Chapter 1 - "Hey, Dick head!"

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꧁•⊹٭𝙰𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚊٭⊹•꧂

"What a fucking day!" I sighed to myself as I dropped the handle of my only suitcase, packed full of my clothes and notebooks, before proceeding to take in my unfamiliar surroundings.

This time last week I was happily living with the same foster parents that I was blessed with at 15 years old. Diane would usually have the dinner ready for me getting home around about now, and Darren would be in shortly after me to lovingly torment his wife. They've treated me like nothing short of their own flesh and blood since my arrival. They are the best family anyone could ever ask for... and now I'm stuck here.

College accommodation. Ew.

It's a kick in the the gut to leave what I comfortably called my home after so much bouncing around as a kid. I've always been in and out of foster homes since I was a new born, never being one of the lucky ones to inevitably get adopted.

I was an ugly baby, I don't blame anyone tbh.

After bobbing from hellhole to hellhole for most of my youth and adolescent life, things started to get better. The families I would get placed with became kinder, although I still ran away frequently due to my own naive inability to trust anyone.

When I was placed with Darren and Diane, they already had another foster kid. He was a real jerk to me for the first week... but he split the day after he turned 16, knowing that he wouldn't be forced back into the system if he found stable housing. He did exactly as I had honestly intended to do at first, but unlike the other foster families that I had been a part of, they seemed genuinely worried about the kid.

I stayed and watched as they spent weeks searching, calling people he knew, his friends and school, repeatedly trying to get a hold of his mobile that became disconnected. Because he was legally a 'young adult' there was nothing that could be done by social services or police, especially after he contacted them himself to state that he wasn't returning. After a while, he finally contacted Darren and Diane to announce that he was safe and had found an apartment with a friend, but for months they still wired him money to make sure he ate and made rent... purely out of the care of their hearts.

After witnessing the chaos and their efforts in finding him, they had already gained more respect from me than any of the other families I'd been with, simply for giving a shit.

Soon enough, things settled and I got the room to myself since the other guy left, it was his loss. I was loving it, since it was the first time that I had a space to call my own. I was always sharing everything with at least one other person in all of my other temp homes, sometimes maybe even two or three, so I was relishing in the attention and support from my first truly stable home. I lapped up the abnormal normality that I began to experience for the years to follow, flourishing academically and personally.

Needless to say I decided not to run away in the end... and although I was too old to be adopted by the time we fully connected as a family, I will forever call Darren and Diane my parents.

I stood up and took in the quiet hum of electronics around the brightly lit apartment. I guess I could get used to this eventually... After all it does take the pain of a 3 hour travel to and from campus out of the picture. The past 2 years have been the definition of hell during the winter months, and I was late almost every day, hence the funding being granted for me to live here.

The walls are a brilliant white with tall ceilings and wooden flooring, various plants are scattered around the place to add some extra vibrance. For a college dorm it isn't half bad, especially considering it has all the basic necessities, which negates the need to use most of the shared facilities downstairs. There's a bathroom as you enter on your right, plus a private study to the left. There's a large open living space with a kitchen area which is split by an island counter. Towards the back end of the living room is a large archway, covered by a loose beaded curtain, which leads into a singular bedroom.

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