Chapter 2: Past Traumas

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*WARNING: CHAPTER CONTAINS PHYSICAL AND SEXUAL ABUSE*

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I stop for gas on my way to work, when I pull up to the gas station pump and park, I hear him whisper again. "Olivia you need to look into your heart, hurry!"

"Please A I don't know what to do, just tell me what to do!" I sigh. I wish I knew how to help. Every time I hear his voice it fills me with sorrow. I sigh and get out of my car to pump my gas. I can feel someone's eyes on me, but the parking lot is completely empty besides the employees cars. I start to panic and I quickly finish pumping before I get back into my car and speed off to work.

I'm the manager at a high end clothing store, I have worked there since I was 16 and got promoted to manager when I turned 18. I love it there, my boss is nice and very understanding, I get along with my coworkers, and I love most of my customers, other then the typical rude ones, but you get used to it after working in customer service for 6 years.

I get to work and my boss is setting up to open the store, "hey sweetheart! I got you a caramel vanilla latte from Franchinos! Thank you so much for doing this today, I've got some family things to take care of and I want the new girl to be in good hands," she says as she hands me my coffee from my favorite coffee shop.

"Thanks Liz, and no problem I've got this handled. When will she be here?"

"I asked her to be here at 8:45 so that you can run over the basics before opening, so she should be here within the next few minutes. I have to get going, thank you again! Love you"

"Alright I'll see you later, love you."

Liz was one of the closest people I had to a mom. When I was a kid, my parents did a lot of hard drugs and weren't ever around. I had an older brother, Luke, he was 14 when I was born. The day they brought me home from the hospital, they left to go buy drugs. Luke figured out how to make formula and started feeding and changing me, they didn't come home for 3 days.

After that day they were gone at least 4-5 days a week. Luke had a girlfriend who would come over and help him take care of me and they'd keep the house clean, and her parents would even take me overnight sometimes and they bought all of my clothes and formula. They tried to call child protective services a few times, but somehow every time they showed up, it was when my parents were home and had just stocked groceries.

One day when I was 4, my parents were home and they were fighting. They were screaming at each other and hitting each other and my dad shoved my mom hard enough for her to fly back and hit her head on a table, he kept hitting her after that. Luke tried to stop him, but he started hitting him and then hitting me until Luke backed off. Luke grabbed me and ran outside and just kept running until we got to a bus stop. He called his girlfriend and her parents agreed to let us stay with them.

We found out a few days later that my dad had killed my mom, and was on trial for her murder. Child protective services came and took me since both of my parents were dead. Luke tried to adopt me but couldn't because he didn't have a place of his own, and his girlfriends parents didn't want to adopt me and have to be responsible for me. I got put into foster care.

When I got put into my first foster home, they treated me very badly. I had to clean the whole house every day, if I messed up I had to sleep in a closet. I wasn't allowed to see Luke, he tried to come visit a few times. They used to hit me anytime I spoke. They fed me once every day or 2, and it was never much food at all. I was in that home for 8 months, but when I started going to school, teachers had seen my bruises and got me taken out of the home.

I thought the second home would be better, but I couldn't have been more wrong. I had 2 foster sisters and a foster brother, my foster sisters were all about my age but my foster brother was 13. My first night in the house, I woke up to my foster dad touching me, I tried to tell him to stop but he didn't. The next day I went and told my foster mom what happened, she slapped me in the face so hard it left a bruise, she called me in sick to school for 3 days because of my bruise. She told me that I better not tell anyone else what I told her or else bad things would happen to me, I was only 5 so I listened to her and I didn't tell anybody.

Every night after that night my foster dad would come into my bedroom and touch me and my foster sisters, and then he would beat us during the day, that went on for almost a year. He decided he wanted to take it a step further and started raping us every night. One night my foster brother, Jayden heard my foster sisters and I crying so he walked in and seen my foster dad raping our foster sister. Jayden ran toward him and started hitting him, he pulled out his phone and called 911 while trying to get my foster dad to stop. My foster dad got mad and pulled out a knife and stabbed him. We all ran out of the house screaming and crying and then the cops finally showed up. My foster parents were arrested, Jayden went to the hospital, and my foster sisters and I were all sent to new homes.

Now I was 6, being sent to another foster home. I was terrified. The new house was big and baby blue, it had a big yard and a nice fence. The social worker walked me up to the door as I was shaking and scared. A woman in her mid-late twenties answered the door with a smile. She had long black hair with colored streaks, and she had big blue eyes that reminded me of the ocean. She made me feel calmer.

