty training toilets, 2 dog bowls, one for food, the other for water. I had nothing else in the room except a stuffed animal that was actually given to me when I first arrived in foster care.

I was back in the same foster care but adopted the same year, just a few months later. Those adopters were worse; drug abusers and alcoholics. They spent so much of their money on drugs and alcohol that there was barely any money for necessities. There was little to no food to eat and there were times where I had to wear the same outfit for 3 days straight. Because they were so under the influence all the time, they were also neglectful. They never payed attention to me and would always shoo me off. The first yearly check up came and I was taken right out the house as well.

When I was 5, I got adopted again. The people seemed perfect, the perfect parents. But that was all a show. Just like the first adoptive parents, every check up, they would clean up their act and be the perfect parents again.  These parents were the worst. They were druggies, alcoholics, neglectful, AND abusers. They were the abusive drunks, the abusive druggies. I was abused both physically, mentally, and emotionally. If I ever cried, I'd get beat. If I never listened, I'd get beat. Every little thing I did that was wrong in their eyes, I would get a beating from the both of them. During the yearly check ups, if I did anything they didn't like or if I looked upset, I would get beat.

When I was 6, I started to use some of the drugs. They would always leave out their drugs, just laying around, easy for me to get. They would always smoke marijuana and that's what I first had. I can't remember how much I smoked that day. But I do remember how great I felt. Like all the pain and suffering I was feeling had gone away.

We also lived in a pretty bad neighborhood where drugs was a normal thing. I ended up wondering the streets the first time I was high. These people picked me up from the streets, I guess from seeing how fucked up I was. They helped me ride out my high. It turns out that the people that helped me were part of a gang. The gang leader took me in as if I was his daughter. His actual daughter died around my age a few years prior.