in my wildest dreams - a taylor swift fanfiction

12 - in doctor's office lighting

SKYLAR

Today was the day. I lay across my bed with my phone playing Haunted from my chest on full blast. Susan said the foster parents — whose names I'd forgotten — were coming to pick me up at eleven to take me out for lunch and then drive to my new home. My mood seemed to have repelled everyone around me because barely anyone had talked to me since I woke up.

Ashley walked into the room talking to someone on the phone, but when she saw me she became quiet. I could hear the person she was talking to asking if she was okay and she told them she would call them back.

"Hey," she said, once she'd hung up the phone and walked over to sit on her own bed.

"Hi," I mumbled back, staring up at the ceiling.

"How are you feeling?" She lay down on top of the covers and turned her head to look at me.

"This sucks."

Ashley chuckled and closed her eyes so I did the same. "At least they're nice enough to come and pick you up. Otherwise you'd have to ride with your sworker."

I opened my eyes to frown at her and saw her smiling over at me. "You do know you and Finley are the only two people who call them that?"

"Is Connor coming to say goodbye?"

I shook my head. "No, we did that yesterday. I didn't want to be, like, cryin' or anything in front of'em."

We talked for what felt like a long time until Susan poked her head through the door, letting me know that they were waiting downstairs. Ashley helped me get my stuff down the stairs where a man and a woman waited for me by the front door, but I didn't look at them for more than a few seconds.

The goodbyes were always the worst. At least one kid was always crying, usually about not being the one to leave, and everyone else was just silently envying the person. It was a little different this time since I didn't want to be the one leaving everyone, and I went around the room to hug everyone who was there goodbye.

Callie clung to me a little longer than the others and whispered in my ear, "Take this chance and make the most out of it. No matter what might happen in the future, this could be it."

I looked her in the eyes for a moment after we'd pulled away and she gave me one of those smiles that I'd gotten so used to seeing every day. When I'd said my final goodbye to Susan, the mom smiled down at me and put her hand on my back, leading me out to their car. The dad had already put my stuff in the trunk while I was saying goodbye so I went to sit in the backseat as the woman got into the front seat.

We didn't say anything as we pulled out of the driveway and drove away. I put my headphones on and — for the first time in what felt like forever — I decided to listen to something other than Taylor. I just felt like it would be too emotional to hear her voice and it would make me miss her even more than I already did.

We'd almost made it to the state border when the dad, Pete — which I'd found out from the mom whose name was Alice — pulled up in the parking lot of some restaurant. It wasn't one of those roadside diners either, it was an actual restaurant and I kind of felt a little underdressed in my black shorts and pink, oversized t-shirt. I remained quiet as I followed the couple into the restaurant but I wasn't hungry so when Pete asked what I wanted, I just picked the first thing I saw which happened to be an Apple Pecan Chicken salad. I wasn't sure what pecan was but I figured I could just remove it if I didn't like it.

Pecan turned out to be a nut and the salad wasn't too bad but I ate mostly to avoid having to talk.

"Skye, what did you think?" Alice asked after a little while of us just eating in silence. It wasn't awkward, but it wasn't pleasant either.