The Damage is Done

Chapter 1: Free

5 years later...

The generic pair of oversized blue jeans and baggy white t-shirt that I was given by the social worker hung limply from my body. I sat in an unsanitized waiting room, impatiently tapping my foot while Charlotte, the ugly clothes provider, stood by an old payphone attached to the wall with a small file in her hands. The file contained the phone number of everyone in my family that the city felt fit to take me in. She was going through the numbers one by one, slowly crossing every single digit off the long list as each person in my loving family laughed in her face and told her to find someone else to trick into living with a murderer. My Aunt Delores wasn't too pleased that I had beat her brother to a bloody pulp, and Grandpa George asked Charlotte where I was so he could come down here personally and burn me alive like I did to his daughter. So I suppose it made since that my family didn't want me.

After I walked away from the burning house, I watched as it only took about three minutes for the firetrucks and police cars to swarm the prison that was becoming engulfed completely in flames. When the police discovered two dead bodies and no child, and the nosy neighbors informed detectives that they saw me walking calmly from the house, I was obviously a suspect in the investigation.

For a while I lived on the streets, eating from dumpsters and sleeping in alleyways, but after a while I got tired of looking anorexic and being attacked by other people living like I was. I knew that the police had been looking for me and that they might give me a shorter sentence if I turned myself in and explained why I did what I did. I also knew that jail would at least provide me with warm meals, no matter how unpleasant, and a bed to sleep on.

So I made the decision to tell my story to the cops at the police station down the block and accept the consequences. They made me wait at the juvenile detention center for a couple weeks until my court hearing, where I pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in jail. I did what I was told and stayed out of trouble while I was there. The guards liked me and none of the other convicts messed with the 'psychotic kid who offed her own parents'. To be completely honest, the time that I spent in the big house was preferable to living with my parents any day.

That leads us back to today, when I was finally released from jail after half a decade. My eighteenth birthday was in one month, but until then, I was appointed a social worker who had to make sure I was living with a capable family member. Charlotte had been making calls for the past hour as I sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair, watching. I guess you never really realize how big your family is until you have to wait while someone calls and talks to each person.

Charlotte hangs the phone on the wall with a bang and lets out a heavy breath before turning to face me. "That's it," she says. "That was the last one." She pinches the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes for a moment in frustration.

"Nobody wanted me, huh?" I ask, without needing an answer. It hurt that everybody in my family turned their back on me. What happened to my sweet grandmother that would send me home with warm cookies after I visited? What about my Uncle Vince that always came over and took me out for pizza on Friday nights?

They were all too focused on the fact that I killed Rick and Joan Kell and not the fact that they deserved it. Every news channel in the country ran my story for weeks. That meant that everybody in America knew what those people did to me. Everybody in America was aware that their death was a long time coming. And unless my entire family was conveniently in fucking Siberia for that time, they were also aware. They just didn't care.

"Honey, is there anybody else in your family that isn't on this list?" Charlotte asked as she handed me the file. I opened the manila folder and scanned the names quickly. Sure enough there was my Uncle Vince, Aunt Delores, Grandpa George, and even my great-grandmother. I scoffed when my eyes landed on one name in particular. "My Aunt Joyce is such a fucking hypocrite," I begin. "Her own son is a convicted felon."

Charlotte's eyes visibly widened. "Really? What happened?" she questioned.

I chuckled and set the folder down on the side table next to me. "He's in the Chicago Hellhounds," I told her. "Drug dealer." She seemed to consider my words before she spoke again.

"How old is he?" she inquired and I told her that he's twenty years old. She smiled like the Cheshire cat at my words which had me narrowing my eyes in suspicion.

"What's that look for?" I asked.

"Let's call him," she announced. "Do you have his number? It wasn't on the list."

"Uh, yeah," I tell her grabbing a pen from the cup on the table and scribbling the digits down at the bottom of the list of rejected possibilities. "Do you think he'd take me in?"

"Why wouldn't he?" she pointed out. "The only reason your other options turned you down was because they were either very upset about the loss of your parents or they were afraid of you. Why would another convicted felon be afraid of you?" She made a good argument, but there was always the possibility that he was mad about my parent's death as well. I suppose it was worth a shot.

"Alright, go for it," I decided. She grabbed the list and went back to the phone, punching in the numbers that would connect me to my cousin. As it was ringing, she realized I hadn't told her his name. "Dennis Dyer," I said. "But everyone calls him Blaze."

[Picture of Charlotte to the side]