Anna
I keep my head down as I stomp away from Kennedy Warren’s office. They all hate me in here, all the pen-pushers and the snotty bitches behind the crappy reception desk. All their smiley rainbow welcome signs mean nothing in this place, not if your face doesn’t fit.
They want the nice kids who speak when they’re spoken to and say thank you whenever anyone throws them a scrappy crumb of nothing.
They want nice kids like the one outside Kennedy’s office, with big sad puppy dog eyes and a smile for everyone. Those are the kids that get good homes.
Kids like me, not so much.
But I’m not a kid anymore. In a couple of days I’ll be kicked out of the latest home I was palmed off on. Rosie and Bill will be glad to see the back of me, and I don’t blame them. Not really.
They’re good people. Kind.
I just… I can’t stop myself shoving my shitty attitude in their faces until they break.
It doesn’t matter who they are, they always break in the end.
I’ve been in fourteen homes since I turned ten. Fourteen sets of new parents telling me to make myself one of the family. But I never do.
I don’t belong in anyone’s family. I don’t belong in anyone’s little Lego house or their neatly-mown back garden. I don’t belong on any grinning school photos or in the county netball team.
I don’t belong in this little shit hole of a town, with its backwater villages where everyone is in everyone else’s business.
My ancestors were travellers, roaming the wilds and making a living from the land. I feel it in my blood – the urge to dance through the countryside and make my own way in a little wagon somewhere. Maybe I’ll find my own kind, just as soon as I’m old enough to make my own way.
That’s what I’ve been telling myself – that this is destiny. That I won’t miss Rosie and Bill, not even a bit. That they mean nothing to me, just like none of the others meant anything to me. Not even Susan and Farrah all those years ago who bought me the doll house and helped me set up all the pretty furniture Farrah made me.
They thought it was me who hit their baby daughter, but I didn’t. It was Margaretha, their eldest, but nobody believed a little liar like me. Problems – that’s what they said. I had problems. Too many problems for Susan and Farrah and their nice little family.
That’s why I scratched his car to shit with one of his screwdrivers. Problems.
That’s why I spat in Susan’s face when she tried to say goodbye. Problems.
And that’s why everyone ditches me when I get too much. So many problems.
I should have been nothing but a problem to Kennedy Warren too. Hell, I was a problem enough for the two colleagues of his I saw before him. They lasted weeks before they felt intimidated. But he was different.
I could shout in his face and he didn’t turn me away. I could tell him what I thought and he didn’t scowl and sigh and mutter about problems, problems, problems.
He could be angry, but he never kicked me out.
He could want to smack the attitude right out of me, but he didn’t lose his cool.
I like Kennedy Warren, and I wish I’d told him before now, before our last ever session. Who knows, maybe a man like him could have actually helped a problem like me. Maybe if I’d have listened to him I wouldn’t be kicked out of Rosie and Bill’s.
Sometimes I even thought maybe he’d be the one I couldn’t break, no matter what I said or what I did. No matter how far I pushed him, he was always there next week, at our scheduled time with my stupid dumb file on his desk and his stupid dumb questions trying to help me.
Maybe he really would have helped me, if I’d have told him the truth. If I’d have told him who really hurts me.
But it’s too late for all that now. At least I told him how I felt about him, just once.
I hate this shitty little town with its shitty weather. Grey drizzle turns to full on rain and none of the shops want me in them, so I slip into an alley down the side of the bank and wait for it to ease up, cursing the fact these boots have holes in them and I threw the ones Rosie bought me back in her face a few months back.
I don’t need your fucking boots. You can’t fucking buy me, I’m not for fucking sale.
The memory makes me cringe.
She didn’t see how I ran to my room and cried harder than she did. She didn’t see how sorry I was after, even though my stupid mouth wouldn’t let me say a word.
I whistle as a guy in a scummy brown hoodie walks on by. I know him. Eddie something.
He stops, squints at me, then smiles. He knows me too, by reputation if not by introduction.
“Anna, right?” he asks and steps on in.
I don’t have time for stupid hellos. I hitch my boot up against the wall, playing it as disinterested as I possibly can. “Got a smoke?”
