Prologue
"Sometimes the problem is easily detected, most of the time we need to go step by step. First, probing the surface looking for any sign of trouble. Most of the time, we can't tell what's wrong with somebody by just looking at them. After all, they can look perfectly fine on the outside, while their insides tell a whole other story."
- GREY'S ANATOMY
Everybody's broken. That's what I've learned over the ten years I've been in foster care and in and out of group homes. Everybody, no matter how old they are, if they're the six year old kid you're sharing a room with at your foster house or another thirteen girl you end sharing a bunk bed with at the group home; or perhaps your social worker whom you have grown so found of at the time until they ship you out of the group home and into another foster family. They all are broken on the inside, even the foster parents whom promise you they'll look after you, that they'll love you since your own parents couldn't, so you let them even though they hurt you in the end causing you to become even more broken then you already are. You know most of these people are broken but, the majority of the time you really can't tell how broken these people really. This is because they look perfectly fine on the outside. These people and everybody else including me, including you put on a fake smile to cover the pain and go on with their day pretending everything is fine. The person standing next to you on the subway could be just as broken as you or me but we don't see it because they seem perfectly fine, that is until they take out their anger, hurting somebody else because they don't know how to handle the brokenness they feel inside of them.
I'm three years old. I'm sitting on the living room floor of my apartment clutching a beloved blanket and stuffed teddy bear in my hands. My curly brown hair is in a tangled mess sat just below my shoulders. My pale skin looked brown, the brownness of my skin being dirt. I smelt of cigarette smoke. I was wearing my pajamas the ones with horses on them. My mom's boyfriend had given them to me for Christmas last year. I called him Al. He used to be at our apartment all the time. Once we went over to his house and stayed there for a really long time. I asked my mom why we couldn't go home. She told me it wasn't safe. While we were there, I got to take a bath in his big bathtub. My mom doesn't let me take baths at out apartment because the water is broken. One day Al was yelling. My mom was yelling back, calling him really bad names like Manwhore and Fucking Dick. She was mad at him for taking some money out of the jar in our kitchen. My mom called it the emergency money. One day she promised me that we would go to the seaside for a vacation. She'd promise me we'd go far away and never come back her. The money in that jar was never there for long. Al wasn't the only one that took money out of that jar. My mom would too. She would take out the greens bills and sliver and copper coins and count them at the kitchen table just like she was doing as I was watching TV. I asked her once why she was counting that money all the time. She said it was because she needed it to buy drugs. I asked her what "drugs" were and she said they were adult candy. She said she needed them to keep mind going. There was a loud knock on our apartment door. "Momma!" I called out as I climbed to my feet. "The candy sellers are here!" I walked towards the door as my mom rushes past me, pushing me back down onto the carpet. She opens the door for the candy men. "How much do you got?" The big black guy asks. He has a deep voice that scares me. The men push past my mom and into the living room. "I don't have enough today." My mom says looking to the ground. "You owe us a lot of money Rachel," the thin blonde hair man says. "No money no drugs." "Please," My mom says grabbing onto the blonde haired mans arm. "I've been two days without any. I fucking need the crack. I'll do anything." The big black man and the blonde haired man exchange looks. The blonde hair man starts running his hands up and down my moms back. He takes a piece of her long blonde hair at sticks it behind her ear. "You know Rachel," he says as his hands touch her face. "I haven't had sex in almost a week. I know you can make me one happy guy, and I'll make you one happy women. I'm guessing your bedroom is this way?" He takes my mom by the hand. My mom doesn't go with him. Instead she looks at me. "The kid will be fine, Franks here." The blonde says as he takes my mom down the hall and they close her bedroom door behind her. I glue my eyes to the TV and hug my legs to my chest as Frank sits down beside me. He pushes a peace of my brown curly tangled behind my ear just as the other man did to my mom. He then places his big brown hand on my tiny little white one.
"Welcome to Seattle, Washington." I am awakened from my deep sleep by the bus drivers loud voice booming over the PA system. "It about 13 degrees here and there is a well lets say 99% chance it will start raining."
I looked out of the window to see dark gray clouds that once covered the blue sky.
"For those of you visiting Seattle I hope you have an excellent visit and for everyone else welcome home," the bus drivers voice continued to boom.
The bus jerked to a hault outside the Grey Hound bus station. After a two almost three day bus ride from New York City I was finally here in Seattle. My whole life was going to be different now. There would be no more social services, group homes or foster families. It was time to put all that behind me. It was time to start over. It was time to become unbroken and get my life back on track. I only knew two things for sure, one of them being I was never going back to shit whole New York City and if I was sent back, I would be kicking and screaming. I would put up a fight. The second thing I knew was I had come to Seattle to find my father, a man I had never met. His name was Derek Shepherd, the Chief of Neurosurgery at Seattle Grace Hospital.