LIFE OR DEATH

Growing up I hadn't always been close to my mom Susan. My dad left when I was ten and I never really had a family dynamic that one reads about in books or watched in movies. My mom was always working and my brother was always drunk. So from the age of twelve, I had to be my own parent.

For the first three years after dad left, we all were pretty close and always did things together. We still celebrated Christmas and Halloween, but there was a time when the stress of bills and nobody (to help pay them kicked in and high school Collin wanted to be “cool”.) So I had to teach myself right for wrong and most of all how to live on the streets. I moved to the streets when I was only fifteen. Susan my mother told me to get the hell out of her house if I couldn't stay out of her boyfriend's bed. If only she knew he raped me almost every night she might have let me stay. Soon after she told me to leave she kicked my brother Collin out to for not giving over his paycheck. At this point, we were both alone and wouldn't see each other for a long time.

My brother Collin found me two years later skin and bones, yellowed teeth and barely surviving. He looked better than I did for sure. He looked like he had been going to the gym and eating well. He told me about how once our mom kicked him out he got this stuff in order, stopped drinking and doing drugs, and started helping himself before others. He asked me to come live with him, his wife and two daughters, but I frantically denied. I told him I was happy where I was but was truly scared for my life getting into any man's car never end the way I wanted it to.

Collin told me to get into his car. I felt as if I had no choice. I put up a good fight to no avail. I complained as he drove me to his house. His wife Janae clothed me and fed me. It had been so long since I had a hot meal, I scarfed it down like a wild animal and licked my plate clean.

Being seventeen and never truly had a mother figure was tough, but that night I finally felt at home. Janae tucked me in and kissed my forehead. Oh, what peace this was in the morning I took a shower. Yes, a hot shower! I rinsed out the dirt and brushed my hair, brushed my teeth and when I was done I sat a table to eat breakfast with my new family. It was good until it wasn't about two months later. Collin told me that he had gotten a call from my case manager saying I would never graduate high school if I did not start attending. I had a lot to make up. I hadn't thought about school since I was fifteen. All I remember from my sophomore year was being forced to leave my friends. Who had moved on and forgotten all about Althea Allen, but what made that day mark my history books was when Collin told me I was adopted. Our mother was not my mother. she just his.

Collin told me the story of how my parents could not take care of me where they lived and how they would call him every month asking if he had found me yet. He told me stories of their life. I was born in Colorado on December 21st to Esme and Tad Allen.

Collin showed me a picture of my mother she looked like nothing I have ever seen before; her skin glistened without even being in the sun. Her eyes beamed gorgeous rays that seemed to be able to shine in the dark. Her hair was richer than the sweet caramel dripping of an apple and after all that I realized we look the exact same.

All I could think was when could I meet her. Collin gave me their address and the car keys. I happily skipped out the door to find the one woman he truly loved me. I ran to that old pickup truck faster then I have run in my life. Faster than I have run from the police or the bullies at school.

I had been in the car for 18 hours. The long drive from Louisiana to Colorado felt never ending but when I got to my real parent's house I felt a sense of relief. I wanted to run up to the door and burst inside, but I held my guard. If living on the streets taught me anything it was not to run into unknown situations so I walk up to the door and knocked and was surprised by a little voice inside breathing my name then as if the little voice fell off the planet a loud abrupt voice hushed the other. Then with the blink of my beaming eyes, the door swung open and in its plays stood a 4-foot little girl. The little girl pulled on my arm leading me inside, and it was as if it was all falling past me, but I swear I could see my 5th-grade soccer team picture or maybe it was my freshman yearbook picture. It was as I had never left this house and it was still my home. I took a seat on a plush red couch awaiting my family.

I got to meet my parents for the first time. The small voice was my mother Esme and the loud voice was my very happy father Tad. The little girl with bright yellow pigtails dragging me around was my little sister Genisis. For once I wasn’t the youngest and it was nice to feel like I had some power and control over my life. Esme and Tad introduced themselves as mom and dad. After getting to know my parents and sister they invited me to live with them I gladly accepted.

Months later, my birthday rolled around and they told me they would be taking us back to Terre Fantôme Colorado. We got into the car and through the windows, we saw a costume of ghouls and ghosts. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday as I was lucky to be born into a family who loves it just as much as I do. My mom was singing “C’est La Nuit” a french Halloween song which translated means “its night.”

My family and I reached the train station and went into the family bathroom. In the mirror, I was someone I remember. Someone who had died “granny Joe? What sick game are you guys playing” I shouted to shut up by a slap to the face by my little sister Genesis? My mother reassured me it would be alright all we had to do was cross over into Terre Fantôme, but with every jump and every shove, I couldn't make it through the mirror as my family had.

I closed my eyes and let go of anything holding me back. I passed through the mirror and landed in a town full of ghosts and breathless and bloodless people. I glided along the streets giddy with joy finally feeling at home.

when it was time to sit down for a meal my parents told me the real story of why they had to give me up. My dad and my old sister Genesis got into a car crash on the way to the hospital to wish a goodbye to my mother who had died giving birth to me. All three of them died within a 15-minute span of each other. I was given to a woman who gave birth to a stillborn baby. The nurses felt bad that Susan’s had died from alcohol poisoning. so they lied to her saying it was a mistake and I hadn't died and I was her child. As the years went by without me my real family found a way to cross over though he mirrors in Terre Fantome and reached out to Collin, when he found me I was limp and lifeless days away from death. He and his wife brought me to the hospital where I was in a coma awaiting my final decision the one thing I truly had control over. My life or my death. I chose my death.