Returning to the Roots: Surprises, Graduation, and the Beginning of Beyond

I found out the foster parents were sending me and my brother back to the first school district for the foreseeable future. I was ready for the backlash from people I left on bad terms. However, the foster family kept saying we returned in Junior year because all the students who "didn't care" or were "troublesome" would have left. Hypocrisy was starting to get out of hand, but I couldn't say anything without getting myself grounded.

I was driven to school on my first day and was surprised to see a few people I knew. Some ran up to me, and a few kept their distance. Either way, I didn't want friends after my time at Alpha. It didn't feel right with the memories still fresh. I ran to breakfast, and bumped into someone I never thought I'd see again. Ms. Queen Bee was going to my school, and I kept going before things got awkward after not seeing her for years. At breakfast, one person from a group who ran up to me sat next to me. He was tall and skinny, but also had a familiar haircut. I couldn't place it, but he told me a simple thank you. I was starting to get apprehensive about him and asked him why he thanked me. He told me I changed his life for the better in 5th grade. At that sentence, I realized Mario was next to me and he was entirely changed. I decided if anyone would be a good friend it had to be Mario. I felt like I needed a bit of crazy and a bit of calm when looking for a friend, and Mario was perfect. He asked me why I ran from Ms. Queen Bee. I told him how I knew her and began telling him about my time at Alpha to change the subject when the bell rang for the end of breakfast. As I walked away, I realized Mario had changed more than physically, he was also amazingly adept socially and mentally compared to when I knew him.

My conversation with Mario was overheard by a few people, and I realized that I had two classes with Ms. Queen Bee at the point when things started getting extremely troublesome. Apparently, after two months she found out I was there and was hunting me down to talk with me. Luckily, I was moved to an advanced class for both classes I had with her without her ever talking with me. Cowardly? Maybe. Smart choice? Better safe than to show how I'd changed at Alpha. Either way, I was starting to be known as a Junior with a college-level mind. This meant everyone wanted help with their work and homework and my steady income was established thanks to everyone I tutored. One person decided to even make a contract stating the terms of our agreement. It's funny how the one failing math was given a choice for an interest rate if she doesn't pay and chose 200% weekly. I didn't make her do it, but it felt like she was failing for a reason other than not listening.

My birthday came, and it was the first time I celebrated on my own. The foster parents were angry about me not telling them about my tutoring job and took all my money before kicking me out of the house for the rest of the day. Good news, I had my medicare provided credit card. Bad news, I couldn't buy food anywhere nearby. I decided to buy myself gifts since I was alone. And when I left the shop, I saw an IHOP that just opened a month before. I caved and entered it to eat knowing I couldn't pay but had a plan set with one of my gifts. I ordered pancakes, and when I was done I asked the manager if I could return a gift and come back with the money. I could see his mind thinking about what he should do. All he saw was a young man with baggy eyes, no money, and a bag of games. He told me I had 25 minutes to go and return before he called the cops. I was grateful and returned my most expensive purchase to pay him and gave him a large tip for allowing me to do what I did. And on my way back to the foster home I found something out regarding electronics. People around where I grew up had a habit of throwing out old phones when they got new ones. Not just any old phones, but phones that were a year old at least. I decided I would pick them up and fix them to the point where they only needed an sd card to work. I picked up around 13 and bought at least 18 before the foster parents decided to confiscate every phone I had bought and picked up. In total, it was close to 900$ worth of electronics and work put into making them perfect. I only kept one, but it was my personal phone that I was closest to finishing. It was the phone I had for social media and texting my old friends from Alpha. Yes, I had reconnected with them, and it felt great when Emmanuel gave me his phone number in case I needed to talk. Yes, at that time I was still heartbroken and Emmanuel was the only person who knew a lot of the truth. Imagine my surprise when Princess Jolly showed up again.

Yes, Princess Jolly showed up. It just didn't happen at the best time. I was walking home from the anime club at school when I was splashed with rainwater from a passing truck. My entire body was soaked, and, as I got to the light, Princess Jolly was there with her dad in a white van. PJ saw me and pointed me out to her dad. Her expression was similar to finding an exciting treasure. Her dad saw me and laughed. He kept driving and ended up splashing me a little more. I called Emmanuel as soon as I got wifi. He knew she was in town and was surprisingly calm while I was freaking out like a hysterical Karen. I ended up continuing to go to the anime club for a few weeks and was stopped thanks to appointments once again.

By the end of May, I had reached the top three in my class. I also was nearly expelled on trumped charges. I was doing a lunch visit with my youngest brother and was told I had left school grounds without permission for 3 hours. I was two minutes from walking into the head principal's office when another person walked out. It was the teacher who sent my brothers to Special Education and she knew what was happening. I came within two minutes of expulsion and was saved because she saw my brothers as her star students because they were no longer in Special Education. She was a horrible teacher but had her moments of greatness.

During the last week of school, the anime club had its first and only sword fighting competition. I entered it on a whim but ended up winning with zero training. I was naturally adept with a sword and had never known until that day. The award was exactly 45$ in cash, and I decided to use it before I got back to the foster home. I ended up buying some food and a few boxes of chocolate-covered stick wafers called Poki.

I made it through Junior year with high PSAT scores and a few friends both old and new. I was told I ended the year second in my class, but I would not be able to be either Valedictorian or Salutatorian the following year thanks to me not being enrolled since freshman year like most of the class. My thoughts at that point were equally split between rage and contentment. I already knew it was coming, but I felt like I was robbed by the foster parents.

