Okay, let’s take a step back and start from the beginning. Beginning as in, before my brother and I’s birth. My mother was named Hazel Grace Lancaster my father was named Augustus Waters. I’ll give you the short story. They met at a cancer survivor support group. My mother had a terminal thyroid cancer that spread to her lungs, and she lugged around an oxygen tank wherever she went. My father on the other hand, was a survivor of osteosarcoma. He kinda lost a leg in the process. Anyways, they fell in love. They first started bonding over a book called “An Imperial Affliction”by Peter Van Houten and its main character was a girl named Anna. Get where me and brother’s names came from? Back to my parent’s story, my father had a relapse of his osteosarcoma. And he died…. But before that incident he got it in and hooked up with my mom. A couple weeks later my mom missed her period and she found out she had not just one, but two muffins in the oven. (Me and Peter)
The thing that sucks is that my mom knew if she didn’t abort us, she would die of lack of oxygen during child birth. But she did it anyways. I can’t help but think I’m responsible of the death of her… if she just aborted us she would still be alive and maybe things would’ve ended up different for her. Because both of our parents were dead social services handed Peter and I to our grandparents. My mother’s parents. We had a good four years with them. One day Peter and I were playing keep away with a ball when all of a sudden a man with a black mask came in with a gun and bag and shot both of our grandparents. Peter and I were smart enough; well I was smart enough to come up with the idea of us to go into the attic until this guy left. Peter was just crying his eyes out. His face resembled one of a strawberry he was crying so much. This was when I knew I had to be strong for him. I comfort him and I said all the crap that people say when things get scary. “It’ll be okay, Peter. I won’t let him hurt you. Everything will be fine, Peter.” I was saying all of this, but I wasn’t sure if it was gonna be okay. To be honest I didn’t even really know what “Okay” was because I’ve never truly experienced it. Later, when we were sure that man left, we went to our neighbors and asked them to call 911. I knew they were dead.
When the police came, our social workers came and handed us off to Mr. and Mrs. Waters, my dad’s parents. We stayed with them for about 6 years, so we were about ten years old. These people taught me to be selfless. They did everything not only for each other, but anyone who needed help. The sucky part of this is that it eventually lead them to their mortality. My grandma died trying to save the lives of 24 people on a bus she was riding. The driver had a serious heart condition and he had a heart attack while driving. He swerved the bus into the middle of the lanes. She immediately sprang into action. She forcefully grabbed the wheel and heaved the whole bus onto the right lane. She drove to a hospital as quickly as possible to help the man. My grandmother saved 25 lives that day, only losing one. Her own. She was old. Too old to be achieving that much physical activity. Her heart was also a time bomb… having had one heart attack already. She could’ve lived, if someone else had done something, but the people on the bus were pussies and didn’t. She shouldn’t have died. It’s not fair. But then again is anything really “fair.”
My grandfather was a hero. I used to call him superman. It’s so tragic how he died. He was randomly walking down the streets of Indiana and witnessed a gang creeping on poor girl in her early teens. His actions were quick and he dashed over and scooped the girl up onto his shoulders. He had the gang on his heels and he quickly dropped her behind and alley and told her to run and don’t stop. She did. My grandfather stopped just for a moment to catch his breath… and *bang* he landed on his knees shot in the back of his head. This all happened while we were asleep. The police picked up his body and social workers called our house. The babysitter picked up the phone. She woke us up and said a nice lady was coming to pick us up. To be honest, she wasn’t the nicest.
We spent the night with this lady and the next day we were in some other lady’s house and another and another and another. Foster home to foster home. All we ever wanted was to stay together. And for two years we were separated. The only way we communicated was by stealing phones from our foster families. We got caught so many times and got moved around a lot. At one point he was in West Virginia and I was in Indiana. Later we got in contact again. I found out where he was. He was close. Probably about two hours away. There was no chance I was gonna let him leave me again.
I was in a new foster home barely there a week. They have a boy 15, Jordan and 2 girls, 14 and 16, Allison, and Sun. I convinced Sun to give me a ride to see Peter. We drove for two hours, but it seemed like ten. We got to the house he was staying at. I knocked on the door. It was open. I heard loud, deafening coughs coming from the bathroom. I went in and saw Peter… he was purple, crying, and he was lying in his own blood. I hugged him as tight as I can. And I repeated the same words I said in the house when that man killed our grandparents and robbed us. “It’ll be okay, Peter. I won’t let him hurt you. Everything will be fine, Peter.” I looked around the corner to see a fat drunken man with a broken beer bottle in his hand. “Asshole….” I whispered to myself. Sun dialed 911 and the police called my foster parents. We got escorted to the hospital, and this leaves me to where I am today, sitting on a cold waiting room chair, reading outdated TigerBeat magazines, waiting to see my brother.
