Passed Around
Hayley was sat in a waiting room, constantly shifting in her seat while she watched the people talking in the office she was currently outside. She couldn't hear them, and if she could she probably wouldn't understand much of the conversation, but it was interesting to watch nonetheless.
In the past year, Hayley had witnessed just over a dozen similar exchanges. Two people, sometimes a man and a woman, sometimes two of the same, would be having a clear in-depth discussion, before filling in a pile of paperwork. After that, the couple would take Hayley home with them and within a week to a month, they would be bringing her back so she can see two other people repeat the process.
She knew it was because of her nightmares, one of the foster mothers having accused her of faking them to get attention. The bad dreams were frequent and always involved a car accident. Her previous foster parents were also concerned at how often she would crash her toys into each other, and that whenever they offered to buy her a new toy after she broke the old ones, she began to scream and cry and was inconsolable for hours on end.
The office door opened and the couple who had just fostered Hayley walked out, thanking the social worker who smiled with a grin that had been practised several times. The five-year old had already grasped the ability to tell when someone was pretending to be happy, and she had easily picked up on the woman's feigned delight.
"Come on, Hayley, it's time to take you home." The man reached out with his hand, offering it to the girl, although she vigorously shook her head and refused to take it, leaving him looking disgusted.
"So she's a stubborn one…" the woman said with barely restrained irritation.
Hayley already knew that this family would be no better than the others, and expected nothing less than to be returned in a few weeks.
The car ride to the new house mostly quiet, as the first whimper of panic that Hayley had let out had led to her being reprimanded for attention seeking. She wasn't sure what that was, but the disgust in the woman's voice told her it wasn't a good thing.
Arriving at the house wasn't much better, as the five year old was immediately grounded lying, despite the fact she hadn't said a single word to the couple who were fostering her until she was officially adopted.
Her room was less than interesting, only containing a bed and dresser. The walls were painted a pastel pink, a colour that Hayley had come to hate, considering she loved blue and purple, and the carpet was a little worse for wear in more than one place. Normally, the foster parents would have put her ever shrinking collection of toys in her room, but this family had thrown them out before they even left the fostering agency.
She checked the wardrobe, and inside was a selection of dresses. Hayley had assumed that, had she been like girls at her kindergarten, she would have loved to this selection, but the reality was she detested dresses as much as she did the garish colour that her room had been painted. She would happily wear jeans and t-shirts any day over the garments that she had been provided with.
Time ticked by as Hayley sat on her bed. She didn't have any way to entertain herself, and what was only 3 hours felt like 3 days. When her foster father came to her room, he told her it was time for bed, leaving her feeling hungry as she was clearly not even allowed dinner thanks to being grounded.
She changed into the pyjamas that she had been provided, taking note of the butterfly that was printed on the top. The wings had a black edge with white dots decorating it, the remainder being a deep orange with the same black intersecting the wing, creating a pattern that even Hayley, for all her tom boy traits, couldn't help but think was incredibly pretty.
Sleep came easily to the child, although she couldn't have been out for more than an hour when the first nightmare about her father's occurred. She screamed and cried for the people who were fostering her to come, but within minutes she realised that wasn't going to happen.
Trembling from the dream, Hayley padded across her room and attempted to open the door, only for it to stay firmly closed. She had been locked in.
Once again, tears began to flow as she scratched at the door, wanting nothing more than to be out of the room and be embraced by someone whose duty was to care for her. She had repeatedly told herself that she would get a nice family one day, one that will keep her and love her despite the things she did that scared the others away, but as the year had gone by, she doubted it more and more.
The man who the people often took her to see would often say that she was maturing before her time and facing hardships that even adults dread to go through already. She didn't know what that meant, but feeling as though no one wanted her likely had something to do with it.
Eventually, she tired herself out, her small form being unable to keep up with the emotional distress. Before she slipped into a dreamless sleep, all Hayley could think of was how she wanted this to end. How she no longer wanted to be passed around.