"Hello beautiful, you must be Olivia?"

I smiled and let out a small "hi"

"Come on in love, I'll show you around the house and then we can get you a snack." She reached out her hand and I took it, hesitantly as my social worker walked away.

"So my name is Beth, you can call me Beth, mom, aunty Beth, foster mom, whatever you feel comfortable calling me. Do you have any nicknames you would like me to call you?"

I shook my head no and looked around the house, it was huge and it was beautiful. Beth lead me around the house and then we stopped at the dining room, "you can look around or you can sit in here while I fix you up a snack."

I sit down and wait for Beth to come back out with my snack. She arrives with a little tray, on the tray there are a couple tubs of ice cream, an ice cream dish, some little containers of toppings, and some syrups. I had never seen this much sweets in my life, I'd only even had ice cream once.

"Alright pick whichever kinds of ice cream you want and I'll scoop it out for you and then you can add whatever toppings you want."

Beth and I sat there fixing up my ice cream and then she brought the tray to the kitchen to put everything away, and then she came back in the dining room to sit with me while I enjoyed my ice cream. "Are you okay love?" She asks concerned.

Nobody has ever asked me that before, "I think I'm okay, you seem nice."

"I just want everyone to know that they're welcomed and safe here, do you want a drink?"

"No thank you. But how come you're so nice? Nobody is ever nice?" I ask.

"Some people just don't understand being nice, and I'm sorry that you've had to meet people who aren't nice."

"It's okay."

I finished my ice cream and Beth shows me my room. It looks like a Princess room, it's big and has a nice pink bed and a lot of toys.

"The other kids will be home from school soon, do you want to come with me to get them from their bus stop?"

I didn't know there would be other kids and it made me nervous to meet them, but I agreed to go with. The bus stop was just down the road, so we walked there to meet them. A bus pulls up and kids start getting off of it.

First, a blonde boy runs up to us, he looks like he's a couple years older than me maybe 8 or 9.

"Hi mommy! Is this our new sister?" He asks as 3 other kids run up to us.

2 of them are teenagers, they're both girls. One has natural red hair and the other girl has bright purple hair. And then the other kid was younger than me and had blonde hair, he looked like he was probably 4 or 5.

"Yes everyone, this is your new foster sister. Her name is Olivia, we can introduce everyone once we get home." We all start walking to the house and the girl with the purple hair comes up to me. "Hi I'm Celeste! I've lived with Beth since I was probably a little younger than you, she takes good care of us all."

"Nice to meet you, I like Beth so far. Do you call her mom?"

"Yes all of us call her mom, but you don't have to. It took me a while before I could call her mom," she says.

We reach the house and everyone goes inside.

"Snack time?" Beth asks.

"Yeah!" Everyone yells, we all make our way to the dining room and sit at the table.

"Alright I'll go make something yummy, in the meantime everyone get to know Olivia" and with that she walks out.

"Let's start with telling Olivia our names and ages, I've already told you my name but in case you don't remember I'm Celeste, I'm 17"

She then points to the red haired girl, she smiles, "I'm Nevada, I'm 15."

Next is the older boy, "Hi I'm Cade! I'm 8."

Cade turns to the little boy, "tell Olivia your name bub."

"Jonah!"

"How old are you?"

"I is 4!"

Nevada smiles at me, "your turn!"

"I'm Olivia and I'm 6"

Just then Beth walks into the dining room with her tray, "alright loves, I figured you guys could use some smoothies and some veggies with dip." She passes out the smoothies and puts a veggie tray on the table with ranch and cream cheese dip, and then she sat and ate with us.

"When we're done how about we clean up a little bit and then you guys can go play outside till dinner."

"Okay!" We all say.

We finish our snacks and do a few chores before going outside. The back yard was huge, it had a treehouse and a trampoline and lots of outdoor toys. I spent the next couple of hours playing in the treehouse with the boys and jumping on the trampoline with the girls.

A little while later, Beth comes outside "dinner time!" She calls. We all run inside and wash our hands before we go to set the table, I'm already feeling comfortable and happy here.

As Beth starts filling up all of the plates with food, a man walks in. He's tall and has a beard and a lot of tattoos, he looks kind of scary at first.

My foster brothers and sisters all run over to him and give him a big hug, almost knocking him over "daddy!"