He nods and pulls a pack from his pocket. Shitty menthols, but beggars can’t be choosers. I take one and light it off his lighter.
“Got somewhere to be?” he asks and I shake my head. “Want to come for a drink?”
“I’m underage,” I tell him. “Nowhere’s gonna serve me. Not without ID.”
He takes a long drag. “I’ll be buying. You look eighteen.”
His eyes are all over me, but that’s nothing new.
“Few days and I will be eighteen,” I tell him. “And then I’ll be away from his shitty place and off on my own.”
He laughs but there’s no malice in it. “Sounds good to me, this place is a shit hole.” He holds out his arm but I shrug it off. I really don’t want to be touching him. He looks the sleazy type, but a drink’s a drink if he’s the one paying.
“You’re buying?” I clarify.
“Sure am.” He pulls out his wallet, a battered thing on a chain. “Got paid today, did some overtime.”
Just as well. I’m in the mood for a few, just to drink this awful day with its crappy goodbyes away. “Alright,” I tell him, “lead the way.”
And he does.
I ignore my shitty phone buzzing in my pocket. I ignore the angry messages Rosie and Bill will be leaving me.
I ignore everything, because tonight Eddie something is going to buy me drinks and look at me like he wants me.
It’s the best thing on offer to a problem girl like me.
Kennedy I rarely drink, especially not on a week night, but completing my final writeup and filing Anna’s case notes into the archive room is more than enough to drive me to a few after work. I tidy my desk and take one final look at Anna’s muddy boot prints before shutting down my PC for the day. None of us here are miracle workers. We do our best, but not every case on our books has a happy ending. I’ve watched kids grow into adults with even bigger challenges than the ones they faced in the chair opposite me. I’ve lost good kids to a life of drugs in Bristol or Birmingham once they’ve taken a one-way ticket out of our sleepy county for pastures new. You hear about them, the ones who didn’t make it. It’s not a rare event that we get enquiries from lawyers and prosecutors digging for background information for their criminal cases. Some support workers can’t handle the disappointment. For others of us, we take the rough with the smooth – finding encouragement in the kids that we do
Anna Eddie is an idiot, but he’s fun enough and he’s paying. He brought me a couple of beers out to the back of the George and Dragon, then we dashed into the Brewers Arms for one before stumbling down the street to Drury’s Tavern. I’m already past dinner time back at Rosie and Bill’s, but who gives a shit. Not them, that’s for sure. It’s probably a relief. Eddie swings open the big door of Drury’s and I follow him in. I’ve been drinking on an empty stomach and it’s gone to my head, but I don’t care. Why should I? Nobody else does. I’ve barely got enough bus money to get home to Lydbrook and the timetable is pathetic here. The last bus leaves about six, and I’m sure I’ve missed it already, but that feels hazy now. Maybe I can bunk up with Eddie tonight. I don’t want him, but I’m sure he wants me, and that’s bound to be enough to get me somewhere to sleep at least. I’ll kick him in the balls if he tries to grope me. If he doesn’t let me stay after that, I’ll sleep outside. I’ve don
KennedyI don’t let go of Anna’s wrist as I head across the High Street towards my apartment building’s car parking area. I curse under my breath as I check for bystanders. This town is full of eyes and ears and there’s every chance the fake news that I dragged Anna back to mine will hit my office before I do in the morning. I could do without that, not least because I’ll have questions to answer that won’t look great on my employment file. I don’t give a fuck what they say about me, but if stupid rumours were to impact the kids on my caseload… It doesn’t bear thinking about.I’m crazy for getting involved, but I can’t stop. My feet take it upon themselves to keep on walking, my heart hammering while my mind spins with justifications for my actions, even though I know there are other ways to handle this.I could’ve looked up Rosie and Bill’s number and called them out to collect her. I could’ve opened up the office and made her wait in reception with me until they arrived.I pull my c
