My Badass Foster Parents

When I was seven, strangers were running a betting pool on how long before my new family sent me back.

Like a package that didn't fit. [The villainess is clawing for an adoption slot again.] [Even if she gets picked, she's insufferable. She'll end up dumped back here.

Guaranteed.] Only I could see those words. They scrolled past my eyes like someone was livestreaming my life. The side character they kept talking about. That was me.

That day, two cars sat out front. One brandnew Maybach. One beatup used minivan. A rich couple. A plainlooking couple.

Everyone already knew the script: I'd latch onto the money and go be the foil who made the destined heroine shine.

I walked past the Maybach and threw myself into the arms of the plain couple. Ten years later, not one of the people who'd bet against me was still around.

Here's what they never figured out. The two people who took me home: one was a decorated cop, the other a teacher who'd once jumped into a freezing river to pull a drowning kid out.

And together, they put the entire Whitlock family on the evening news. Chapter 1 The rich couple couldn't make up their minds.

Vivienne and I were the two best options in the whole place. We each came with a flaw. She wasn't quite pretty enough. I wasn't quite good enough. They went back and forth.

In the end, they started toward me. The comments scrolled again. [Are these two blind?

Passing over our precious Viv just because the other one's a little cuter, and grabbing the dumb, nasty one instead.] [Doesn't matter. She'll get returned anyway.] [Relax.

It's all just setup to make Viv's sweetness land harder later.] Then, out of nowhere, a couple planted themselves right in front of me. Thick country accents.

Faces lit up like they'd won something. "Well, would you look at her." The man's whole face crinkled. "Prettiest little thing I ever saw." "Something about her.

Feels like she's ours already." "What do you say, kiddo, you wanna come home with us?" "We got a big pot of pot roast going at home.

Smells like heaven." I watched the comments drift past. I blinked once.

Then, before the rich couple could reach me, I turned and buried myself in the arms of the woman in the plain linen dress. I'd been able to see the comments since I was little.

Supplies at the group home never went around evenly. Mostly you had to fight for yours. Vivienne and I had been fighting each other since we were small.

Every time I grabbed a new notebook or a new shirt, the comments came out swinging. They said you could read a whole person by the time she was seven. Grasping like that, so young.

No wonder everyone would hate her when she grew up. Back then I didn't really get it. Wanting things a little better for myself. How was that the villain move?

It wasn't like I'd stolen their notebook. It took me years to understand. I was just Vivienne's foil. My selfishness, my greed.

They existed to make her look strong and noble next to me. The villainess. The girl who loses grab after grab until her mind curdles and she turns into something monstrous.

But this time. I didn't want to be the one they measured her against. Not anymore. I climbed into the minivan. Only then did Vivienne let out a breath.

The comments were downright gleeful. [LOL. So dumb. Traded a free trial of the richgirl life for a plate of pot roast.] [That's her whole life, decided.

She and our Viv are two different classes now.] [Her character type is "the insufferable side character." Doesn't matter who takes her in, she ends up dumped.

I'm here for the trainwreck.] Would I get dumped back? I snuck a glance at the man in the driver's seat.

Above my head, the comments were already swarming, laying down odds. [Three months.] [Three months is generous.

I say one, then the real her comes out.] [Bet she doesn't even last the year.] I lifted my head. In the rearview mirror, his eyes caught mine.

Chapter 2 His face split into a grin. "Aw, she's shy. Go on and look, kiddo. We're family now." "I'm Gus. This here's Donna.

I'm a cop, she teaches school, good honest work, both of us. So don't you worry about a thing." "And when you come home with us, you leave all that worrying at the door.

Treat the place like your own, hear?" Donna laughed, big and warm. "He's right. Don't hold back on our account." "Oh. When we were signing the papers, the name line just read Five.

What's your real name, honey?" I looked down. I'd picked at the skin around my nails until it was nearly raw. I'd seen that form. The name line was blank.

Someone on staff had filled it in with a single word. Five. As in the fifth. There'd been four before me. The comments said it didn't matter what I did.

I was getting dumped back here no matter what. So a name didn't matter either. "I don't have a real name," I said. "It's just Five." Gus's pot roast really did smell that good.

You could smell it the second you stepped inside. I sat at the table, stiff and careful. Before I left, the director had pulled me aside.

You mind your manners in someone else's house. And don't eat too much. I was starving. I still took the smallest bites I could manage.

The two of them kept piling food onto my plate. A plate bigger than my face, heaped into a little mountain. "Try these, wild mushrooms.

My cousin ships them down from back home in Michigan. You won't taste fresher." "Eat your meat, honey, you're all skin and bones." "And this right here, that's the good stuff.

Old family recipe." "What's the matter, kiddo, you're not eating? Not to your taste?" "Gus! I told you to cook something normal, and you go make a whole spread from back home.

Now she can't eat it. What do we do?" "My fault, my fault. Tell you what, kiddo. You name it, I'll go make it." The group home fed us on eight dollars a day, each of us.

