AN: This is the intro to a story I've been working on. I'm posting this as a kind of feeler for how people will respond. I only have two chapters written so far, but I really want to keep working on it. So, please review and let me know what you think!
Home. By sixteen years old most people know what it means. They can tell you all about their house, their amazing family, and how much they love being there. Okay, so maybe they'll tell you they hate their over-protective parents, but we all know that means they have a great family who cares about them. Keep asking them and they'll tell you about how their mom makes them cookies and their dad plays catch with them.
At sixteen years old, I can honestly tell you I have never had a home. I have a house, not a home. I have a father, not a dad. Most of all, I don't have a mom; she died in childbirth.
And that's where all of this starts.
My name is Kyla Chevonne Scarborough, but ever since I can remember my dad has never called me by name. It's probably because he refuses to call me by a name he didn't give me. You see, when it came time to name me, he and my mother hadn't decided. My father was so devastated by the loss of my mother that he couldn't even bring himself to say his own name, let alone give one to me. So, my uncle stepped up. He was my mother's twin and although he too was upset by the loss of his sister, he decided to give me my name.
Being born to Scottish parents, he gave me Gaelic names. He chose Chevonne for my middle name for two reasons; it was one that my parents had both liked and it was my maternal grandmother's name, meaning God is gracious. He knew my life wasn't going to be easy and hoped the Lord would help my through.
He decided on the name Kyla for my first name, which meant either straight of water or beautiful. He says it was because even as a newborn I looked just like my mother, and he knew looking into my clear blue eyes I was going to be beautiful.
My eyes turned green a few days later and he was ecstatic. I looked every bit like a true Scot. I have brown hair that always seemed to have a red tint to it, fair skin, and bright green eyes. My mother's side was always very proud of their heritage. They loved that in the midst of losing a beloved family member they were gaining another, who looked like she belonged in the homeland.
Even my last name doesn't belong to my father. As my uncle was writing down my name on my birth certificate, my father flew into a rage. He started yelling that he didn't want me. He had lost everything that was important to him and it was my fault. He told my uncle not to put his name down. Uncle Alba feared my father would hurt someone or himself so he put down his and my mother's name: Scarborough. No one argued, because my parents had never married. They were engaged when I was born; set to be married in a matter of days (I came late).
So there we have it. I was beautiful like my mother, would need God in my life, and I belonged to a Scottish family. If only Uncle Alba knew how appropriately he had named me.
At first nothing seemed to be too horrible. My father finally agreed to raise me and my late mother's family believed everything was okay. Most of them lived in Scotland anyway. Uncle Alba and my mother had moved here to go to college and loved it so much they became citizens.
To all outward appearances, my father appeared to be doing a fine job raising me. I was fed, had clothes, had a roof over my head, and was not a brat. I was a very well-behaved child. No one thought that I was born that way or that he scared me into it.
He claimed he had very little money to spend on me, even though he drove a nice car and had nice clothes. So I was forced to wear clothes until they absolutely fell apart. Uncle Alba stepped in and started giving me clothes his own daughters had outgrown. Once they got jobs, my cousins would even take me out shopping, treating me to new clothes.
I always got very good grades, but no one guessed it was because I would shut myself in my room every night. My father refused to spend any more than he had to on me so I had no television, no computer, nothing. I only had an old stereo that one of my cousins had given me. So the only thing I had to do was schoolwork.
No one knew that I shut myself in my room in an attempt to stop the yelling. My father was constantly showering me in negative comments. I grew up being told I was nothing. It was my fault my mother died, that I was unwanted, no one loved me, and that everyone would be better off if I was dead.
I had started to believe it when my uncle found out when I was in fifth grade. He told me that he wished there was something I could do, but my father wasn't hitting me or putting me in danger so he couldn't do anything about it. Instead, he decided to take care of me as best as he could. He let me stay over anytime I wanted, and I would love to sleep over at my cousins'. He was always willing to feed me when the meager meals my father gave me weren't enough. He was always willing to clothe me when my father insisted my clothes were good enough even when they were falling apart and didn't fit right.
A few weeks after that was the day that changed my life. No one would know until many years later though.
You see, a few days after my uncle found out what my father was truly like was the day the high school's band director came to get us started with band. Uncle Alba just happened to be the band director. He knew that band would give me a reason to get out of the house and be under his eye instead of my father's. It also gave me a purpose, something to work hard at besides my studies.
Uncle Alba had played trumpet and although both his daughters were in band they had elected to play other instruments. So he pulled out the trumpet he had started on and gave it to me, telling me I could leave it at his house and practice there after school. I was overjoyed when he set the old jumble of dull metal in my hands. I ran my hands over it in awe and Uncle Alba simply smiled and told me that he could tell that music would be an important part of my life.
Once again Uncle Alba was right.
As I grew up I continued with band and became a pretty decent trumpet player. Uncle Alba's youngest daughter, who was my age, played flute and we had become the best of friends. By the time my freshman year rolled around, we added another flute player to our small group and for the first time in my life I had real friends.
My freshman year was scary. The idea of marching band was foreign to me and I had never been around many people except for my family and the kids I went to elementary and junior high with. But walking into the Howard High School band room made me want to turn around and run back to the safety of my uncle's house. My fellow students were bigger, louder, and I didn't understand their sense of humor. Heck, I didn't even have a sense of humor until my cousin Cora started joking around with me in junior high. By the time we befriended Ann I had barely begun to understand the jokes they told.
I was scared everyone would tease me. I was very quiet, didn't have much of a sense of humor, and was related to the director. In fact, people started figuring that last part out on the first day. I looked exactly like my mother who had been his twin sister after all. Uncle Alba and I shared the same bright green eyes and reddish-brown hair. At first they thought I was his daughter, which made Cora laugh because no one believed her when she said that she in fact was Mr. Scarborough's daughter and I was merely his niece. Of course she had her mother's flaming red hair so I can understand why they thought I was his daughter instead of her.
That year, Cora and I stuck together, and eventually met Ann during a water break at marching band camp. Ann was a freshman flute like Cora. She had dirty blond hair and crystal clear blue eyes and was (as she would be the first to tell you) a little chubby. I had noticed some of the other kids ignoring her and I didn't understand at the time why. She had brought a small cooler of water and let Cora and I refill our bottles with it. Ask anyone, in the world of marching band that's like giving up a liver. The three of us became inseparable.
By the end of my sophomore year, I had changed a lot. I had loosened up considerably and had also toughened up (hey, you try being a female trumpet and not learn how to put guys in their place). I had developed a very band-esque sense of humor and was generally well-liked within the band.
Cora, Ann, and Uncle Alba were the only three that knew what my home life was like. No one probably would have even believed me if I tried to tell them. I was so out-going in band that there was no way the man that calls himself my father told me I was the scum of the earth everyday. Then again, they didn't see that when I was forced to finally return to my house I was suddenly not who they thought I was. I rarely talked and mostly hid in my room, my bookcase shoved in front of the door to keep my father out.
That was how I had chosen to deal with him: ignore him as much as possible. Of course that meant he yelled at me more when he did see me, but I dealt with this considerably better than when I was little. I still cried at night before I fell asleep though. Every night I prayed for someone to save me from my misery. My Uncle and friends in band were great, but the few that knew about my father offered little hope, even though I was grateful for the shelter they did offer.
Little did I know, the summer before my junior year my prayer would be answered when Cora helped me get a job at the local theater.