Chapter One

Sarah Winters was an unhappy woman. At age 35, she recently discovered that the chance for the "good life" had come and gone and passed her by completely. It was as though one day her deluded mind had woken up from its hazy dream world and she became conscious of the fact that the best time in her life had been high school. Her stomach twisted when she thought of it. She hadn't even been that popular in high school. She was one of those people that was neither a part of the social scene, nor completely rejected by it. She was generally ignored by…well, mostly everyone.

That is not to say she didn't have some good times. She did have her small circle of friends who were constantly surrounded by light and inconsequential drama, just enough to keep things interesting. She went on dates, did fairly well in school, went to the prom, graduated in the middle of her class. It wasn't a fabulous time, but it also wasn't a horrendous time…it was a good time, and that was enough for Sarah.

Thinking back, she remembered how she'd had such plans for herself. Every kid in high school yearns escape, thinking of how much better it'll be in the outside world, thinking about how they'll do something great, something life shattering. Sarah remembered standing in line to receive her diploma, looking around at her peers and making it her goal that one day they would all brag that they use to know her, that at one time they brushed with the greatness of Sarah Winters. Bobby Robertson would tell everyone about how they had been great friends, laughing at the antics of their period five math teacher. And Sarah would remember how Bobby sat in front of her everyday and had never once spoke to her…but that wouldn't matter once she had made something of herself.

She never made anything of herself. Her ten-year reunion came and went without incident. She sat in a hard plastic chair at a tastelessly decorated table littered in cheap confetti and empty plastic cups, looking at the slide show of encapsulated moments from a decade ago. It seemed as though everything was better back then: everyone looked so beautiful and vital, they had been having the time of their lives and no one had realized it—not really. She was 27 and already felt her face sagging, her waist expanding. She sat there as the prom committee gave prizes away to the least changed, the one who changed the most, the most successful, and she swore that by 30 she would make something of herself. Then when the 20-year reunion swung around, it would be her who would be waltzing up to the stage to receive her award. She clenched her plastic cup harder, sloshing the overly sweet punch over the side and onto her off-the-rack cocktail dress. She would do it…age 30…

And now she was 35 and nothing had changed. Sarah sat at her discounted dining room table and looked over the slightly burnt pot roast at her husband, Roy. This was the accumulation of her life; everything she had, everything she was, wrapped up in this man. Her cold blue eyes scanned over him as he shoved store bought mashed potatoes into his mouth. After years of being forced to shop in second hand and discount stores, her gaze was expertly trained to detect small problems: snags, stains, missing pieces, etc. And as she looked at Roy, she couldn't help but run over the list she had already complied in her head, mentally adding a tick next to each item as she passed it. Receding hairline: check. Lingering acne: check. Increasingly wild nose and ear hairs: check. That stupid tattoo on his beefy, pasty white arm that he had gotten on a lark one night out with "the boys": check. Swelling beer gut: check. The list ran on, and Sarah's thin lips twisted into a grimace of disgust as she went through it, almost unwillingly. It's not that she wanted to know these things…it's that she couldn't help herself from noticing them. Roy paused and looked up at his wife, his fork laden with green beans half way up to his wet, open mouth.

"What, you don't like the food?" He asked, gesturing with his fork to her untouched plate. She sat and stared stonily at him before pushing her plate away from her with a long, bony finger,

"I'm not hungry…" He looked at her for a moment longer before deciding he was too damn tired to put up with her shit, and to let it go for tonight. He reached into the middle of the table and grabbed the awaiting remote control, turning on the T.V. he had recently installed in the dining room against his wife's wishes. She had felt it would be a distraction; he had wanted it for the same reason.

Sarah watched with loathing as the hated black box flickered to life with blue light, illuminating her husband. Sighing audibly she scraped her chair backwards and plodded out of the room, wandering up the stairs to the second floor of their townhouse.

"You better get back here to do the dishes—remember the guy and the new kid are coming…" Roy called up to her, making her cringe and scowl. She hadn't remembered, and the reminder hit her with a wave of depression. Roy and Sarah were foster parents, which meant the kid coming tonight was going to the 8th child that had passed through their doors, and would most likely cycle back out in a matter of weeks.

