(Brother Series - Book One)
Asher Bernardi; A teenage boy dealing with the trauma of transferring from one foster home to another after he was given up at the fine age of two years old, each home is worst than the last, what happens when his curren...
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~ Asher Alexander Bernardi ~
I am not an early bird or even a night owl, I'd rather consider myself some permanently exhausted pigeon — I'd think that pretty much explains where my life is at this very moment, or any given moment.
So physically and mentally drained that you wish for nothing more than to fall into a peaceful slumber — except the twist is even your sleep is riddled with the same nightmares you face during daylight. There is no escape.
Or at least that's what I thought.
I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, my name is Asher Alexander Bernardi — I would give you a long history lesson about where I come from and who my parents are but you see... I have no fucking clue.
I don't know much about my life prior to this waking nightmare but what I do know is my parents didn't want me, and that goes for every set of 'parents' I have been introduced to all of the fourteen years I have been in the system.
What I'm trying to say is I'm incredibly unlovable, Kyan would tell you a different story but don't listen to that dick, I think he was dropped on his head as a baby.
I'm your typical sixteen year old boy — Okay maybe that's wishful thinking. I am a dude, I'm just transgender, I like to say my brain doesn't align with my physical appearance. It's sort of blurry, that probably makes no sense.
I'm a boy, I know I'm a boy, my brain knows I'm a boy, Kyan knows I'm a boy. My foster parents call me Emily.
I'm also a boy that likes boys so I often get called a tomboy or a 'straight woman' — gag — but that argument backfires when I say I also like girls — and well... everything in between, the heart wants what the heart wants, I don't discriminate.
Oh by the way, have you ever been walking home with this gut feeling you are forgetting something and you can't for the life of you remember what that something was?
Like maybe you left your phone on your desk or-
"Stupid fag did you get the beer?!" The scream of my daymare echoes through the house, the same house that's falling apart as it is.
Or you forgot the beer.
If I back up slowly I may be able to get back out of the house and-
"Why the fuck are your hands empty? Good for nothin', waste of space." He mumbles that last part.
"Sorry sir, I f-forgot." Well fuck me, not literally, he hates stuttering.
Almost on cue, the empty beer bottle he just finished came hurtling at my face, I can't dodge it.
Okay I can, this is routine, I knew it was coming, but I tried to dodge the broken glass once and he nearly killed me. Safe to say, lesson learned.
"If you want anything done you've got to do it yourself, nobody in this house is grateful for everything I do." He continues to groan as he stumbles out the front door.
Thank God he just threw glass this time, my ribs are still freshly bruised from yesterday, and him using me as his personal punching bag would surely cause something to break, the no hospital rule would prevent me from getting it properly taken care of, then the broken ribs would puncture a lung and I'll die.
If only luck was on my side for once in my goddamn life — I sometimes question why I haven't just ended ... well everything, I think there's still a small part of me that has hope, just 2 more years.
Kyan is only nineteen which makes him three years older than me so he legally can't do much. He has reported the abuse quite a few times but all that's really done is thrown me into a new home that has always been worse than the previous one. Just 2 more years — I keep repeating the same sentence to myself.
Kyan can't take custody of me for a few reasons, in the state of Nevada you have to be twenty-one to adopt along with being 10 years older than the child in question, so I'm sixteen he would actually have to be at least twenty-six. There are a few emergency cases that get around that rule but I am not a blood relative so it doesn't apply to us.
Ky promised me though. The second I turn 18 I can move in with him and nobody can tell us otherwise. Then we can set a doctor's appointment to further discuss hormones and future surgeries.
"Just two more years," I whisper to myself for the trillionth time in the last hour alone.
Slowly walking up the stairs trying to ignore the shooting pain that erupted throughout my entire body the second I took the first step upwards.
I decided to stop in my bathroom to check the damage to my stomach and arms from last night's events that took hold.
"You stupid bitch, what did I tell you about embarrassing me in front of your teachers, I received a call from a good friend of mine saying one of his colleagues was getting concerned with bruising she saw on your disgusting fucking skin."
"S-sorry." I whimper, watching closely as his first curls into a ball.
"Didn't I tell you to put that shit to cover it up or whatever!" My foster father Maxwell continues to scream.
"Makeup o-only does so m-much." I internally curse myself for stuttering, knowing it never ends well. I honestly hate makeup, the way it feels and how feminine it makes me appear. Is it wrong to say I would rather sport bruises like the new fashion trend?
"If you are unable to do the one thing I ask of you, I guess I just need to give them a reason to be concerned." He exaggerates the word 'concerned'.
The physical scars will heal, the bruising will cease to exist and one day I will be far from this god-forsaken town with my best friend by my side.
The mental scars... Those are what kill though.
Mental pain will always hurt more than the physical shit, the blood stops flowing and the bruises heal but every time I close my eyes I still remember that night.
There are wounds that will never show up on our bodies but they hurt far more than anything that bleeds.
