Glimmers of Hope

Prologue

The night air is warm, and her breath is erratic as she dips behind the streetlamp attempting to remain unseen. The heels of her Mary Janes tap along the cement as she scurries toward the train station that is the landmark of this small town. It is nine p.m. exactly and she knows the bundle she clutches underneath her favorite thin black cardigan, should only have to wait a few hours before the next train arrives. She hopes that will not be too long as she grips the bundle tightly to provide it comfort while she can.

The clicking of her shoes is the only thing that can be heard this late in such a town, ironically called New Hope. All hope is lost for her but maybe the child still has a chance. The deafening silence is making her even more nervous than she already is. Just a few more steps and she should be at the front door. She ponders if it is the best place to leave the child, but she cannot think of any other choice. She cannot risk the local church, she is there with her mother too often and she fears that, somehow, someone will make the connection back to her. Mostly though she fears the priest figuring it out, figuring out that the baby is the result of the night his nephew, David, took her virginity—pulling her white panties down as she bent over the pew. She had wanted it, wanted him, never really understanding what the consequences of such actions could be. Believing somehow that because he was related to a holy man and was destined to be a priest himself, the sins of the night would be washed away by morning. After several months of no period and a growing belly getting harder to hide, she realized the mistake she had made.

She has not revealed her secret to anyone, even David. She wants to protect him from this because she knows how strict his uncle is and how much trouble David would be in. Maybe by leaving the baby on the steps of the train station, the town will believe that some transient left the child, never connecting it back to her, and never to David.

The lights along the train station are getting bigger and she only has a few more steps to go when a flickering catches her eye. Small lights are running along the side of the train track, and she recognizes them immediately as fireflies. Their flickering seems more intense than usual. She wonders if they are trying to tell her something. Most summer nights, the fireflies are her favorite thing, but tonight they haunt her by flashing their little lights at her like a painful warning, trying desperately to stop her from what she is about to do. What would normally bring her bliss, torments her instead.

Finally making it to the entrance, she glances fervently around, ensuring no soul is in sight before unwrapping her cardigan and pulling out the small, tightly wound child. She pulls the fabric back to check that the life inside is still, in fact, alive. The tiny face has eyes screwed tightly shut, retching her heart so she quickly pushes the fabric back over the girl, not wanting to see the face that will haunt her for the rest of her life. In her desperation to rid the child, she raced from her mother’s home without saying a word so she must get back before it is noticed that she is gone. Her mother does not know that she gave birth in the bathtub, stifling her screams into a pillow and cutting the umbilical cord with a dull kitchen knife. She must get back to clean up the mess before her mother sees. Her mother is already asleep but gets up to use the bathroom frequently, so she knows she only has a small window of time to complete this gruesome task.

As a fifteen-year-old good Christian girl, it is unimaginable that she would get pregnant, and she is desperate to go back to being the person that her mother, and this town, believes her to be. Yet, as she sets the child down on the steps, the lamp overhead casting a dim yellow glow over the blood-stained white towel, she knows she will never be the girl she ought to have been.

Chapter One

Another new school.

Here I go again, walking up the steps of, what is the name again? Oh yea, Lambert High, where I will be forced to meet new students, new teachers, new bullies, new sheep. Starting at a new school in the middle of the last semester of senior year might sound like a nightmare to some, because it is.

Nobody wants to be the “new kid” and I have done it more times than I can keep track of, but I have a system now. I know how to handle this. Walk-in, keep your head down, do not make direct eye contact, find your locker, locate the classroom quickly, sit in the second to last row off to the side—ignore stares—do not draw attention to yourself.

The most critical part of my method: never, under any circumstance, fall in love.

“Being in foster care is hard enough with the moving around, but do yourself a favor and don’t date, and definitely don’t fall in love. It’ll make life so much harder for you when you are forced to leave again. Trust me it is the best thing you can do for yourself,” said my heartbroken foster sister when I was just six years old, “love is for fools.”

She was older than me and much wiser, so I have taken her words to heart, not wanting to be as miserable as she was in that moment.

My method works. It is full proof. One of the main downsides of the technique, though, is that I have zero friends. I cannot tell you how many foster parents and counselors I have heard say, “Birdie, make friends, it is so important for you to make friends.”

This might be easy for them to say but let me tell you it is not easy to do. By the time I start a new school in some new neighborhood, cliques have already been established, social groups already developed. Nobody is looking to add to it either, and not the girl who is too skinny with jet black stringy hair and a bad attitude.

I do not actually have a bad attitude, it’s just what I want people to think. It helps keep the bullies and buffoons at bay. Growing up in foster homes does create a tough exterior, though, it is the skin of a survivor.

This is the last semester of high school. In three short months, I will graduate and begin my studies at Alfred University in Alfred, New York. It is my dream liberal arts university tucked away in the western part of the state. I have been working diligently my entire life to make my dream of college come true. Even at a very young age, only ten years old, my parents encouraged me to do well in school so that I may get into college later. After they died, I became determined to see this dream to fruition, for them. Through eleven different foster homes and just as many schools throughout New York and New Jersey, I have managed to maintain a high GPA. Even when I went hungry or was being yelled at by one of the foster parents, I still made it to class every day and did all my homework. My determination and ambition are unmatched, and it is finally happening; I am headed to college on an academic scholarship. My parents left me a college fund in the amount of ten thousand dollars. It might not seem like much to some, but that money will cover the rest of the costs that the scholarship does not. The scholarship covers tuition but there are more costs to attending college that I will need the fund for. Alfred is a private, liberal arts university so it is a bit on the pricier side, but with my parent's help, it can be done.

