Page 348 of Rage

How The Shadows Fell

By: Britt Bee

Chapter One

Katherine

12 Years Old

Why didn’t anyone want me?

Being in foster care sucks balls. The last few families I had been placed with were nice at first. But I always managed to somehow do something that they didn’t like. The last family told my case worker that I spoke poorly, and that they weren’t keen for me to be speaking how I did with them and their posh children.

They lived in a big, white, colonial house with grounds people, cleaners, and every type of service available. Their children, three of them, wore uniforms for school and had their own driver.

Why they wanted a foster kid was beyond me. But they accepted me with semi-open arms. Though, in the end, I was only there for a total of three weeks.

The final straw? The foster mother had asked me how school had gone and my response had been, “It sucked balls today.”

That was that. And now I’m back at the public school I had been at less than a month ago. But my once friends aren’t speaking to me now. They act like I don’t exist at all, actually.I only had a few select friends, but I feel the blow of their abandonment, nonetheless.

Going about seventh grade with no friends is a slow type of torture. Walking to and from classes in the clustered halls is no joke. I hear the whispers and the snickers, and I can see when they stare. Their eyes burn into my back and the side of my head like drills. But I do my best to ignore them.

I’m in a group home now. There are several girls here, but none are my age. They’re all younger and still in elementary school, so I don’t have friends here either, even though one of the first graders follows me around like a lost puppy. Her eyes still shine with hope and determination. I know mine did for the longest time, but no more.

It’s been almost a month since I came back from my last placement, a whole month of being lost at school and at the group home, when I nearly run into another kid in the hall. I round the corner after math class and all but collide into a scrawny chest.

Large hands grab my upper arms, steadying me. “Whoa there, my bad.” His voice hasn’t completely dropped yet, so there’s still a bit of a higher pitch to it.

I stutter a response, “I-it’s okay.” I don’t know what comes over me, but I stare at the boy in front of me. My brows crease as I take in his mousy brown hair, but it’s the white streak in the front that catches my attention.

He notices my stare. “You can ask about it, ya know?”

Blood rushes to my face as embarrassment covers me like a shroud. I tuck my wayward hair behind my ears as I continue to stare at him. “Did you do that yourself?” I ask him, my voice somehow not trembling.

He chuckles. Chuckles! Once he catches his breath, he answers, “It’s actually a birthmark.” Combing it back and forthwith his deft fingers, he continues, “It just grows in like that. I’ve had it since I was a baby.”

“No way!” I gasp. “That’s so cool!”

His smile is full and cheesy. “What’s your next class?”

“English,” I tell him.

“Cool, that’s my next class, too. Wanna walk there together?” He stands next to me, nearly shoulder to shoulder. He’s taller than me, so much so that I have to crane my neck to see the white streak in his hair.

I nod, gripping my books tighter against my chest.

“My name’s Rhett, by the way. What’s yours?”

“Katherine.”

“So formal,” he says with a smirk and a twinkle of humor in his eye. “And pretty,” he adds more genuinely.

“Thanks.” I blush.

“So, Kath, tell me more about you.”

Chapter Two

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