"Thank God," she muttered aloud. It wasn't that the kids were particularly horrible, the plain and simple reason of it was that Roy and Sarah just didn't like children. Which begs the question of why they were foster parents at all in the first place.

It was Sarah who had first raised the idea, and though Roy was against it, she eventually wore him down with consistent nagging and harassment. Eventually what won him over was when she sneeringly reminded him of the fact that it was because of him that they didn't have any children of their own. He looked up at her from his position on the worn out lazy-boy, his eyes glittering with contempt and had said:

"Fine, do whatever you want…now will you move so I can watch some fucking football?"

Sarah had been content with her victory, and looked eagerly toward the coming of their first foster child. She had felt good about herself for the first time in a long time. Maybe this was who she was supposed to be. Maybe this was her calling: Sarah Winters, philanthropist, or: Sarah Winters, savior of lost children…however, her rose colored vision was soon snapped back into reality when the children actually began arriving. Sarah was disheartened to find that the children repulsed her, and only lasted a couple of days before she could no longer stand the sight of them and forced Roy to send them back. She always came up with some excuse, that they were stealing, or doing drugs, or getting into fights…and when they left Sarah felt a weight lift off her, and swore never to do it again. But then the static, monotonous tone of the everyday seeped in, and she found herself wondering if, maybe it wasn't so bad when the kids were here…why not try it again? A vicious cycle.

She stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, staring at herself. Her scrupulous eye now turned inward and she critically examined herself. Her blond hair was too dark at the roots, her breasts too small, her stomach too flabby. She wasn't completely unfortunate looking, but far from attractive. Just like high school, neither high, nor low, just somewhere in the middle.

How had she gotten here? She listened with disgust to Roy's barking laughter at the T.V. He hadn't always been that bad had he? There must have been a time when she loved him enough to consider spending the rest of her life with him. But the voice in the back of her head whispered a reminder: you settled…you settled because you were afraid of being alone forever…you settled because you knew you wouldn't find anyone to take you…

She sat down on the un-made bad and placed her head into her hands. Even more then her disgust at her husband, was her yearning for love. Roy hadn't touched his wife in more then two years…she was 35, and a 35 year old woman has needs that must be met, even if it was by the beast of a man sitting in the dining room. She felt that if something didn't happen soon, she would do something drastic…what that was, she wasn't exactly sure…

Her husband's voice broke through the stream of thoughts flying through her mind.

"The fucking dishes still aren't done!" Her mouth hardened into a straight line and she made her way back down into the kitchen.

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Half an hour later she placed the last glass into the cupboard just as the doorbell rang. She sighed and wiped her hands on the torn dishtowel before tossing it onto the counter and heading towards the front door.

"Here we go…" she muttered to herself, mentally bracing herself. Being used to the runty, greasy kids of 8 or 9 who were usually sent her way; she was completely unprepared for the person who appeared on the other side of the door. The young man who stood before her was about 16 or 17, and was probably the most beautiful person Sarah Winters had ever seen up close. Those shrewd eyes of hers finally alighted on something that was not perpetually flawed, and she relished in looking him over.

He was tall, probably a bit taller then 6 feet, Sarah guessed, measuring him against her and seeing that he was only a few inches taller then herself. But his height might have been skewed by his hair, which was dark blond and spiked in a way she had never witnessed before, twisting up from the crown of his head en masse in a gravity-defying manner. His height was also exaggerated by his slenderness; he had the body of a swimmer, or a model, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He stood before her with his arms folded across his chest, hugging his worn leather jacket closer to himself in a vain attempt to keep out the cold. She swiftly took in his faded jeans pulled down slightly on one side with chains, and his tattered black boots, before settling on his face, which was sharp and angular; the defined lines pronounced by the grayish crimson pallor caused by the cold Detroit wind.