He laughs and hugs them all back, "I missed you guys," his eyes shift over to me, "you must be little Olivia!"

I nod my head shyly as he starts walking over to me, "I'm Conner, or dad. Nice to meet you sweetheart," he smiles.

"Nice to meet you," I smile back.

He walks over to Beth and hugs her from behind and then plants a kiss on her cheek, "Hello my darling, I hope you've had a good day."

She sets the plate on the counter and turns around to wrap him in a big hug, "my day was great, I hope you've had a good day too."

He smiles, "my day was good, but way better now that I'm home with my family. Go sit, my queen. I've got this handled."

She kisses him on the cheek while she makes her way to the table to sit with us, still smiling.

Conner comes out a couple minutes later with a tray of plates. He sets a plate of food in front of each of us and then one in front of Beth, and then he goes back to the kitchen to put the tray away and grab his plate of food.

We sit and eat while we talk about everything, I started to be more open and talk to everyone more.

The next week goes by fast, I started going to school and made lots of friends, and I've been getting really close to my foster family.

Celeste treats us all like real sisters and she's been very kind to me, I told her what happened at me old foster homes and she comforted me and let me talk to her about it.

Cade has become my friend, we have adventures in the back yard and in the treehouse.

Nevada was quiet with me at first, I don't think she really liked me. She started warming up to me though and she likes to do my hair and dress up with me like we're in pageants.

Sometimes I like to play games with Jonah, or we paint and do crafts with Beth.

When we're at school, Beth spends her time gardening and cleaning and cooking. She sells vegetables at the market once a week.

Conner works a lot but all he does when he's home is spend time with us, he likes to be around his family.

A week after I got there, a social worker came and took Cade and Jonah. They said that their parents were out of jail and went to court for custody of them.

Everything was really quiet for a while after they were gone, but then it started going good for a few months, I had even started calling Beth and Conner mom and dad. Until one day there was a knock at the door, Beth opened the door and I seen my social worker and bursted into tears. This was the first place I've ever been happy at and now my social worker was here to take that away.

Mom stepped outside with my social worker and when she came back in she looked sad. She walked over to me and sat down on the couch next to me, "hey love, Anita is here to take you to your brother Luke. Do you want to grab your stuff and say goodbye to everyone?"

I was happy because I haven't seen Luke in about 2 and a half years but I was also sad because this had become my family. I went to say goodbye to everyone, Celeste started crying as she hugged me goodbye.

"I'm gonna miss you Liv, you're always gonna be my little sister in my heart. Everything's gonna be okay and I hope I see you again sometime." She says as she wipes her tears. Celeste was my best friend, she was always there when I needed her and she'd do anything for me.

Next I go to give Nevada a hug, "I'm gonna miss you kiddo, stay beautiful okay?" She smiles at me, with a tear in her eye.

Celeste helps me grab my things and walks me back downstairs. I give mom a hug but dad is still at work. Mom tried to call him but he must've been busy and he didn't answer.

I get in the car with the social worker and we make our way to an airport to meet my brother. He had moved out of state and was taking me with him.

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10 years later

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Luke and his girlfriend had split up 6 years ago, right after she had their daughter. He started drinking a lot after she left. I was usually alone after school because he would be out all night drinking and sleeping around with girls. His daughter, Vanessa, comes over on the weekends and that's the only time he stops drinking.

The day I turned 16 I decided it was time for me to get a job, Luke never bought food and half the time he was late on bills because he spends all of his money on booze.

I decided to apply at the clothing store down the road and got hired the next day. The owners name was Liz, she loved me right away. I worked almost every night after school and Liz would bring me dinner or come in to hang out with me on the slow days. I told Liz everything. I opened up to her about everything in my past, and my brothers drinking problem, I would tell her about school and my friend drama, or about boys I liked. I asked her a lot of questions and talked to her about a lot of things that a girl would talk to her mom about, but I didn't have a mom. Liz gave me any extra hours I asked for and she would even buy me groceries because she knew about what was going on.

When I turned 18 and graduated high school, Liz started asking me to help out more at work, and I started helping her with her manager duties so she had promoted me to manager and gave me a big pay raise. I'm there almost every day, sometimes even open to close, which is a 16 hour shift.

After a few months I started making enough money to get my own house, it wasn't big but it was good enough for me and it was right down the road from my work.

The next couple of years went by smoothly, I had become Liz' right hand man and I was basically a co-owner of my store, and Liz told me that she wants me to sign on as co-owner soon.