The Foster Kid (GirlxGirl)

Chapter Twenty Eight

"Welcome back, Beca."

Jane stood in front of me with a half-hearted smile on her face, though I knew it was to mask the anxiety she probably felt. She had a difficult time controlling the girls to begin with, but with me around it was much, much worse.

"Yeah I'm happy to be here," I muttered, tightening my hold on the strap of my duffle bag. "I missed the ridicule."

"There will be none of that this time around, I promise."

I brushed past her. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Jane."

I stopped in the middle of the room, looking around to see nine girls that I knew standing  in the entrances of the other rooms and two that I had never met. Daya was standing by the stairs with her arms crossed. "Look who's back," she said. "Did you miss us that much?"

Jane walked into the house and stopped behind me. "Leave her be Daya."

She raised her hands in the air. "Hey, it was just a question. I'm not sure why she'd choose to live here over her fancy new home with her rich new parents."

I tightened my fists, taking a deep breath. "For your information, Daya, I spent the last two years in a fancy house with my rich adoptive parents being abused, most recently with broken glass, just so I didn't have to deal with you and your posse of suck ups."

She seemed a bit surprised but shook it away. "I find that hard to believe. Didn't look you were having all that bad of a time when you were golfing with your girlfriend. You're telling me you were being abused then?"

I gritted my teeth. "I'm pretty good at masking my pain."

"I think you're pretty good at making up stories--"

Jane sighed and muttered under her breath behind me, "I missed this too." She paused and then spoke again. "Enough, Daya. Do all of us a favor and go upstairs."

"Yes boss," she smirked. "Anything for you."

As soon as Daya left, the whispering started. I looked around to see ten pairs of eyes on me, excluding Jane's. Hers were focused on the other girls. "What are you all looking at? Go on. Go to your rooms."

They hardly listened to her, but after a while they moved on and left Jane and I alone. She ran a hand over her face. "I'm not going to make the mistake of bunking you with Daya this time. There's an empty bed in Penny's room. You two get along, right?"

"If by get along you mean drive each other crazy, sure, we get along."

Jane sighed. "Well I don't have any other options. I'm sorry, but it's tight as it is. You have to make it work with her."

"Yeah, because I'm the problem."

"That's not what I'm saying, I just know you're more reasonable than she is and I need you to try for me because I'm tired of the fighting."

"Me too Jane," I sighed, starting up the stairs. It felt as if there were a pair of eyes on me everywhere I looked. I hated it. It made my skin crawl. But there was nothing I could do. I had to deal with it for the next three months.

I had left a lot of my things in Brian's house because I didn't need to draw any more attention to myself by bringing more than my clothes into the group home. These girls didn't have anything else except for the occasional cell phone that they weren't even supposed to have and maybe a book or two. I kept my cellphone hidden because I needed it and I couldn't get it taken away. I needed to talk to Dani or I would drive myself insane, and I knew Brian had probably stopped paying the bill so I was nervous for the day when I ran out of service.