The Three Of Us

Chapter Twenty-Five

                                                                    Ronnie

With the way that my life is, I’ve gotten used to change. You know, what happens when you finally get used to something and it’s taken away from you: change. I’m not saying that like change exactly. I hate it with a deep passion. The feeling that runs inside of me when I finally begin to possibly love something and then it’s just pulled away from my grasp is probably the worst thing to ever feel.

  However, sometimes, change can be good. Even if it’s a bad change, it can actually end up being for the best.

“You never told me that you had foster parents who smoked,” Asher told me as he leaned back in his chair.

  I lifted one of my feet onto my thigh and began playing with one of my shoelaces. “It’s not exactly something I really like to bring up.” I sighed and shook my head. “Most of my foster parents seemed so nice when I was first dropped off at their place. However, right as the social workers left, they just went all freak on me.”

 Asher furrowed his eyebrows and looked at me intently. “What do you mean by ‘all freak’?”

  I scrunched up the bridge of my nose at the thought of some of my foster families. “They just would get mad at me easily, always yell… you get it.”

  “Is the foster family you’re with now at least somewhat good?” He wondered. “Your foster parents seemed quite nice when I met them.”

  My heart began accelerating. I realized that I hadn’t told Asher and Avery, my two closest friends, that I was no longer part of any type of family. That my foster parents had decided to give me up and “set me free”. I no longer had anywhere to go and I had nowhere to just simply call home.

  All of a sudden, Avery ran towards us with a panicked look on his face and sweat on his brow. “Guys!” I said to us, completely out of breath.

  “Avery,” Asher replied, looking at his friend. “What the heck is wrong with you? You look insane?”

  Avery just shook his head and placed a hand over his heart. “You know the woman who was smoking? Th-the-the one that everyone was complaining about because of the smell?”

  I nodded my head. “Yeah, what about her?’

  He sat down at the table next to our own. “I went to ask her if she could stop sm-smoking… and then I saw who she was.”

  “A very annoying woman who loves to empoison peoples lungs?” I guessed, smirking a little bit.

  “No,” Avery replied, not smiling even a little bit at my joke. “She turned around and it-it was my… it was my mom.”

  “Your mom as in Janet Pitt?!” Asher asked, jumping out of his chair.

  Our friend gulped once and shook his head. “Pitt isn’t her real last name.”

  “What is it?” I wondered.

  “Her real last name,” He began, but then stopped speaking out of what seemed to be nervousness. It was a good minute before he finally continued his sentence. “Her real last name is Nickels.”

  “Nickels?!” Both Asher and I cried at the same time.

  Avery nodded his head. “Yeah, Nickels… just like Deborah Nickels.”

  I got out of my chair as well and crossed my arms over my chest. “Well, now we know that she is actually somehow related to Deborah. But how?” All this thinking was not helping with my headache at all.