That summer, I was given an extremely late gift. A friend from the youth group I started attending gave me an XBOX 360 and several games. As soon as I got to the car, however, the foster parents told me I stole it and they wanted to talk with this friend. A full half-hour later and they told me I couldn't set it up in my own room despite it being gifted to me expressly, it was set up in a room they had been using on and off that summer thanks to faulty an air conditioner unit in their room. I hardly used it all summer compared to their grandchildren.

Finally, Senior Year came up. I was told I had to choose an elective to retake because I had completed all the ones required. Naturally, I chose art because it felt easy. The art class was with Freshman but I didn't care. On my first day in that class, I took two students under my belt. One I nicknamed Scorpia, and the other one was a fellow writer I nicknamed Jimmy. I decided to keep tutoring my previous clients and the ones with contracts were on time with payments for a few weeks of the fall semester. Until November, when the first person I contracted, Ms 200%, had missed a payment. I kept reminding her about the contract, and she started paying for each session except the one she missed. I was running out of time to keep the price straight in my head. I completely forgot after January thanks to a midterm for English.

The English teacher had said he had a surprise for the highest midterm grade. I was already top of the class in English and decided to handicap myself with the two lowest grades. The midterm was a group project on a series of our choice. I chose Mario and another student known as The Wall. Since neither of them read a book series since 5th grade I chose the series. Naturally, I picked the Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Heroes of Olympus series. To my surprise, the teacher knew the series and was fascinated that I chose it as a topic. What he didn't know was that I had a connection to one of the characters. The same day we were given the assignment I had an ad lietum visit at the school. The ad lietum told me he had been in contact with Rick Riordan after seeing me read the series again. He said they were childhood friends, and that he was told I was the basis for one of the characters. I thought a minute and asked him if it was Leo. His shocked face confirmed it. I was the basis for my favorite character at that time. Thanks to that, I chose the topic and the English teacher became a friend soon after.

I started getting more tablets and phones to fix around Valentine's Day. Prom was coming, but I already had plans to head with the anime club for an overnight event. Yes, I chose something trivial over something big and I didn't care. The foster parents had made me a reclusive person and I had grown used to not being what most consider normal. When the night came, the tried to force me to Prom with one of their daughters. They thought they could add insult to injury, but I had bought a bus pass and was ready to leave for the anime club event. Once again, they forced me to babysit because their daughters had plans. This time, they joined them and I called my friends from the anime club saying my night was full. That night they were gone until 5 am. I couldn't get their kids to sleep and I wouldn't let them be awake on their own since I couldn't trust them not to trash the place. When the foster parents and their daughters returned I immediately went to sleep. They woke me up an hour later saying I had more to do. Apparently, the daughters let their kids trash the house while I slept and I had to clean up their mess anyway. With that, I made sure to triple check my room when I went back in. The foster parents had been hovering around it a lot while I cleaned and I was suspicious. What I found out made me enraged. While I cleaned they had been going in the room and taking the tablets I fixed out from my closet and drawers, and this time they took my personal phone. I was about to go ballistic for the first time in years until I saw my bed was moved slightly. They had also stolen the books I bought with the gift cards from the award for the midterm. I had paid over 150$ for the books alone, and the tablets had been another thousand more in total. At this point, I was so angry I was shaking. That's when they called me for a talk. They told me to explain the electronics. And I told them I paid for them all and where were my books. At that point, the foster dad took an iPod I was given as a gift and smashed it against the floor. The iPod had a lot of data for my contacts. It was basically my backup for my personal phone. At this point, I was screaming. They told me I didn't deserve any of the electronics I had and the books weren't what I should read in the first place. They said I had enough fantasies and didn't need any more of them. With that, my entire stash of money was also taken because according to them I would buy more with it.

When graduation finally happened, I was taken to a small restaurant. There the foster dad told me his thoughts on the electronics. He was surprised that each one was working perfectly and I did all the work alone. Then he told me that he wanted to teach me construction. I still don't know what each part had in connection with the other, but I was getting mad again. After we left, I was in line with my class for a few hours until the ceremonies began. I was considered top of the class but not onstage because I wasn't at that school for four years. As we left, my graduation party was at a local pizzeria. We had too many leftovers and I was forced to eat them for the next two weeks despite what they would do to my stomach.

I was admitted to a local college and was given a choice for a new laptop thanks to my caseworker. I knew what was coming, but decided to ask for a semi-expensive google laptop because I would be able to track it while at the library on my email account. I didn't get it, but I got a cheaper windows model. I would use it for a few months with schoolwork and contacting Emmanuel, Pikachu, and Christian. I had to make another account for each social media after they took the personal phone.

Around the same time, they took everything the foster family was rocked by tragedy. The foster Grandmother and matriarch of the foster family passed away. I was by her side when it happened, and to this day it haunts me. It only made it worse when the foster family tried to hide the truth. She had a major fall during the night they took everything. The nurse gave her a few medications and the next morning she was coughing up enough blood to fill a bucket. I know because I held the bucket and prayed she would stop. It never did, and she died shortly after. This starter affecting my grades, but mainly I felt like she was trying to get up to help me. I wasn't close with her, but we had a connection because I would always stay and watch her rather than going with anyone else to any event. She was the only one who I felt safe telling about my love life because she wouldn't tell anyone else. I even practiced singing for her before ever singing in public. Rest in Peace to a great person.

My first semester of college ended on a bad note. I passed but thanks to the foster parents I had a harder time than I should because they actually confiscated the laptop in October. I had a lot of files I needed to work on and had to start each one from scratch. At the end of the first semester, I got a lot of calls. Or should I say, the foster parents got a lot of calls about me and my appointments.