I should clarify for the purpose of this story that the Wright’s were not my biological parents. They raised me from the age of five to age ten. This is the longest I was ever placed in a home and they officially adopted me just three months before their deaths. I loved them and like to think of them as my actual parents. I think they would have wanted that.

Now, as I enter my new high school, I remind myself that I just need to get through the rest of this semester and the summer before it will all come to fruition. That should not be so hard, right?

I cross the crowds of kids desperately seeking my locker—when I make my first blunder of the day: I trip.

Papers, pencils, binders, and books go flying, the laminate floor contributing to further my agony as the slick surface spreads the fallen items all over. If you have ever tripped in front of a bunch of mean, hormonal teenagers then you can relate to the horror I am feeling in this moment.

“Dumbass,” “Watch out newbie,” and “Learn how to walk,” are just some of the treasures thrown in my direction.

My method has a wrench in it, but I can still recover, however, I cannot afford another attention-grabbing mistake.

~~~

His name is Austen. I determine he is on the football team, and I suspect he is a complete douche. I make these quick assessments because he is wearing a football letterman jacket and he has a herd of losers surrounding him as he treks towards me. The losers are staring at him and saying his name like it will facilitate a magic wish.

“Austen, are you coming to my house party? It won't be the same without you there.”

“Austen, what’re you doing for lunch?”

“Austen, you can meet up with us for lunch if you want.”

He appears to be the stereotypical hot, rich, popular jock who is probably completely devoid of any real emotion.

Mr. Douche comes across some of my scattered items and is kind enough to kick my binder across the floor with his perfectly polished Gucci tennis shoe just as I was reaching for it, making sure to get plenty of laughs while doing so, hence the douche impression. Have teenage boys not evolved past this type of behavior?

“Play fetch new kid.” Ugh. This blending in thing is off to a bad start. I finally gather my stuff, other than a couple of pencils that I sacrifice to the gods of humiliation, and bolt into my class which, luckily, is easy to find.

Biology class, okay I can do this. I find a chair near the back and off to the side and try to collect myself. Just as my embarrassment begins to settle, Mr. Douche walks in.

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.

Luckily, he sits in the front on the other side of the room and does not seem to notice me.

Thirty minutes later and I have almost forgotten completely about Mr. Douche when I hear, “Why are you staring at me creeper,” from across the room. It is Austen and he is looking right at me.

“Yeah, you. I see you staring at me.”

“Okay Austen, that’s enough, I need you to get back to your reading,” says the nerdy teacher wearing glasses too big for his face.

“I will, it’s just hard when I’m being stared at. I’m the victim.”

I opt to say nothing, I have nothing to say. I have been lost in a daydream and must have been gazing in his direction, but I certainly was not staring at HIM. He is truly horrible. My nemesis. My mortal enemy.

Every eye in the room is on me as now. I wish I had the power of invisibility so that I could fade into the background of this room, disappearing from this place forever.

~~~

High school is a hellish place, I have had loads of bad experiences in high school. That tends to happen when you are always the new kid. I once had a group of mean teenage girls tell me I needed to clean my clothes more because I was attracting flies and then stick gum in my hair. My experience at this school, though, might be the worst yet in large part thanks to the lovely nickname Austen blesses me with: Creeper. This is an impactful nickname for a girl because it is rare. It is memorable. It sticks. My stringy hair and sunken face add to the effect, and by the end of my first day, at whatever school this is, it’s clear that the nickname Creeper is here to stay—as I am called it in every class I attend and even have it yelled across the cafeteria to me while I try to eat the chicken nuggets this school is trying to pass off as food. Three-thirty cannot get here soon enough.

By the end of my first day at Lambert High, I have already contemplated numerous plots to end my humiliation including but not limited to: bomb-making, faking my death, and my favorite, going outside and getting hit by a car but, no, I must get through this last semester, so I resign to just take the teasing. Soon it will be all a bad memory. . . at least that is what I keep telling myself.

“Hey Creeper, I know you’re obsessed with me but if you don’t stop creeping me out, I will have to report it. I shouldn’t have to take this kind of abuse.” Austen says this as he walks by my locker, sporting a smile as big as the Grand Canyon across his stupid face.

The giggly girls following him are all about the torment as they chime in, “Yeah Creeper, get a life. He would never be into you.”

Sudden inspiration from the classic film, Heathers, a personal favorite of mine, pops into my head encouraging me to be a little dangerous. I reconsider my previous acceptance of the teasing. There are only two and half months left of high school, I could have some fun with this. I mean it is not like I can get expelled this late in the year, right?

By the way, if you have not seen Heathers, I strongly recommend it.

Chapter Two

It is Tuesday morning, a week after the spawning of the Creeper title, and I have perfected a new way to handle my humiliating nickname. By leaning into it. Pleasure is found by intentionally staring at Mr. Douche randomly in class and giving him my best, “I will kill you” Creeper face.

To create the perfect Creeper face, one must squint their eyes and part their lips slightly while tucking their chin close to their neck. Let me tell you, it is quite the look. I may even have a lengthy career in modeling.

Austen usually ignores me but yesterday after class he walked by me and said, “You’re one scary chick Creeper,” and it was the nicest thing anyone had said to me at this school.

After Austen compliments me on my performance, I decide I want to take it up a notch so today, before first period Biology, I take a red marker and scribble Creeper onto my locker, making sure to write the letters in a way I imagine a disturbed serial killer writing them, then use a