It wasn't until seventh grade that Zell Dincht joined the picture, followed by Squall Leonhart in eighth grade. The moment she saw him Rinoa knew she liked him. Unfortunately for her, she confided this secret in her two best friends and a few days later, one of them was after him. Selphie kept saying to Rinoa, "I can knock her out for you if you want. It'd be my pleasure." Rinoa, of course, turned down the offer. Squall found Quistis's advances kind of annoying. It was bad enough he had to adjust to a new school. He had to come here because he was moved to a new foster home.
Now, Squall's real father was an alcoholic and his mother had fallen into a state of depression as well as denial. After dinner, seven-year-old Squall was usually sent to his room where he'd try to blast music over the horrible sounds coming from downstairs. The teachers thought Squall's father didn't care about how his son was doing in school because he never came to conferences. They didn't know the half of it.
Squall's mother, Raine had met her husband Laguna in high school. There was something about him that attracted her to him. Maybe it was those damn blue eyes. Looking at them made her dizzy- a good dizzy. But, she wasn't really the outgoing type. She couldn't just go up to him and say, "I like you. Want to go out with me?" Plus, she was afraid of the reaction he'd give her. Not that he'd ever been mean to her or anything but ... she was vulnerable to bad luck. There were tons of girls prettier than her so what chance would she have? She never expected him to approach her and later marry her. It wasn't until after Squall was born that Laguna had started drinking. She hardly recognized him anymore. Somehow, she always found a way to keep Squall busy and out of Laguna's sight. Now her only child was out of her reach, and no longer a kid. The last time she saw him he was only twelve.
It hurt her to be labeled as an unfit mother. But ... the more she thought about it, she knew it was true. How could she expect to make her family happy when she wasn't happy herself? She couldn't. Life began to be a heavy burden when Laguna started drinking. He never discussed it so Raine figured it was her fault. She just wasn't good enough for him. She did what she thought would make him happy but he just kept on drinking. It upset her so much that the smallest thing caused her to burst into tears. She tried using a knife on her arm but she didn't even have the courage to let it graze her skin. The one thing she WAS able to do was to never let her son see her cry. She didn't want him to know she was sad or have him blame himself for her crying. That would be the worst thing, the most painful thing in the world.
Raine cried when the social worker came to take Squall away but she couldn't do much to fight it. She made him promises she wasn't allowed to keep. Laguna didn't have much of a reaction. He was confident the social worker would see her mistake and bring their son back to them. Of course, it didn't happen that way. They had to fix their problems first. Laguna was required to attend AA meetings and kick the drinking habit while Raine was supposed to get into therapy for her depression.
Squall doesn't like to talk about the mess with the foster homes very much. He'll only admit it to himself but he was scared when the social worker took him away. It was the first time he'd seen his mother cry and he wanted to cry too. The social worker said, "Don't worry Squall. You'll get to see your parents again soon." He wondered how this strange lady knew his name. Of course, he didn't ask. It seemed like she was taking him far, far away but she wasn't. She only took him to the other side of town. She grabbed his suitcase as he climbed out of the car. "This is only temporary," she said, taking his hand. "Just until your parents get better." She rang the doorbell. A pretty blond woman opened the door.
"Hello, Mrs. Davis," the woman said, smiling. "Is this the new boy you told me about? What's your name?"
"His name is Squall. I think he may be a little nervous."
"Well that's expected. Come on Squall. You can meet the other children."
'Other children?' he thought. 'How many are there?' His question was answered when he stepped in the living room. There were two other children around his age- a boy and a girl- plus a baby. The boy had blond hair, blue eyes, and a smirk on his face. The girl was a redhead with brown eyes. She was busy playing with the baby. Mrs. Davis grabbed Squall's hand and led him upstairs to his new room.
"You'll be sharing with the other boy here. His name is Seifer," she told him as she set his suitcase on the small bed. "I'll be back every once in a while to check up on you and tell you how your parents are doing."
Squall asked, "When will I get to see them again?"
"I need to meet with them first but when they start showing some progress I'll set up a time they can see you." She patted his hand and left. The pretty blond woman came in.
"You can call me Paige," she said. "Do you think you can stay in this room? Do you like it?" He nodded and she smiled. "Good. I'll show you who the other children are, okay?" She led him back downstairs where the other children were. They were watching TV. She flipped it off and said, "Okay kids, we have someone new staying with us. His name is Squall. Squall, this is Seifer. You'll be sharing a room with him." Seifer sneered. "Stop that. This is Janie, and the baby is her sister Kelsey. You can watch TV 'til lunch if you like."
When she left the room, Seifer spoke up, "So why are you here?"
Squall shrugged and said, "There's something wrong with my mom and dad, I guess. I'm not sure. Why are you here?"
"Why should I tell you?" Squall didn't know what to say. "Now I have another little kid to take care of," Seifer said, rolling his eyes. "I hate being with kids." Seifer was only a year older than Squall but apparently, Seifer thought it a big difference. Seifer was bossy; he liked to run things when the adults weren't around. Squall could tell Janie always did what Seifer told her to do. Squall did the opposite, which resulted in a lot of physical fighting. Bedtime was a different story. It didn't matter what may have happened between them during the day, they were always able to call a truce long enough to sleep peacefully.
Squall was usually alone in school except when Janie was following him. He told everyone he liked being alone but he really figured that it would be best not to get too close to anyone. He thought he'd be going home within a few weeks. Needless to say that didn't happen. One day, during recess, Squall got frustrated with Janie following him around. "Why can't you just leave me alone?" he asked with an annoyed tone in his voice.
