Alone-Nico Collins

All you remember from that morning was waking up for school one day, walking down the stairs with the intent of eating those pancakes your mother made for you yesterday night from dinner and had plans to go to school.. What actually ended up happening was you walked out the door of your bedroom to see a thick cloud of smoke that seemed to extend for miles. Well, as long as your hallway felt for a little boy like yourself. At first, you figured it was nothing. After all, your small mind didn't process the fact that you'd never live in the same house, or with the same life after you decided to move from your hall and down the stairs.. As you walked, your small legs carrying you with wobbly steps as smoke bomb rushed your cheeks. Seeing a fire that licked at your feet with a kind of burn that made you scream. You had not expected for you to wake up to this. The heat was scary but not as scary as feeling alone. Of course, one thing led to another and you'd ended up waking up in a hospital bed next to at least two nurses and one doctor who was trying to contact any family you may still have left. Feeling your face to feel the bandages that covered up the blistering burns that your mind was choosing to forget ever happened.

To make a long story short, the pancakes you'd hoped to have eaten turned into a cold car ride with Mrs Ronda. The lady who said you'd be placed into foster care. Whatever that means. She told you that you had no case and no family that either wanted you or could take care of you. So you were stuck going from place to place.

You didn't understand when Mrs Ronda used her big words, but you knew that you'd never see your family again. Being placed in a foster home with a woman named Mrs Hannah, who you called Mrs Lady when you first met, and a man named Mr Collen.. Who didn't seem to really like you very much. He looked at you like you were a broken monster. The marks on your face a seering reminder of the things you'd tried long to forget but couldn't. At some point, you'd realized that the house was too full for you and Mr Collen wasn't JUST mean.. He was a nasty man who didn't know what consent was and didn't like the word 'no' very much. And you learned that over the years, it was best that you just stay quiet. But as more kids rolled in over the years, Mrs Hannah had started to just leave you to take care of your smaller siblings.. Even at age seven.

One day, you came downstairs at the ass crack of night because some woman from foster care was here to drop off a boy around your age, maybe two years younger.. His name was Leo.. Leo Valdez. He looked sad, scared and looked like you had when you had first came here. She said that Leo needed to be placed right away, likely meaning that he was as new to this as you'd been before. Mrs Hannah welcomed him in and said she'd 'take care of him'.. But you knew that it meant you had a roommate and Mr Collen had a new boy to push around.

Even though you were still little and you're mind wasn't fully developed, You knew that Leo wasn't like you. His skin was darker, and he couldn't stay still for the ever living life of him. You knew that those two things would get Leo in big trouble with Mr Collen. Right away, the moment Mrs Hannah got Leo inside and closed the door, you had to be first to take Leo's small hand and lead him to your room before Leo had the time to somehow piss off Mr Collen.

"Hello ?.." Leo's small voice came out as you walked him up the stairs with as much quiet as you could muster. That was the moment where you knew that Leo was your job now.. He was yours to take care of and he always would be. And he always was your job. With everything he did throughout the years. By the time you were 10 you were doing bedtimes and by the time you turned 13 you were cooking, cleaning and signing papers for field trips because Mrs Hannah was clocked out and Mr Collen was NOT impressed with Leo at all. Leo got in fights, he was short, scrawny and not at all what Mr Collen thought a man should be. But you didn't mind.