Life growing up wasn't easy from an early age. My dad was incarcerated when I was 6 years old, sentenced to life in prison for Vehicular Manslaughter and drunk driving. He and my mom got into a fight one night, he, like always, drank away his problems and decided to get behind the wheel of a car killing the 16-year-old he hit head-on when the whiskey finally knocked him out.
After that accident life got harder for mom and me, everyone seemed to blame her for dads actions and being in a small town where everyone likes to talk it seemed to make the town smaller. We moved out of state when I was almost 8, the whispers and staring becoming too much for her. Roughly 6 months later the stress and guilt became too much, I came home from school one afternoon to find my mom "asleep" laying next to an empty bottle of pills and a note addressed to me. Although I remember it like it was yesterday that whole day after that was a blur.
I didn't have any other known family, you can't exactly raise a kid in prison, so I was placed in a children's home and became a ward of the state. For 2 and a half years I bounced in and out of State homes and foster homes, given what I had went through I shut down, closing everyone off I visited more counselors and therapists than I can remember I also found myself in fights around every corner, that typically being the reason I got kicked from most foster homes. Right around my 11th birthday, I found myself in a state home with only a few other kids, most of the children just ignored me and I preferred it that way. No one wanted to talk to the crazy girl who didn't speak and doodled in a journal all day, that is until my life changed forever.
I was sitting under the big oak tree out in front of the old church that had been converted into a children's home. One of the older boys, Daniel, who had just arrived in the home a week or so ago walked up to me a small group lingering behind him. He started taunting me about my notebook like everyone liked to do, trying to get me to say something, anything, but I wouldn't budge. After maybe 10 minutes of ignoring him, my journal was snatched from my hand, I jumped to my feet ready to charge the jerk when something flew through the air crashing into the side of his head, Daniel dropped my journal grabbing his head in pain in an instant. Everyone started looking around to see where the object came from, finally looking up to the tree behind me they saw him, perched like a bird about half way up was a sandy blonde haired boy I came to know as Clint armed with a simple slingshot. The group quickly dispersed once the realized clint had a pocket full of rocks and an aim that shouldn't be tested, he jumped from the tree picked up my journal and handed it back to me. I didn't know it then, but that moment was the beginning of a new life for me. For weeks after that clint continued to come around, he didn't try to talk to me like everyone else did, he just sat perched in the tree while I doodled always on alert, just watching me like a hawk. 3 months after my first interaction with clint I was jumped on my way to the tree out front, Daniel didn't take too kindly to Clint's actions apparently, just as I thought I was about to get my ass handed to me, one of the guys who jumped me was pulled off and thrown into the others, I looked up and there he was again saving my tail. That was the day I broke my silence, thanking clint for his rescue yet again. From that moment on I talked, only to him at first, but then slowly over the months I started speaking to others my social worker was floored, the fighting also slowed down that day too, most kids were too wary of clint to pick a fight with me. I didn't know it at that moment but I had found a brother in Clint Barton, one that would stick with me no matter where we went.
For two and a half years clint and I became inseparable, Clint was a few years older than me though and was aging out of the home and that scared both of us. In all of my silent brooding, I managed to test up in school and was eligible to graduate early, my social worker advised against it citing I needed more social interaction, but ultimately the choice was mine and I took it. Clint tried community college for a couple of semesters but we both knew this town wasn't big enough for him, after a lot of talking, tears, and a few stolen bottles of beer later he decided to join the military and try to see the world. Telling him to go was a tough decision but I promised him I wouldn't be far behind him. 6 months after he left for basic I ran away from the home, and never looked back.
Clint had taught me how to drive in a beat up pickup he bought, so when I ran I stole a car or two to put some distance between me and that place. I found jobs in diners where people didn't really care to ask my age as long as I showed up and did my job, I hustled pool to earn extra cash when things were slow, I didn't tend to stay in one town long usually 6 months at best. Somewhere between my 19th and 20th birthday I found myself in New York City, I had enough saved to rent a room from someone I found in an ad in the paper, I got a job at a Coffee shop part-time. Money got tight a few months in and I was scared I would have to move again, until one day a co-worker mentioned she wrote freelance articles for a local paper and suggested I try it. This was another one of those moments I had no idea would change my life, a few articles here and there somehow lead to a part-time job at the Midtown Journal. I started off in the mail room still submitting my freelance articles and worked my way up, a year and a half later I'm one of the top Investigative Journalists in New York City. Chasing stories no one else wanted, showing the world parts of the city no one wanted to believe existed, and maybe even making a few enemies along the way. This career path is exactly what lead me to the predicament I am in now, my name is Layla James and this is my story.