I used to be normal, but that was a hell of a long time ago. So long ago that I can barely remember... Sometimes I wonder if my brain even wants me to remember.
I used to play with dolls and dress up, love the color pink, and dream of marrying a prince (Disney movies, what can I say?). But once our favorite people in the world were gone, we all underwent a change.
I stopped dreaming of having everything at my fingertips, I stopped believing it was all a dream and I would just wake up and Mom and Dad would be there. They were gone, and we were alone.
I think it was when I started junior high that I started defending myself, 'cause that's when kids started getting mean. It wasn't nice, gentle, elementary school anymore, this is where you fell into cliques, popular and unpopular. I teetered on the dividing line for a while, until some popular kids decided it would be fun to pick on the foster care kids. It was just before Christmas break in 6th grade when I socked a kid in the face, got scratched and bit and pulled a chunk of hair from a particularly ritzy, tall girl who called me 'poor and ugly'. I got in trouble, suspended from school for a few days, it wasn't a shock, the whole student body was witness. But that's the day I became the fighter of the family, the one who wasn't afraid to get violent if the situation called for it.
My role as protector only grew greater when the dead rising epidemic started. I'm the sort of person who will walk ahead of the group, volunteer to go first, and sacrifice myself if needed for the safety of others, the others that matter to me, of course.
I would never be the princess I always wanted to be. There was no prince, there was no castle, no knights or fairy godmothers. I would never see the world through the eyes of my childhood self again. It was fight or be beaten. But now it was kill or be killed, by the dead, and sometimes the living.
I'll do what ever it takes to protect those I care for.
-L.B