Baby It's Cold Outside ✔️

Frostbitten

What is wrong with me?

Growing up in a foster home, the only time I looked forward to was Saturday nights, because the sisters would set up the cable TV in the living room, and all the kids would crowd around like moths drawn to the light.

To be honest, I never really paid attention to what they'd put on, cause it would always be some pointless cartoon about dancing and happiness that would never exist in our unwanted selves.

I looked forward to Saturday nights because that was the only time my foster-mates would stop bullying me and focus on something else instead. During those times where I could actually sit down and not have my red hair being pulled at, I began to think.

Usually, I'd think of orangutans, how they were the most intelligent of primates, and how their ginger-colored fur never posed a problem for their life. If I lived in a world where everything was possible, I'd probably use that knowledge to transfer my soul into an orangutan's body; at least then I could be accepted for being different.

When I was first enrolled in the foster home, I was a scared 10-year-old with no family. At first I tried to make friends, but apparently foster kids these days don't like girls with pale skin, red hair, and the knowledge that both parents willingly abandoned her.

In a few short weeks, I was everybody's target, and I tried to not let it get to my head. I tried to channel the cheerful little girl I once was, but with that happiness came the jarring loss of my parents, so the joy remained locked away in the crevices of my mind.

As of now, I was known as Kaylee; the Redhead and the Unwanted.

I tugged at my maroon locks, and in the sickly glow of television light, its tangled strands stood out like a sore thumb. I also looked at the other parts of my body; at the pale arms and bitten-down fingers; at the flat expanse of chest and a little chubby belt encircling my waist.

I looked at the bruises mapped out on my legs, a blueprint of countless shoves and kicks by the people I'm supposed to call family.

What is wrong with me?

By the time the movie ended, everyone was always too sleepy to pay me any heed. All the main bullies retired to their rooms and I'd remain sitting there staring at the now-blank TV screen, wishing that life was just some sort of television I could turn on and off with a remote.

I remained sitting down until a sister would firmly grab my arm and pull me back to my room. This would be around midnight, so all my roommates would be asleep; it's always pitch dark but it's better this way because coming into my room while everyone's awake and ready to pummel your self-esteem is just setting yourself up for failure.

I laid down on my top bunk bed and stare up at the moldy plaster. Three glow-in-the-dark stars were pasted on the ceiling and blinked back at me. Next to it was a 10-year-old drawing of a happy apple family.

Except the apple family wasn't happy at all. The two larger apples had been scribbled over with a black Sharpie, and worms were coming out of it. Only the smaller one remained fresh and undamaged.

Yet thirteen-year-old me realized that even if you put the freshest apple in a basket of moldy ones, there was no way it could last.