Setting Up 1D

Cinco

Ramona Banuelos

If I could change one thing about my life, it would be everything.

If I could alter time, it'd be the past.

If I could ask the earth one question, it'd be why.

Why am I stuck in this room full of children? Why am I trapped in this apartment for one more year? Why was I left with this woman who only used me for welfare? Why didn't my mother want me?

These thoughts constantly raced through my mind as if it was normal to hear these voices in my head, these questions embedded in my brain. I always wondered why because, well, why not? Why can't I wonder about my mother, the women who made me, who gifted me with blue eyes and brown hair, who cursed me with acne and a terrible laugh. The women who carried me for nine months until she decided that after so long of having me by her side, she couldn't handle anymore months with me and decided to leave me for adoption. Why would she do that, tell me why? Did she not love me, was I not good enough for her? Do I put shame upon her? Tell me, why?

It wasn't uncommon for me to ask such idiotic questions, it wasn't uncommon for any of the kids to ask such questions either. They wondered as much as I did. Who wouldn't? Sometimes, I would look out of my cracked dusty window, and see the crowded, messy streets of Queens with parents holding onto their children, holding them as if they were their prized possession. As if nothing would ever hurt their dear children.

On the contrary, Paulina was the opposite of a mother. She was my foster parent, a women who dressed superb on the outside and acted like a hag on the inside. She cared about her image deeply, but her foster children? Hell, she wouldn't even care if I died the next morning. She'd only care if I was her only foster kid, because then who else would give her welfare money for her to spend on more clothes and salon appointments? 

"Mona, are you okay?" The tiny fingers of my bunk bed buddy waved in front of my eyes. My mind returning back to hell as I continued to look out my window. Slowly turning my head to see Deidre wearing my sweater, her Afro slightly bigger than before as she looked at me curiously with those dark brown eyes of hers.

"What in the world are you wearing? Didn't I tell you that was my sweater?" I swung her up from the ground as I began to stand up. Placing her at the edge of my bed, the top bunk, while she laughed at me softly. Deidre was a beautiful little girl, she had one of the brightest smiles you could see for miles, and her smile's only that white because I made her brush her teeth daily.

"What's so funny? I'm serious, that's my sweater you little snitch." I scowled at her in a goofy manner. Tickling her little belly that almost seemed nonexistent while she laughed in defeat. Deidre came from a family of homeless people, and I know because I saw the day they dropped her off at the home. Her mother literally crying a river while her father held onto her, not wanting to let go of their precious child but needing to because how else would she be fed and taken care of? It's quite sad that they mistook this home as a safe place for her. Luckily, I was here just in time to save this little girl from misery.

"Then why are you wearing my scrunchy?" She snapped back while continuing to die of laughter as I placed my hands beside her thin thighs. She had sass, no doubt, one of the sassiest girls on the block, but she had a sense of seriousness too.

"Why can't I? I found it on my bed, finders keepers righ-?"

"Mona, get you're ass down here right now!" The screeching voice of my foster parent echoed through the apartment. Groaning tiredly as I looked at Deidre, her face full of disgust at the thought of Paulina. Touché.

Leaving Deidre to play in the room, I ran towards Paulina's sanctuary, a two room meant for 12 girls in total but was renovated for a master bedroom, her television on as I walked into her room. Paulina nowhere to be found, that was until she bursted into the room with her damaged dyed hair and stiletto heels. The multicolored skin tight dress really seeming to squeeze the life out of her. Yet she didn't mind, she still thought she could fit into it and breathe. I mean she could fit into it since she was a walking skeleton with silicon boobs who only inhaled drugs. Her long chipped gold nails brushing through her wig that reached her lower back as she put on her dangling earrings, her curly ombré hair straightened to the point where it seemed lifeless.