` inside i feel like screaming ,

[Graham McCarthy]

GRAHAM BRYANT MCCARTHY
VALKYRIE, CALIFORNIA, THE PIER, LATE AFTERNOON, DEC 2007

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-----graham hadn't really known much about having friends. but he knew a lot about having brothers. as far as graham knew he was an only child. that was really hard to determine seeing as how graham was abandoned less than three hours after his birth so he'd never even seen his mother or known if she was the kind of slut he'd always imagined her being. he was relatively sure that if she'd screwed up once with him that she'd screwed up with other children as well. she'd probably gotten knocked up while sleeping around for drug money or something. there definitely wasn't some little house with a white picket fence that housed his mother and the rest of her children. that couldn't be possible. there was no way a woman so drugged up that she orphaned her child, would give it all up for a normal life and if that actually was the case, people would see graham mad for the first time, ever. but aside from a biological standpoint, graham had brothers. he had the brotherhood of foster kids on his side. it didn't sound like much, but when you were locked in an abusive household with other foster kids, you tended to rally together around the people who weren't hurting you. in this case it was the other kids. his first foster family had been smart about it though. they didn't like their kids ganging up on them so they tended to try and break those bonds that held them together. sometimes it worked but a lot of the time it didn't leaving graham with just a bit of backup when he got into serious shit. like when his foster father got into his drinking rage and decided to beat someone without provocation. graham was usually the first to get hit because he was the quietest and quiet in his foster father's book mean he was scheming. instead of lunging at the man and causing themselves more trouble, the brothers that he'd made would simply add themselves to the mix. graham couldn't get as hurt if fists were flying at all three of them. graham would do the same for his two counterparts. it was just a kind of understood thing that you did. you stepped in when something wasn't right.

-----over time that transitioned from one home to another, depending on how long he stayed. when it got to the point that graham couldn't stay in a foster home for more than a few hours, well naturally the brotherhood kind of lost him. instead he lived by the rule of the streets and that was okay with him. the rules outside of that cozy little home with a roof over your head and food in your fridge was simple, survive. graham was pretty good at surviving if you think about it. though he'd been in homes since he was about fourteen, graham had always had to survive to live. he'd always had to outrun some kind of danger, or even simply was that he'd spent the most time he could out on the street before returning to a home. so when he'd left the abusive situation for good, well you could say that graham was readily prepared. he knew a lot of what to expect and he had faired pretty well. as for the brotherhood? well of course it went on without him. it was the only thing that kept other streets kids together so he was absolutely sure that it continued without him. also graham had kind of transitioned into a different brotherhood of sorts. it was hard to imagine, but the homeless, especially in big cities, had a way of sticking together. it was strange. if you could picture a situation where a bunch of homeless guys were pressed shoulder to shoulder, huddling around a fire in an abandoned oil drum in the middle of winter, well it was kind of like their little round table. it was where they met, talked, and shared things they wouldn't normally share. you could always sense when a person was relatively homeless, there was just that kind of awareness, and when it had become apparent that graham was a member of that group, well he'd been treated as such. even now graham could probably strip away this nice life with these nice people, find a bridge and still be welcomed amongst the homeless people. how strange it was.

-----graham wasn't so sure that he wouldn't ever give it up. being homeless and living on the streets sounded tough, and it was, but for graham it seemed effortless. it was effortless because he had been doing it all of his life. but just like he had transitioned into his vagrant, carefree life, graham was working on making that same transition into real life. soon he would shed that sense of introvertedness and he wouldn't feel quite so much like an outsider. soon he would mesh into the crowd and become one of those people he'd been jealous of all of his life. one of those happy, ignorant little people. only graham wouldn't be ignorant of the ways of lesser people. he couldn't be. graham nodded as reanne talked about raquelle once again. she was right. it was like she had been designed to work wonders in the hospital. "i would think so. yeah i couldn't see her doing anything else." as so true his words were. raquelle was intelligent, sensitive, careful, and a healer. there was no other place for her to be than in the hospital saving lives. after all, she'd saved his. graham wasn't sure how she'd react to knowing that he'd been in juvie. you could say she was actually a test subject seeing as the only person he'd ever told about this was raquelle and she'd already known since the moment he'd been brought in for treatment. still, reanne was running away screaming. that was a good sign. "well it's for the safety of the local people so i understand. if i had a real home i wouldn't have been there." he emphasized the word real mainly for himself. reanne probably wouldn't have understood it and that was fine with him. he almost chuckled as the conversation took a stereotypical turn. "yeah. since last year. i'm a junior as well."