She looked a little hurt as she said, "Because I like you... a lot." He pretended not to understand what she was talking about. It worked until she hugged him. He just stood there, completely still and not knowing what to do. When she stopped hugging him, she smiled.
"Why did you do that?"
"Because I like you." He didn't know what to say. Luckily for him, the bell rang and they had to go back inside. For a few days after that he avoided any contact with her. He wouldn't even look at her. He didn't know what he was supposed to say. She was his foster sister. Wasn't that a sin?
Paige brought them to church every Sunday. Squall hated it. It was boring as hell. All the kids had to go to Sunday school. Seifer was very defiant toward the teacher. He never did was he was supposed to. Squall did but with a "this-is-really-stupid" attitude. Seifer took things even further by swearing at the teacher. The teacher had a talk with Paige about that. Paige ended up grounding Seifer for a week, not that he did much anyway. One time they had to make bread loaves out of clay at Sunday school. Janie spent a lot of time on hers, Squall wasn't putting much effort into it, and Seifer didn't do it at all. When Janie finished, she said, "Here Squall. I made this for you." He mumbled a thank you and pushed it aside. This was getting too weird for him. Didn't she know any better? He let out a little sigh as he pretended to concentrate on the clay in front of him. However, from the corner of his eye he saw that she was staring at him. What did she want? He decided to ask Seifer for advice.
"Janie likes me," he said to Seifer.
Seifer scoffed, "She sure likes the losers."
"What should I do?"
"Ignore her. Tell her she's ugly and that you hate her. I'm going to sleep now." Squall stayed up for a while, thinking. He didn't really want to be mean to her. He decided he'd tell her that he was just her friend and if she kept pestering him, he'd have to get mean. But he never got the chance to tell her because she started following someone else around. He felt a little jealous at first but was over it fast.
The first time he'd gotten to see his parents again was when he was ten. He visited them separately. The social worker had advised it. His mother visited him first. He thought she looked different somehow but maybe that was just because he hadn't seen her in a while. He wasn't sure. She hugged him as soon as he arrived. "Squall," she said tearfully. "I missed you so much. How have you been doing? Is everything okay at that house?"
He nodded as he said, "Yes mom. Are you okay?"
"I'm getting there. It makes me so happy to see you again. I don't even know what to say. Is there a certain place you'd like to go and talk?" They ended up going to the park. Raine asked her son many questions. She knew she'd missed out on a lot of his life. That really upset her. However, she was glad to have the chance to see him again. She kept thinking to herself, 'Once I get better, he can finally come back home. I can have my son back.' They spent the whole day together. Both of them smiled more than they had in years. Squall tried to imagine what it'd be like to go home again. He thought it'd be nice to have a real mother all to himself. She could help him with homework, make him lunches for school, hug him every night before bed and always tell him she loved him. Things could be normal then.
Much to Squall's dismay, the visit with Laguna wasn't quite as pleasant. It made Squall NOT want to go home. It started with Laguna saying, "When your mother gets her act together..." Squall knew damn well it wasn't all his mother's fault. It was mostly because of Laguna's drinking habits. Squall felt disgusted. He hadn't forgotten anything about his real family. He remembered the bad situation they were thrown in because of the drinking. Squall bit his tongue during the whole visit and didn't say anything. Laguna didn't seem to notice his son's lack of participation. He just kept saying 'if she hadn't' this and 'if she hadn't' that. The thing that REALLY set Squall off was when his father ordered a whiskey. Squall spent the rest of the day taking his anger out on everyone else. He constantly snapped at people. Paige had him sit in his room for a while until he calmed down. When she finally found out the reason for his acting-out, she tried to comfort him. It helped a little. Whatever anger wasn't released became bottled up inside him. He found that was a hard thing to swallow.
But there were even harder things for him to endure. When he was twelve, during a visit with his mother, Laguna showed up. Raine was just as surprised to see him as Squall was. Laguna's eyes were bloodshot, he looked as though he hadn't slept in days, and his words slurred together as he told them to get in the car. Raine refused at first then she was thrown into the passenger seat while he yelled threats at her. Once she was in, he picked Squall up and put him in the trunk. Squall was scared to death to be shut up in that small, dark space. He could hear his mother's muffled voice asking where he was. Nothing came out of his mouth when he tried to speak. It seemed as though he couldn't catch his breath. Would he die in the trunk from lack of air? Where his father taking them?
The drive felt as though it went on forever before the car finally stopped. His eyes had become adjusted to the dark so when the trunk opened up, letting the light flood in, Squall had to squint. Mrs. Davis pulled him out. She hurried him into her before he could see his parents being handcuffed. Raine called out to her son but Mrs. Davis kept him moving. He was home schooled for a year so an incident like that wouldn't happen again. Once he was allowed to go back to public school, however, Laguna showed up at their recess time. Mrs. Davis and Paige agreed that it was unsafe for Squall. He needed to be moved. They did not inform his parents that he was moved or even where. The Dinchts were more than happy to take Squall in. Zell had also been from foster home to foster home until he came to the Dincht house. He stayed with them for a few years before they adopted him. Squall didn't want to be adopted by the Dinchts. He wanted his own parents back. When he thought about his mother, he'd cry, though he'd never admit it to anyone. He made a rule for himself to never let a soul see him cry. That was his weak state and he didn't want anyone to see that. So, whenever he felt upset in front of others, he swallowed it and it went down hard like a pill you have trouble taking. In the years to come he'd break the rule he'd made for himself many times, in front of one girl.