“Not anymore,” she says, and I’m pleased to pass the sign for Lydbrook. My neck feels itchy under my collar, my palms sweaty on the wheel. She points out Bill and Rosie’s on the right, but I’m already turning. I pull onto their driveway and their Labrador starts barking from the porch. Anna is out of the car in a heartbeat. She gives me nothing but a cursory thanks before she slams the passenger door and heads to the house alone, but that’s not how this ends. I follow her, catching her on the doorstep just as she’s trying the handle. It’s locked. It surprises me, but it is. She hammers on the wood with her fist. “Do you not have a key?” I ask. She shakes her head. “They don’t want me to have one.” Don’t trust her with one, more likely. I shouldn’t blame them, knowing her, but I can’t help but feel hurt on her behalf. It’s Bill who comes to the front door. He looks drawn and grey as he answers, his face a grimace until he sees me standing alongside his ward. “Kennedy,” he say
AnnaBill doesn’t even care that I hear him. In the early days they would whisper or talk about me behind closed doors where they didn’t know I was listening. But not now.Now Bill and Rosie don’t give a shit that I know what they think of me.Bill’s words carry loud and clear. The little window in the room I sleep in is open, and his voice reaches me perfectly. So does Kennedy’s.The girl is a vicious little bitch. She’s a fucking nightmare. A disgusting, vindictive little shit.Bill, please…Of course the answer was no. I knew it would be. They hate me, both of them, and I don’t blame them.I didn’t spit in Rosie’s stew though, I just pretended to. She wouldn’t believe me when I said I hadn’t really. She threw the whole lot in the sink and told me I was a horrible girl. And then she cried.She flapped her arms about and called for Bill and told him she was done with me, that they were all done with me.And I shrugged and said I didn’t care, that I didn’t give a fuck about her shitty
hear Bill and Rosie in the kitchen downstairs loading up the dishwasher. My stomach rumbles, but they don’t offer me anything to eat, and I don’t expect them to.I missed dinnertime.I’ll have to sneak downstairs when they’re in bed and grab something from their pantry. They’ve started hiding stuff from me these past few weeks, but I know Rosie keeps some chocolate in her sewing tin.They’ve already got a kid lined up to replace me, I heard them on the phone to the agency talking about it. I think he’s called Leo.I hope he’s a better kid for them than I’ve been, and I hope he likes this place as much as I do.The thought of leaving here makes me feel more upset than it should. I ball my hands into fists and choke back stupid tears that I don’t deserve.I could’ve stayed if I was better.I could’ve stayed if they hadn’t seen the bruises on my arms and thought I was into drugs or self-harm, or a load of other things that made them look at me in those ways I hate.Pity and fear and dis
RivenI wait for a text from Kennedy letting me know he’s done dropping his drunk infatuation back home where she belongs, but it doesn’t come. I despair for the guy and his midlife crisis.This thing with Anna Josephine, it isn’t like him. Kennedy is responsible and considered. He plays by more rules than he should in life, certainly more than I do, and if there’s one he should choose to break it’s definitely not this one.I’m about to call the crazy sonofabitch when I hear his car pull up outside. He’s had the same car for over a decade, I’d recognise the sound anywhere.I’ve already opened the door when he reaches my doorstep. He brushes past me without a word, and I follow him on through to the kitchen to grab the beer we didn’t manage at Drury’s.I hand him a bottle and he slumps himself against my kitchen island.“They’re going to throw her onto the streets,” he says, and I sigh.“Not. Your. Problem.”“I’ve been working with her for over five months,” he tells me, like I don’t k
AnnaI walked for hours before I was too tired to keep going. I wake up feeling groggy, my neck stiff from using my backpack as a pillow. It takes me a second to remember where I am.Shit.I’m in one of the old bike sheds at the back of Lydney Primary School. My arms feel stiff as I stretch them and my feet are like blocks of ice in my crappy boots. I’m starving hungry, too. My belly rumbles the minute I sit up, and I have to fight back the panic as I realise I don’t have either food or money to help fill it back up again.Part of me wants to go back to Bill and Rosie’s and say sorry. Maybe if I asked kindly enough, maybe if I begged… but there’s no way I’m gonna beg those dicks. No way.They hate me and I hate them. I can take care of myself, just as my ancestors did.I get to my feet and shake them out a bit, trying to get back the feeling. I’m not scared of the outdoors, it’s in my blood to belong here. I’m not scared of being alone, either. I’m not scared of anything.It’s just… I