Juveniles

I lived in an orphanage. St. Marie's Catholic Reform and Adoption Home for Juveniles. Yep, that's me. The girl whose rich dead parents paid for her to go to any private junior high in the state of Virginia. Only to get kicked out of every single one. It's not my fault, really it isn't. Just like no one blames me for having the first name Parfait just because my mom went into labor during a vacation and saw an ice cream shop across the street. She didn't care about my name; and she didn't care about me.

I know this is coming up later in my recount, so I'm just going to lay it down. My parents committed suicide. Yeah. Both of them. At once. They went to practically the only knife shop in neat little France, their newborn bubbly and bright in their arms. Me. They bought two knifes, went back to their hotel suite, laid me down, and slit their throats.

I was staring right at them.

The only reason they were found is because the neighbor went to complain about my shrieking all day. When they busted down the door 15 minutes later I was thrashing around, blood spattered all over my cradle.

Then, 9 years later, after being home-schooled my whole life by tons of different nannies, they said I was ready for actual school. That ended badly. I spent almost a full year at every academy, home, and junior university in Virginia. Then the current nanny would get a letter, phone call, or e-mail saying I wouldn't be invited back next year. Calls were the hardest. You could shred a letter, delete and e-mail, and sure you could delete a voicemail, but the voice would stick in your head until the next one came. All the principals ever said was, You suck. Seriously. Don't try to contact us at all because I won't be here. I'll never be here for  you, Parfait. Go find someone else to bother. Okay. Maybe they didn't say exactly that, but they were definitely thinking it.

And it wasn't even big important things like setting the school on fire, or going on a shooting spree (no one would let me near guns anyway). It was things that everyone would do. Like when the freak who has a shrine for you in his band locker puts his hands over your eyes and whispers, 'Guess who?' in your ear, it's natural to grab his hands and flip him over your shoulder, down a set of concrete stairs, putting him into a medically induced coma for a week and spraining his back . . . Right?

Hm. Guess not. After blowing apart the natural order in the school district, I was left with only one option. St. Marie's Catholic Reform and Adoption Home for Juveniles. And  then I got a new nanny. Trisha was a 66-year-old marine corps retiree, and she wasn't exactly my  nanny. She was part of the Home but was ordered to only watch me. She was my best friend. Well . . . besides Blaine.