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status • finished
words • 1267
tagged • reanne !
clothes • here.
listening to • -- - --.
notes • --.

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[Reanne Halper]

I'M BRUISED AND SCARRED
save me from this broken heart
ALL MY LOVE WILL SLOWLY FADE
& F A L L A P A R T
• • • • •

Reanne had always been very independent. That, and she had always craved it. From birth to around fourteen years later, Reanne couldn’t remember when she had ever been alone. Even when she went to the bathroom she had somebody standing right outside the door. When you could randomly be jostled into a seizure without warning as a kid, well, your single dad wasn’t likely to grant you much freedom. If it weren’t for the fact that she lived in a very small town where her father was friends with practically every adult around, she probably would have been home schooled until the epilepsy decided to sit back and give her a break. Thank heavens that didn’t happen, but at least if it had she would be well excused for why she was such an awkward person around other people. Anyway, her dad or grandma or somebody was always escorting her places or following her around the house. She was trapped, and it wasn’t like she was going to complain. Reanne wasn’t suicidal and she didn’t want to be left alone if a time bomb decided to go off inside of her. With her luck, it probably would have exploded when she finally was alone. So naturally, the girl had always wanted freedom, wanted it so badly it was almost physically painful. If she could have had anything, it would have been a little bit of freedom… some liberty to do what she wanted, or to sit in her room without one of those baby-alert systems in there so they could hear her if anything went wrong. It was awful. And even as she got a bit older when she didn’t require twenty-four hour protection, she really had nowhere to go or be. Sure, now she could go and see the horses alone without somebody at her heels. But it wasn’t like she expected. It wasn’t the independence or relief she had been expecting it to be. She didn’t really have friends to go hang out with, so she stayed at home most of the time, still with her dad. It wasn’t like she minded being with him. He was her best friend, he always had been. However, it would have been nice to be able to switch up her ways every now and again. Was freedom really so much for a teenager to ask for? Yes. It was.

It was like a kick in the face from some higher power. Reanne finally got her independence at the expense of losing her one and only friend. Her dad. Was it some kind of joke? That was why she didn’t believe in God. If God was real, she didn’t believe he could be so cruel to taunt her like that. Yeah, it would be hilarious. The girl who always wanted her freedom, let her dad die and then she can have it all she wants. No, that couldn’t be how things worked. The whole “everything happens for a reason” stuff was crap. So far, she couldn’t see a good reason in his death. Not really. Now she was just a teenager with no parents, no actual home other than her dorm, and absolutely zero friends. Reanne had her freedom. She was independent. But was it really worth it? That was where she wasn’t sure. She’d always been able to take care of herself. How many other teenage girls cooked, grocery shopped, scheduled their own doctor’s appointments, paid their own bills, and didn’t have parents? Not very many. Not ones who had money like she did. Not ones who had at least one biological parent living like she did. Reanne always figured her current life was dysfunctional, but when she actually thought about it… she realized it was worse than dysfunctional. It wasn’t normal at all. She could fend for herself, but the problem was: she didn’t want to. If her mother was anything but a psycho, selfish whore… then maybe she would have a semi-normal life. She’d still have one parent, one who could still be her best friend. Sarah was nothing close to that though. She was the closest thing Reanne had to an enemy. So yes, the girl finally got her independence. It was nice sometimes… better than living with her “family.” That was for sure. But it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t exhilarating. It wasn’t making her happy. How could it? Really? She didn’t even have anywhere to go for Christmas. At this point, she would trade her perpetual freedom for being followed around by her dad every moment. She wanted to be a little girl again. She wanted somebody to take care of her and cook her dinner and make her take stupid pictures when she opened presents on her birthday. Reanne was never going to have that though. She blamed Sarah, mostly. If she ever became a parent, well she sure as hell knew how not to be a mother, so that counted for something, right?

