But then I remembered that I'd basically murdered Ben in those pajamas.
///
Nope. Nope. Nope.
I slid open the zipper, splitting the faded, slightly dirtied canvas down the middle. I let my hands probe among the familiar clothes until I found my My Little Pony pajama bottoms and a pink tank top. I changed quickly, throwing my dirty clothes into the hamper Jane had provided. I wondered what the laundry situation would be here. I'd gotten used to being responsible for just my own clothes while I was in school. I wasn't looking forward to being regarded as live-in part-time help, if that was how Jane planned on making me earn my keep, but I would do it and not complain. I figured I was skating on pretty thin ice anyway.
Frowning, I reached for the suitcase lid, and my own neat block printing caught my eye. Inside the lid, in black Sharpie, I'd written the names of the seven foster families I'd lived with over the years. A lot of foster kids I knew did something like it, keeping track of the names somewhere they couldn't be spotted easily. One girl I knew wrote them on the inside of the butt of her jeans, an indirect way of telling her foster parents to kiss her ass. It was like a monument to ourselves, reminding us that we were badass, that no matter what life threw at us, it was just another entry on the list until we aged out and could control our own lives. But on the other hand, it was also a warning not to get too comfy where we were, that our situation could change overnight. And if we got too attached to the family we were living with, it would be that much harder to pack up and leave.
It took me a while to learn this lesson. I'd been crazy about the first family I was placed with, a really sweet couple in their late thirties named Tom and Susan. They painted my room a sunny yellow and let me pick out my own bedspread as a "welcome home" gift. Susan took me shopping for my first pair of real high heels, and Tom made blueberry pancakes on Sundays.
I'd hoped that I'd won some sort of foster-care lottery, finding the perfect adoptive family on my first try and riding out my three years with them until I turned eighteen. But two months after my placement, I was moved to another home for reasons I never quite understood. My social worker, a nice woman who always seemed to be rumpled and running late, couldn't be bothered to explain it to me. Also, she sometimes called me Melanie.
There seemed to be very little logic to when and why I was moved, but it happened enough that I eventually stopped forming attachments. I was polite. I did any chores I was asked to do and rarely broke the house rules. But I didn't join in Family Game Night with the Richardsons. I voluntarily went to the weekend respite-care home to avoid camping with the Freemans. With the other families, I generally stayed in my room and studied like hell so I qualified for scholarships.
But I supposed I was lucky. You heard so many horror stories about teenagers in the foster-care system. My foster families didn't abuse me. They didn't spend the money the state gave them on lottery tickets and cigarettes. But I didn't exactly form lifelong loving relationships, either. I got shipped from one house to the other every couple of months, toting my things along with me in the same Chiquita banana box and old battered blue suitcase. For some reason, it was important to me to keep that same box, that same suitcase, in my closet, so I was always ready to go. It didn't feel like they were tossing me out if I was ready to go.
My decent grades and my heart-wrenching story were enough to qualify me for several college scholarships. The rest I made up for in loans. And I even managed to get into the new vampire-friendly dorm. The campus became my home. The friends I made there became my family. No one could take them from me.
Holidays were the worst. There was nowhere safe to hide from movies, commercials, magazines that reminded me that other people were preparing to spend quality time with their loved ones, while I was scrambling to find somewhere to stay when the dorms closed. Last year, Keagan took me home with her, but it was so awkward. Half of her family tried too hard to make me welcome, and the other half asked me weird, pressing questions about where my parents were and why I wasn't with them.
Summers were better. I was able to get grants to take classes during the break, and that included campus housing. Which was why I was getting ready to graduate a year early-at least, that was before my sternum got crushed by a barbell weight.
This was not how my life was supposed to turn out. I came from a happy home. My parents loved each other. Hell, they had planned me. And then I was brought up by a single mother who never once made me feel like a burden, despite the fact that she'd had to raise me alone from the moment my father died in Afghanistan. Mom was a hard worker, no-nonsense. She taught me how to make a mean banana bread and how to change my own oil, how to balance a checkbook and how to achieve a perfect smoky eye look.