Today's Promises (Promises #2)

Today's Promises (Promises #2)

S.R. Grey



Thank you for taking this journey with me. Flynn and Jaynie’s story is fictional, but, in reality, there are far too many real stories of abuse within the foster care system. Thank you to those individuals I spoke with, who shared their own experiences so readily. This story is for you…and for all the children who have no voice.





Flynn



“No, no, no, no…”

Jaynie thrashes and kicks at my legs, which until a few seconds ago were snugly entwined with hers under the soft homemade quilt on our bed. “Jaynie, wake up!” I cry out.

I jump back just in time to avoid a sharp kick to the shins.

Sighing, I reach over to shake her shoulder, to rouse her from whatever horrific nightmare plagues her tonight.

But before my hand touches her, she wakes on her own.

Glancing over at me, her expression, clear even in the shadows of our small rented room, turns from panic to relief. “Flynn,” she breathes out. “God, I thought I was alone again. I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Of course I’m here, sweetheart. Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere, never again.”

Jaynie starts to cry, her tears soon soaking through the front of her tank top and my T-shirt. “I was so scared, Flynn,” she croaks out.

“I know, sweetheart. I know.”

I hold on to her more tightly. It’s all I can do. But it’s good…and it’s more than enough. There’s no need for strung-together words or lengthy explanations. I know all too well the substance of Jaynie’s bad dreams.

Hell, I have the same nightmares myself—terrible, all-too-real snippets from our time in foster care, brought back to life in living color, deep in the land of bad dreams.

I did six years’ worth of time in foster care, and Jaynie, she was in for four. If it sounds like I’m talking prison sentences, instead of the foster care system, it’s because living under the state’s too-oft indifferent care, enduring a life of being shuffled from one crappy home to the next… Well, it kind of is like doing time.

Only thing is you haven’t committed any crime.

But you sure as hell feel like you did.

Jaynie lifts my arm. Sliding out from under me, she rises from our bed.

“Where’re you going?” I ask.

Turning back to me, she mutters flatly, “Bathroom.”

When I start to protest, she gives me a small smile. It’s meant to reassure me that all is cool, even though I know it’s not. “I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”

What can I do? “Yeah, okay,” I mumble.

I watch as Jaynie pads barefoot the short distance from our bed to the tiny bathroom connected to our room. Her auburn hair sways in time with her slim hips, hips covered by navy-blue boy shorts that were pushed aside earlier so we could engage in a hasty, but intense, coupling.

It’s like that sometimes with us, desperate and raw, remnants from our past.

When the bathroom door closes, I hear Jaynie turning the inside latch. She thinks she can lock her secrets in with her, keep them hidden from me.

But she can’t.

I know what she does in there. After she empties her bladder, Jaynie will slide down to the cold linoleum floor and binge-eat several candy bars she keeps ferreted away. See, I found her secret stash the other morning, the day after I arrived in Lawrence. I should tell you at this point that I was a few months late in getting here. I should have arrived back in the fall, along with Jaynie. This small West Virginia town was always meant to be our destination…if we ever had to run.

And we had to. Run, that is.

I was delayed by our former foster ‘mom,’ a middle-aged woman named Mrs. Lowry, who now sits alongside her equally rotten daughter, Allison, in prison. Mrs. Lowry was blackmailing me, and I ended up stuck in Forsaken, the dying town we used to live in a few miles away, for four extra months.

But I’m here with Jaynie now, for good.

So, back to the morning following my arrival…

After spending the night in Jaynie’s bed—which I guess is now my bed as well, seeing as we live together—I found myself looking for a disposable razor so I could shave. That’s when I came upon a few dozen candy bars. They were stuffed way in the back of the cabinet under the sink, behind several rolls of toilet paper and a few bottles of cleaners. I counted at least forty-seven Hershey’s…and numerous empty wrappers.

As I sifted through the tattered, chocolate-smudged debris, my intention being to deposit all the trash in the little pail by our toilet, I got to thinking about the nightmare Jaynie had had that morning, just before dawn.

After I’d rocked her till she was no longer sobbing, she’d excused herself to go to the bathroom, where she spent an exorbitantly long time.

It only took me a minute to put two and two together.

I didn’t mention anything to her that morning. And I still haven’t.

Shit, I understand. Hoarding food doesn’t sound so weird once you’ve experienced true starvation. And starve we did at our last foster care home, especially during the final two months.

Remembering the hard times, I promptly helped myself to a candy bar that morning, despite the fact Jaynie had, minutes before, yelled into the bathroom that our landlord, Bill Delmont, who also happens to be our employer, had breakfast waiting for us downstairs in his sandwich shop.