Reese got so lonely sometimes it was heartbreaking. She would never admit it, because though she had always been shy and reserved… the girl had also always been proud and didn’t like seeming vulnerable. Being alone was something she enjoyed, but also something she hated passionately. It was very bittersweet. She was alone so often these days that it drove her insane. Absolutely crazy. It was nice for the majority of the time. She really couldn’t complain, she loved being left to herself. The fact that she never had anybody though, that was mind boggling. She still didn’t believe it sometimes. Was she really emancipated, running her own life in California? Or was this all some horrible nightmare? Sometimes she was still waiting to wake up. Maybe that was why Reanne always liked going to the hospital. The seizures she wasn’t despised so severely, she was now fond of. It sounded crazy, yeah. It wasn’t like Reanne liked the actual seizure, that part always sucked. The serious ones were awful. But the aftermath? She loved it now. Was it so weird that she liked going to the hospital and being a patient? It couldn’t be that strange. It was nice. That was the one place where she could remember she was still a kid, that she still should be taken care of. When s he was there she got food, she was checked up on, people worried about her. After such isolation, it was very welcome. She didn’t really understand why she was so comfortable there, or why she could talk there so much easier than she could out here in the real world. Maybe it didn’t make logical sense, but somehow in her mind… the entire equation ended up equaling something. It was compassion and love. She liked receiving it from adults who were working just to make you feel better. Like Graham’s mom. She had been the perfect example of what Reanne enjoyed when she checked in.

Perhaps when Reanne was older, she would embrace her life now. Maybe it was going to lead her somewhere good, but right now she just didn’t see it. It didn’t seem likely to her at the moment, but who would ever know? At least she knew she was prepared for the future. She was never going to be one of those spoiled rich kids who were in shock when they finally went to college and realized the world didn’t revolve around them, and that they did have to take care of themselves. She wasn’t going to be taken by surprise that was, that was for sure. When the boy spoke of the doctor being made for what she did, Reanne nodded. Dr. McCarthy really did just come off as one of those people who couldn’t be anything else. It was just that. Being a doctor seemed like it was a part of her. Just like being a fireman was a part of others. Some people were designed to be teachers or lawyers. And then there were those who could be anything because they really didn’t stick out in a particular area. That was okay too. Reanne shrugged when he went on about the laws, ”You don’t really come off like you’d be a danger to the local people…” she stated a bit bluntly. Then her eyebrows knit and she looked at him for a brief second before diverting her eyes to the fires she could see being started on the beach, ”No offense, or anthing?”

[/color] it sounded more like a question because she wasn’t entirely sure if he’d take it in a bad way or something. Sure, the kid looked like he could do somebody some serious damage… but he just didn’t seem like he would, ya know? What had he meant by a real home? Did he have a fake home? Or no home? Or an unstable home? The only way she could even relate to that was her own way of not having a real home. She had a dorm, of course, but not a home. He probably didn’t mean it that way though, and she had no prerogative to question about it, so she let it be. So he went to the academy too. She wondered if she ever had seen him then. It was weird how she could be in such a daze and inattentive to her surroundings and classmates at school, ”Oh. I’m new there too, I guess. Started this year.” When he said he began attending last year, was that when the doctor adopted him? Or had that been after? Hmm.

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TAG Graham (Ruby) <3
WORD COUNT 1,594
STATUS Complete!
OUTFIT Sweatshirt ; Tank-top ;Shorts ; Shoes ;
SETTING The Pier, around 5:30 p.m., December 2007
NOTES ---
MUSE MUSIC don't let me stop you - kelly clarkson
CREDIT justlikefalling @ caution 2.0
LYRICS bruised & scarred , MAYDAY PARADE

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