The little flecks of fatty ground meat in the green beans. That was the best thing I could remember eating. Every extra bite made me happy.

Turned out there was something past "the best I'd ever had." There was "the thing I loved most." I didn't want them getting the wrong idea.

I put my head down and shoveled it in like I hadn't eaten in days. "It's good! It's really, really good!" The food was so good. I wanted to stay in this house a little longer.

It startled me, that I could want something that greedy. They were good people. After dinner they walked me through the whole mall.

New everything: soap, clothes, right down to what I had on. It was late by the time we got home. I changed into new pajamas and curled up in the far corner of the bed.

At the group home, one bed usually slept several of us. Take up too much room and somebody else got squeezed. Curling small had become the way I slept.

I was half asleep when someone stepped into the room and crouched down soft beside the bed. "Gus.

You think those comments we saw today were some kind of hallucination?" "One person seeing them, maybe. Both of us? No." "Then what they were saying about her. It's cruel.

How bad could one little kid possibly be?" "We treat her right, she's not going down any bad road." "Tell you the truth, though. I love this kid already. Bones and all.

She's ours now." "Nobody lays a finger on her ever again." Chapter 3 I was too far under to open my eyes.

But I felt it: how gently they lifted me, how carefully they set me down in the middle of the bed. It was soft here. Wide. No one would crowd me on purpose.

I wouldn't wake at dawn with my back in knots. It was the deepest I had ever slept. They say some folks love you like a delicate houseplant. Gentle. Careful.

Gus and Donna loved me like they were fattening up a prize hog. The portions were enormous, and every plate made you want to go back for more.

At first I held myself to one small helping. Before long I was clearing three full plates.

The director had warned me: eat too much in someone else's house and they'll resent you for it. The comments still showed up, right on cue. [What's so good about it?

She inhales it every single time like she's never seen food. Was she a pig in a past life?] [Thank god our Viv went home with the rich ones. Michelin dinners every night now.

Living the richgirl dream.] [Eh, maybe she just starved at the group home. Revengeeating like a ghost that never got fed.

Those two will be sick of her in a month.] Every other time the comments had held me up against Vivienne, jealousy rose in me. Jealous she got the better things.

Jealous the good life fell into her lap. I'd wanted to grab away everything she had. This time, nothing stirred. Gus's cooking really was that good.

Every time he watched me scrape my plate clean, he grinned like it made his whole week. The exact opposite of what the comments swore would happen. Donna was good to me too.

She'd never really cooked, but she tried, for me. One night she fried up a pan of smoked sausage. It came out so salty the two of us drained a whole jug of water.

Gus got home off shift, huffed and puffed around the kitchen, and had a full spread on the table before long.

Then he ordered Donna never to wander into that kitchen on a whim again. She just cackled and swore off the stove for life.

When Gus was too busy to come home and cook, Donna took me out. I'd never known there were so many kinds of food in the world. So many I got full just looking.

She always ordered a whole table's worth. Way more than the two of us could finish.

She ordered it anyway. "Whatever other kids have gotten to try," she said, "my kid gets to try it too." I ducked my head and ate. And tasted my own tears in it.

So that was what love was. It was every meal you ate together. Right before I started school, they sat me down and asked, serious as could be, what kind of name I wanted.

A real name ties itself to your whole life, they said. Something this important, they wanted me to decide for myself. Even the last name. Mine to pick. I sat there, frozen.

When I first came, I'd told them I had no real name. Just Five. Because the comments said I was getting sent back, one way or another.

And what does a person who's getting sent back need a name for? Now they'd slid a pen and paper across the table to me.

Told me something this big had to be mine to choose. "Long as it's not something godawful like Bertha, we're behind you a hundred percent!" Gus said, grinning. "Bertha!

Gus, can you be serious for one minute? Our girl's got taste." Donna caught him with a couple of solid punches to the arm. Gus loved clowning in front of her.

He'd earn himself a few good hits and laugh like that was exactly what he was after. The whole warm, easy feel of it. Even someone like me ended up laughing along.

I looked at the two people in front of me. No blood between us.

And still they'd reached down and hauled me out of the pit. "I've made up my mind," I said softly. "I want your last name. Novak." "And for a first name.

Wynn." "Because I spent my whole life losing. And this finally feels just right. Like a win." They froze. Chapter 4 Then it hit them, and they came apart at the seams. "Yes!" "Wynn!

That's a winner of a name!" "We'll go make it official first thing tomorrow!" By middle school, I still caught pieces of Vivienne's life through the comments now and then.

The rich couple who took her in happened to be named Ashford. So she just became Vivienne Ashford.

She was a genuine little princess now, days packed with languages and instruments, the Ashfords grooming her into some flawless, polished young lady.

The comments kept setting our two lives side by side.

Said my parents were dirtpoor, couldn't afford a single lesson for me, that I'd grow up to be a nobody at the bottom of the pile. But I thought they had it wrong.

