author's note: this is not something that would actually be included in the manuscript but writing from a different character's point of view can help pinpoint what their motivation is and everyone needs motivation. Jessie pointed out that Devyn was starting to become likable, of course he is, he's a bad boy. bad boys are incrediably likable, us girls are just hardwired that way. but Devyn isn't a good guy, not even deep down inside. he's no onion, there's no layers to him. so, enjoy...
The burn of pot smoke in my eyes was not unfamiliar, I had become accustomed to it a long time ago. I blew the smoke of the joint up in to the air, it swirled up towards the ceiling where there was a dark stain of more pot smoke. I took in a deep breath and let my head spin for a few more minutes before bringing the joint back up to my chapped lips. These days I prefered harder stuff but I had to be somewhere that I needed to be at least relatively straight for.
It had been years since pot had done much beyond calm me down, acclimating was a bitch. I had been introduced to weed in my first foster home. I was nine. Foster homes got a bad rap and they should. Somewhere there were good foster parents, but all you needed was one bad one and you would never get a good one. My good one came at age nine and from then on I was screwed. Screwed and tattooed like Mr. Rivera always said.
I was with the Rivera’s for three years. Between that time I had become addicted to the second hand smoke of the dope, I had seen the process of snorthing crack and I knew how to revive someone when they passed out due to alcohol. Some nine year old’s had to learn to make their own bed, their own lunch, maybe were even handed a few chores around the house. I was different though.
Sure I had responibilities. Shit, I had the most important job of all. The Rivera’s produced and sold drugs, I wasn’t old enough or wise enough then to know what kind of drugs. I knew now that most of them were pretty light, lots of pot but also harder stuff like X and heroin. My job was to count the cash. I was pretty good at math back then. Because I was useful and I lied to the social workers the Rivera’s kept me around longer than the other foster kids. They usually had three or four. The other kids— I couldn’t remember there names, ages or even their genrs now—they knew I was a favorite and hated me. These high school kids thought they had it bad with the popular kids and the losers and where they fit in, the foster kids were worse and it started earlier. The foster care system was dog-eat-dog among the kids and the adults didn’t care enough to do anything about it.
Once I had been adopted. Greg and Maria Hershboc had been the best parents any orphan could have asked for. They adopted me when I was three years old. They came in for a baby but came out with me. My room—my room that was specially decorated for me—was done in blue. I had a toy box full of Tonka trucks and toddler sized sports equipment. It was the best six years of my life. Then one night it was storming. It was always storming. Alexis, my babysitter, came over and I watched my mom and dad leave. My bed time came and went and Alexis put me to bed, it was early in the morning when a social worker woke me up and told me to pack. I cried like a little wuss and did what she told me to. I followed her out to the car and waited for her in the back while she talked to Alexis. I watched Alexis’ face in the porch light. I remember her eyes flitting back and forth between the social worker and me. Her eyes were shiny and she looked terrified. Alexis turned around and locked the front door before going into her car.
I cried for three weeks in a boys’ home before being told y parents had died in car crash. They were sorry that they took so long to tell me and that papers had been lost. I didn’t give a fuck about papers at nine years old. I lost it. I destroyed things in the home. I cried. I beat the younger kids up. I kicked. I screamed. They told me I would be “hard to place” if continued acting like that. I didn’t care. I didn’t give a rat’s ass and I kept it up.
I was placed though. With the Rivera’s. Usually kids get a few good homes before ending up in a bad one but because I was hard to place I got the sour apple earlier. Mr. Rivera said he liked me because I had spunk.
My family at the Rivera’s was unorthodox but I liked it. I adapted and I was useful. I hardly ever went to school, just enough to keep them from calling the social worker but I liked it. I prefered to stay home and play with the Rivera’s son Ricky. He had a Nitendo 64 in his room and I was the only foster kid they had that they let play on it. I was happy again.
Then it changed. It was storming that day too. A social worker came by unexpectantly and found Mrs. Rivera with a needle in her arm and that was the end of my new family. I was bounced around between homes and foster families from there on out. I was twelve by then so my chances of being adopted were slim to none, not to mention that I was “hard to place”. People wanted babies. I was lucky to be adopted when I was three, there was no way I was going to be adopted when I was twelve and was continuously running away from the homes in order to get my hands on some pot. No one wanted a druggie in their house even if the state was giving them money.
I got through it, just like anyone else did. I found harder drugs and found ways to obtain them. I pawned stuff from my foster families’ homes or I sold the drugs for a profit. I learned to stick to myself in high school. I knew the people I needed to go to to get drugs but I didn’t really talk to them otherwise. I hooked up with drunk girls at parties but I didn’t have relationships. Relationships were dangerous.
Which brought me to Brigitte. Brigitte wasn’t going to be a relationship. Brigitte amused me. Like silly putty or a yo-yo. Cheap entertainment.
When you were part of the drug and party community you became pretty fluent in pinpointing who people were.
- People who would never do drugs.
- Those who teeter-tottered.
- Those who dabbled.
- Druggies, like me.
- And lifers. They died from the drugs, like Mama Rivera.
Had Mrs. Snyder never grouped us together I never would have fixated on Brigitte. She was a pretty girl and I hated pretty girls. But when I saw Brigitte at the library and I saw how hard she was trying to keep everything together I knew that she was a teeter-totter kind of person. All she needed was one good push. She was never going to be hardcore, she was never going to be hooked beyond perhaps the occaisional social cigarette. But pushing her to the side of evil was something that would keep me amused and my current foster family didn’t have Internet.
So I pushed and she tipped over. Just like I thought she would.
word count: 1246
total: 20,004
O my!
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