The first time I ever woke up in a new city, I was greeted brightly by my foster mother, Christi. I had never really been able to call her my mother, but she accepted that. She was so cool, she would always take me out and buy me things all the time even though she knew I hated it when she spoiled me. She was pretty young too. She adopted me when I was about 9 years old and she was only like 22. She was really more of a best friend, but I liked it better that way. I knew I could go to her with anything, and she would be okay with it, as long as I didn’t kill anyone. She listened to me and wasn’t judgmental about anything. I was celebrating my 15th birthday with some friends when it happened. That was the worst day of my life. No one could make me feel better. I refused to cooperate with anyone. I didn’t even talk to people anymore, Christi included. She started to get worried about me and bought me a ton of gifts, including a car, which I had to admit was pretty nice. It was an Audi R8, silver, and I loved it. I actually smiled and gave her a hug which I think was more than she was expecting to get out of me because she seemed overly excited by my reaction. Just after, I got a random call by a man who said he knew me. Christi answered the phone -you know, since I don’t talk- and said his name was Matt. I had never heard of any Matt and shook my head to Christi, but then her eyes grew big. I looked at her curiously for a moment when she rushed over to me with a confused look on her face. She grasped both my shoulders firmly and said it was my father on the phone. I had never known either of my parents, only that they didn’t want me when I was born, so they dropped me off in front of an orphanage house. I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t going to change the person I had become just because some guy claimed to be my father, when he never wanted me to begin with. Why should I give him a chance now? I shook my head and walked upstairs to my bedroom. Christi asked me if it was okay with me if she continued to talk with him. She said he was truly worried about me and wanted to know about me. I wasn’t completely comfortable having a stranger ask about me, and I was more suspicious about how he knew where to find me or that he was worried about me, but Christi brought me round to it, and in the end I agreed. She told him that I didn’t talk, but knew better than to go into details about it. She only told him that I had something tragic happen to me. I’m guessing he accepted that and didn’t push for further details, because I never heard her talking about it again. This had continued for about a year, then, just a couple of weeks before my 16th birthday, they started talking a lot, almost everyday. I wasn’t all that worked up about it. Then, after me and Christi had returned from a club that she took me to for celebration of my ‘sweet 16', it happened again.
The second time I woke up in a new city, I was greeted by a stuffy old man yelling at me to ‘pay up or pack up’, a raging thunderstorm taking place outside my window, and a hard, cold bed in a small motel room on my way to live with a man who I have met only once in my entire life.
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