His sharp blue eyes met hers for an instant before he looked down at his feet, unable to hold her intense gaze for very long. Sarah stood there, her hand on the door, looking at this stunning person on her front porch, and couldn't think of a thing to say. The silence was broken by a winded voice calling out,

"Mrs. Winters!" Sarah tore her eyes away from the boy to look behind him at the short, portly man hurrying up the sidewalk to the house. Slipping and sliding on the snow-covered pathway, he finally reached the front door. "I apologize…for our… lateness…" he wheezed out, slightly bent over trying to catch his breath.

"It's fine Mr. Barrett," Sarah said before directing her attention back to the other person who stood before her, who was now pointedly looking sideways at a fixed spot on the front lawn.

Barrett glanced up at the boy, who towered over him, and slapped him on the back. "Well don't just stand there! Did you introduce yourself to Mrs. Winters?" The boy looked down at the man who's hand still rested on his back with a stoic and unreadable look and shook his head. He glanced up at Sarah and muttered,

"Jack…" Sarah looked from him to Mr. Barrett with a raised eyebrow, and when Barrett shrugged helplessly, Sarah opened the door wider and stepped aside, saying lightly,

"Well, come on in, Jack!" As he moved past her into the house, looking around slightly, Sarah struggled to suppress the thoughts that immediately sprang into her head. Thoughts of what she would like to do with this boy if she could. He rested his hand against the wall to steady himself as he kicked off his shoes and she imagined shoving him against the wall, and throwing herself into his arms, running her hands through his hair as her mouth met his…

Her reverie was broken as Barrett stumbled in after Jack, stamping the cold out of his feet and brushing the snow off of his jacket.

"It is COLD out there," he remarked loudly, and Sarah held out her hands for his jacket, saying:

"Would you like to stay for a while Mr. Barrett? I could put on some tea…?"

"Oh no, no, no…" Barrett held up his hands, "I can't stay, I'm behind as it is-two more kids out in the car…but I would like to speak to you…for a minute…in private…?" They both looked at Jack, who looked back, and then uncomfortably at the floor. Sarah finally noticed the bag resting at Barrett's feet, which he had lugged from the car and said,

"Jack, why don't you take your bag up to your room…it's up the stairs, first door on your right." He nodded and grabbed his bag, before heading up the stairs. Sarah watched him go and then turned back to Barrett. "What is it?" she asked coldly, her warm motherly tone suddenly gone Barrett faintly noticed before turning to a file he had tucked beneath his arm.

"Well Mrs. Winters, you should know that Jack had a hard time in the last house he was in…there was an…ummm…incident, shall we say?" Sarah thought of the boy upstairs, sitting on one of her beds, on the sheets she washed, and became impatient.

"Yes, and?"

"Well, you should know that he might give you some trouble…I know you've had trouble with some of the children before, and-"

"Well Mr. Barrett, those children were thieves, hooligans-I won't tolerate that in my house-"

"Yes, well, of course-"

"Jack is…older, Mr. Barrett, so I'm sure he will be more able to control those impulses?"

"Well, perhaps, but-"

"Then I think we should be just fine. Didn't you say you had to be going?" She opened the door for him and guided him toward it with a hand on his back.

"Well yes," he mumbled, "I guess I should be going,"

"Alright then!" she said, her elated tone returning, "Thank you, and have a good night!" His reply was cut short as she shut the door. She paused and rested her head against it, taking a deep breath. She slowly turned, and then pushed her weight away from the door, walking slowing over to the staircase and looking up. As her foot fell on the first step, Roy called out to her,

"Is he here? Sarah! What the hell!" she continued walking up the stairs, and quietly answered,

"Yes, I'm just going to see if he's…okay…" She reached the top step and stood looking toward the first door on the right. It was slightly ajar and she crept toward it slowing, and looked in.

Jack had thrown his bag on the bed and was sitting next to it, his head in his hands. She wondered what had happened to him, the "incident" Barrett had mentioned. He stood suddenly and took off his jacket, and then the t-shirt underneath which was slightly wet from the snow outside. As she watched him, stripped to the waist, searching through his bag for another shirt, she suddenly didn't care what had happened to him. She only knew she wanted him, and she would do anything to have him…anything.