Unconditionally

Elizabeth

It has been two years since I have been in the system.

I have lived in one foster house so far with three other kids that are 17 like myself.

It's not a terrible foster home but it's still something.

Including me there is four of us that live in the basement of our house.

Actually the niece of the foster parents I live with actually has a bedroom upstairs, but she likes sleeping down stairs with us foster kids.

Red is her name; the niece of Sally and Joe. They are decent people who took in Red's friends West and Dallas.

They have lived there for a while, where as I have only been living with them for a little over two years. Apparently Katie is not only my social worker, but theirs as well.

West and Dallas both look scary, but to me their just big teddy bears.

West has blonde hair and is only a couple of months older than me; he's 17. He has his eyebrow and lip pierced.

West was the number one cage fighter in the county although I think he might be going back to it because of his soon to be girlfriend; of course when he is fighting he takes out the piercings he has.

Then there is Dallas. Dallas spends most of his time now that he has found his twin sister Lola, at the auto body shop. He is a mechanic and a really good one at that.

And then there is Red. Her hair is like a natural red heads color and it's curly.

Red and I have something in common, well we all do.

We are all fighting demons trapped inside our head; trying to survive.

Being a foster kid, we have this problem where we are always thinking and over analyzing a situation.

I don't sleep much, never have and Red screams in the middle of the night when she's sleeping so that doesn't help.

I'm normally the last one to fall asleep so I wake her up so she doesn't stop breathing.

We are all seventeen and consider ourselves siblings, its true this is the only family we have.

We all live in the basement since there's not enough rooms in the house but it's okay because there's a back door down stairs making it safe in case of an emergency.

It's literally every room combined into one down here.

Although we eat up stairs as an actual family, we still have a bathroom, living room and beds down here.

Sally and Joe can't afford everything for us so they provide us with what they can.

We have one king size bed pushed against the wall that acts as a railing for the stairs.

Across from that is a twin sized bed; the room is in the shape of an L, so the complete other side of the room when you turn left coming down the stairs and walk five feet straight you have the bed room.

But if you turn right and walk a couple feet you get a green warn out couch with its back to you facing the wall.

Attached to the wall though is a flat screen T.V. and an x-box with a few games.

Everything here is obviously from a garage sale because it's not brand new, or the boys saved up for it and split the cost to buy some things for our room.

As for clothes there is one long dresser with four draws at the end of the twin size bed and the bathroom is in between the two beds.

Sometimes when the guys notice I'm too cold they let me and Red wear their big sweatshirts.