I was planning on finishing the second story to this before I posted it but I'm too excited to have people read it after so long of having it just to myself. Enjoy! x
Emma stood sadly, watching as little Cecilia – a girl who had clung to her like glue and was practically a mini version of Emma herself with blonde hair and green eyes – was presented with a cute mickey mouse toy from her place with the rest of the children in the group home. It wasn't that Emma wanted to toy, she was too old for that now at eleven years of age but Cecilia was adopted. She had been chosen. Emma stared longingly as the new parents helped Cecilia into the car and tried to look happy when her little friend turned in her seat to wave and smile. Only the youngest children waved back and even they couldn't muster the excitement or bury the jealously enough to make it seem heartfelt.
The couple looked perfect and gazed a Cecilia with such adoration already.
"All right, everyone, back inside," Miss Kent said, gesturing them back towards the building before the car had even pulled away. "Back inside, it's almost dinner time."
The other children all filled in obediently but Emma couldn't bring herself to turn especially not with her nose beginning to tingle with the clear signs of tears. A couple escaped her eyes as the car pulled away. Emma didn't need to look to feel Miss Kent's eyes on her.
"Don't worry, you'll find a home too, Emma," she sounds so sure and comforting but still Emma didn't move and was left outside.
If there was anything this proved, Emma realised, as she watched the car disappear from sight, was that no-one was going to adopt her. She was too old, she'd missed her chance. Potential parents wanted babies, they wanted to raise a child and make a family. They didn't want a teen who'd been pushed around the system for eleven years. She'd been screwed since the moment her first family sent her back after they fell pregnant with their own child. It didn't matter that they'd had her for three years – she wasn't enough. She'd never be enough.
At that thought, Emma felt her tears drying up. She wasn't going to stay there and keep feeling invisible. She'd get out. Tonight. Go somewhere by herself where she wasn't going to be paraded round like some dog on show or an item on a store shelf. The one at the back of course; the one that never got picked.
Sucking in a deep breath and wiping the tears from her face with a swipe of her chequered sleeve, Emma returned back inside the building; a plan to escape already forming in her brain. She'd sneak out and get a bus. It didn't matter where to as long as it was out of the system, where no one would find her and where she would take care of herself. She didn't need a family.