Running

I was running. Fast. I didn't know where I was going but all I wanted to do was get away. I ran faster and faster, out of the little ward were the girls stayed in the orphanage.
"Faye! Faye! Stop!" A hand grabbed at my shoulder, and I slapped it away "Faye! It's Atticus, stop running!"
I stopped, my breathing ragged and my side cramped.
"Faye, come on, you can't just run away."
I glared at him "It's official. 10 years since I got here," I began to cry "NO ONE has even LOOKed at me yet Atticus! I'm never going to leave!!"
Atticus bit his lip "On the bright side, you'll get out by the time your 18? Or was it 20? That's only like, what, 6-8 years?"
I wanted to slap him "Idiot," I sniffled, but I was smiling. "I mean before I'm old and dead." He grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the building, up the staircase and into the little bell tower. We sat on the edge off the building.
"You know Faye, I'm not gonna get out either. No one really likes me much either." He fiddled with a piece of yellow paper in his pocket.
"Yes you are! And yes they do! You're smart! You're funny! I'm just weird." I looked up at the sky, willing gravity to keep the tears from falling.
Atticus looked at me, then down at his lap "August 24th. Happy Birthday." He handed me a tiny package wrapped in burlap and tied with twine.
"Bet I can guess, it's pencils again isn't it." I laughed. Atticus had given me pencils since my first birthday here with him. I had decorated my whole bed with designs and stories, and constantly needed new ones.
"Are you ready to go back in now?" He asked, ignoring my comment with a small smile. I hugged him and slipped down the staircase to the girls ward, and watched Atticus walk across the broken beam and slide down the gutter to get to the boys. I climbed slowly back into bed. I opened my little burlap package to get my pencils, so I could draw. But there weren't pencils as Atticus had said. A small grayish rock lay in the square. In Atticus's messy scribble it said "​Believe!" ​I laughed, remembering how the exact same present had been given to the girl in the movie we'd watched on the tiny tv in the common room. Atticus had always loved things to be just like they were in the movies. And even though it was a little bit lame, I smiled at the pebble and wrapped it back up in the burlap. I slipped it in my pocket and fell asleep happy.
AUGUST 24, 2018
I stood stock still in my prettiest and best dress, the one decorated with daisies and butterflies.
My rock felt like a dead weight in the little lace pocket. Parents and couples walked among us kids, looking for the perfect one. Most kids just went about they're normal day like we were supposed to when people came, but I never could. Sometimes a dad would kneel down and talk to a little boy, or a mum would braid a little girl's hair, but other than that they didn't really

talk to us or acknowledge us until they knew we were the one they wanted. I straightened my dress and walked stiffly around, trying to find Atticus. The boys and girls wards gathered together in the common room on such viewing days as today to make it easier for parents to find what they wanted. I checking in his favorite reading spot, between the fridge and the termite filled wall behind it, where he kept all his movie posters, and i checking in front of the tiny tv where he would watch the only five movies we had at the orphanage on repeat every day, and I couldn't see him anywhere. "Atticus!?" I called "Where are you?" I couldn't find him, and not to mention he always tried to find me first on adoption day so we could watch movies. I began to panic, rushing around the whole place to find him. He was nowhere. I clutched my rock in my hand and ran back to my ward. I sat on my bed, my breath ragged. I grabbed my sheets, only to find a little crumpled sheet of notebook paper. I uncrumpled it and read in Atticus's scrawl:
F,
Hi. I don't have a lot of time to write this. I'm leaving soon. I'm sorry it didn't tell you earlier, I was selected
for adoption by a couple., the Wilhemers. I wanted to tell you. I really did. But I couldn't. You were so upset that you weren't being chosen that I didn't want to make it worse. I'm sorry I lied last year. I wanted you to be happy until I had to leave. I thought this was the best time to tell you I was going. When I was gone. I'll miss you. Don't get sad. You're an amazing person, and someone is going to adopt you. I know they are. I wish I had an address or something to give you but I don't. I left my Cassette tape of "The Little Princess" behind the fridge, I know that's your favorite. I won't forget you, I promise.
-A
P.s You know that F is for Faye and A is for Atticus right? I was going to just write our names but this is how it's done in the movies. Bye.
AUGUST 2068
I thought about the message for years. At first it made me angry. So angry that I threw my little
pebble through the open window and into the creek below. He had lied to me. But later that day, sopping wet and frantically searching for my rock in the muddy waters of the creek, I realized that he had saved me a year's worth of sadness. I got to spend my last year with him happy. I was thankful for that. I was never adopted, but I left the orphanage at eighteen, and as soon as I had worked up the courage, I looked him up on google. I was about thirty. I didn't have the courage before that day to figure out how far gone my friend really was. I found a family tree, in a child's handwriting, made very clearly for a school project posted on a school website. And nothing else. No contact information, no facebook account, no obscure movie poster featuring his face like he had always wanted. Underneath each picture in small print painstakingly written in red crayon was the name of the person it showed. What must have been Atticus's new mum and dad were above him, both blonde and tall, and his smiling face was next to that of what must have been his wife, a beautiful girl with dark curly hair. They had used his picture from the time we went to the beach with the orphanage. I had been standing next to him, we were soaked, sand covered and laughing. My body was cropped out, but you could still see my fingertips on his shoulder. I looked over my shoulder at the identical picture on my framed on my nightstand. And then I looked underneath the couple, and I saw a smiling little girl, with Atticus's caramel colored skin and his wife's dark curly hair, who must have been the creator of my final link to my old life. She was beautiful, with a bright smile and big eyes. I was about to close the page, when the name of the little girl caught my eye. In little red lettering. ​Faye.