「故事·听力」I've Had 3 Foster Families, And I've Seen Things
I've Had 3 Foster Families, And I've Seen Things
My name is Chloe and since my mother died, I was forced to change foster families a few times, and honestly, those were a tough couple of years.
My Mom was a nice person when she wasn’t drinking. The problem was that she was drinking almost all the time. Honestly, everyone in our family hated her and didn’t want to have anything to do with her because she was always asking for money and causing problems for everyone. So we had almost zero contact with anyone else.
When I was 14, she went into the hospital, and, well... she died. I couldn’t believe it and I was in, like, a haze, so it was hard to understand what to do next. At first, they wanted me to move to my grandfather's house, but he said he never wanted anything to do with my Mother or me. He didn’t even come to the funeral.
Almost no one did, in fact. It was only me and her brother’s family. He had a wife and a daughter, a year younger than me. Nobody even talked... and I felt so alone. The family of my uncle decided to take me in, although honestly, they really didn’t want to.
I didn’t want to either, because I knew they secretly hated me and my Mom. They had all these rules for me, that they never had with their own daughter. We shared a room and she would get angry if I touched her stuff, although I needed some of it. For example, once, I really needed socks because each pair I had was old and had holes, so I borrowed hers and I didn’t have time to ask because I was late. Later, she told her parents that I was stealing her stuff and they got angry at me, even though I tried to explain myself.
I didn’t want to spend time “at home,” so I would stay out late into the night, and when I would come home my uncle would be angry at me and then they would let me do even less. I basically could only eat and sleep in their house. I didn’t even have enough clothing to go anywhere.
They would sometimes have a family dinner and I wasn’t even invited, so instead I would eat alone in my room. It wasn’t like they were openly against me being with them, but secretly they were.
The only thing that helped was my friends from other cities, you know, we talked through Facebook. They would really help me when I was feeling down or when I wanted to cry, which was almost always.
Because the conditions were bad in the house and they didn't have enough money to take care of me, soon I was put into foster care. Suddenly, I was living in a completely different house, with a completely different family, and it was even crazier.
These two, Mr. and Mrs. Collins, had two other foster children, and they were kinda nervous and aggressive, they would look at me like I was their enemy and we never talked. At the same time, the Collins's would shout at each other ALL THE TIME, like they shouted more than they talked. They were constantly arguing and I was wondering how people like them could become foster parents. They probably did it for the money, because they didn’t provide us with anything more than food.
They were strict, too. They even took our phones away, so I lost all of my online friends as well.
They only allowed us to use the fridge until certain time of day, so if we got hungry, we had to just deal with it. But we didn’t, and that was how my friendship with my new foster siblings began. One evening Dylan, a boy who was living with us, got grounded and they wouldn’t let him eat for half a day or something. Dylan was laying in his bed, and he was so hungry he couldn’t move. So I asked another boy, Andrew, about sneaking into the kitchen and getting Dylan some food.
Andrew agreed and it was the first time he'd ever talked to me. Andrew stayed on the lookout while I veeery slowly opened the fridge and took a little bit of food for Dylan. A few pieces of bread, cheese, and sausages so the Collins's wouldn't notice.
I closed the door without making a sound and then Andrew gestured to me that I should hide. We both hid under the table, and our foster father came into the kitchen to grab a bite. Our hearts were pounding!
Finally, he was gone and we slowly and quietly returned to our room and gave Dylan food. He was extremely thankful and this changed everything. After that, all of us became friends and we would stand up for each other.
One day, Andrew was grounded and it was his turn to be hungry during the evening. This time, Dylan and I snuck into the kitchen. Dylan accidentally hit a chair with his foot and our foster parents came looking to see what was going on. Dylan hid under the table, but I couldn’t manage to do it in time. Mr. Collins caught me, shouted at me for an hour, and locked me in my room for the entire next day. Now even Dylan and Andrew couldn’t help me.
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