Gus and Donna never signed me up for one class. They taught me plenty anyway. Gus taught me to be honest, to keep my word.

He also taught me how to handle myself in a fight, a few simple ways to put a bigger kid down without doing real damage. Donna took charge of my schoolwork.

Taught me that learning only counted if you did something with it. That you held on to what you believed in, no matter what.

Little by little, I could push back against the ugly reflexes. Because now I knew: I didn't have to fight for scraps anymore. Eighth grade. The class dues came due.

All of it sat in the desk drawer of my deskmate, the class president. It added up. A thick, fat stack. To a room full of middle schoolers, a small fortune.

I took a second look before I could stop myself. Then I warned him. "Bold move. Leaving cash sitting right there.

Not scared it walks off?" Hunter waved me off and jogged away to shoot hoops with his friends.

That was when the comments showed up again. [Remember, in the script she got sent back to the group home for stealing Mrs. Ashford's diamond necklace.] [A thief's a thief.

Don't tell me she's about to lift that cash.] [LOL. No necklace handy, so she's slumming it for class dues. A leopard doesn't change its spots.] I thought the comments were a joke.

Ridiculous. The thought had never once crossed my mind. Then, the next second. My right hand moved. It went around my own textbook. Slid across the gap between the desks.

Eased open his drawer. I watched it happen. Like I was watching a hand that didn't belong to me. My fingertips had already found the edge of the stack of bills.

The comments detonated over my head. [See? Told you she'd steal.] [The script is the script. Nobody gets out of it.] Inside, I was screaming. That isn't me. My hand didn't listen.

Not for a second. "The class dues are gone!" Hunter came back from basketball, dug through his drawer, and shouted it across the room. Every head turned toward him.

I'd just gotten back from asking the teacher a question. He rounded on me and pointed. "Wynn! You're the only one who knew where it was. Did you take it?

Give it back!" I frowned. "What is wrong with you? I didn't." "It was you. It had to be you! Before I even put it away you were going on about how easy it'd be to steal.

I bet you were planning it the whole time." He was livid. He whirled around and started tearing through my desk.

Dumped out my backpack, ransacked the drawer, sent my things skidding across the floor. He dug and dug. No dues turned up.

He got so angry he started to cry, which only wound him up worse. "I'm begging you, just give it back, okay? If it's gone I have to pay it back myself.

My mom finds out, she'll kill me!" I rolled my eyes. "And that's my problem how? I didn't take it. You left it lying out.

Whose fault is that?" He scrubbed the tears off his face and charged at me, grabbing at my clothes like he'd search me himself. "It's you! I know it's you!" It startled me.

I flinched back on instinct. He took the flinch for guilt. And then he was on me, and we went down clawing and grabbing at each other. Chapter 5 We were about the same height.

And I had the moves Gus had drilled into me. In a fight, he never stood a chance. By the time the homeroom teacher showed up, we were both a wreck.

He'd gotten the worse of it, blood running from his nose. Snot and tears everywhere, he got his version in first. I'd stolen the money, he said, and then jumped him.

The teacher heard him out, quiet. Then she cut one glance my way and handed down her verdict. "Wynn.

Either you hand over the money, or you call your parents in." When Gus came rushing into the school, the comments were having the time of their lives. [There it is. The mask slips.

Gus can be as nice as he wants. No dad keeps a kid who steals.] [Everybody welcome Five back to the group home.] I sank my head low, tucked into the far corner of the office.

When the tall, solid shape of him crossed the edge of my vision, I hid my scrapedup hands. Guilty. Ashamed. "You're Wynn's father? This is how you raise a kid?

A girl, beating my son to a pulp like that. Does she have any decency at all?" "Sticky fingers and a mean streak. No home training whatsoever!" Hunter's parents had shrill voices.

From the second Gus walked in, they were in his face, fingers jabbing. The homeroom teacher just sat there. Start to finish, she didn't hold those two back once.

Didn't ask me a single question either. Like the matter of whether I'd stolen anything was already settled in her head. For once, Gus didn't fire back.

His face went hard, and he crossed the room toward me in heavy, sure steps. I'd dragged him into this mess. Gotten him cursed out in front of a whole room. He had to hate me now.

That was what I told myself. I swallowed hard and lifted my chin, defiant. "I didn't do anything wrong." I'd rehearsed it a thousand times before he got there.

Even if I really did get thrown away, just like the comments promised, I wouldn't slink off like some stray with its tail down. I'd act like none of it touched me.

They said I was a bad girl. Fine. Then I'd be a cold, heartless bad girl. Bad girls don't need anyone to keep them anyway. I worked up the nerve and met his eyes.

He looked back at me. Steady. Just held it. And in that one second, every scrap of the armor I'd forced up came apart. Something snapped loose in my chest.

The tears came like a dam giving way. "I'm sorry." "I won't fight anymore." "I didn't steal the money.

I know doing bad things would hurt you, so I didn't do it." "Can you please just... not give me back