The Worst Best Thing-Chapter 1

I often try to forget what happened last year. It hurts too much to have memories, so why do we have to have them? I was once told that if we didn’t have memories, did the past even happen? I have been thinking about that question a lot and have come to realize that if we do not remember our past, than the past never existed. And it is true, sometimes I do wish some things in my past did not exist, but I realize now that if they never happened, I would have never met Adam Evans. The best worst thing to happen to me. Adam Evans taught me about life, and that it is okay to fall in love and if you get your heart broken it will get fixed, and to forgive enemies, and a billion other little things. Adam Evans was the main source of my pain (along with situations that made things worse), but he was also the lone source of my happiness.
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I was taken away from my mother the day of my seventh birthday. When it happened they (meaning my social worker) told me it was because my mommy was doing bad things and had to get sent away to get better. Later, I found out it was because she was doing all sorts of drugs and had been producing and selling them from our house, and had been hiding from a warrant for her arrest. I never saw it coming, but I guess it made sense because everytime our door rang I had to go in my room and wait for my mom to tell me it was okay to come down.

The day of my birthday I had woken up to Happy Birthday being sung to me by my mother. She was wearing her nicest clothes, a yellow summer dress and her hair was up in a messy bun on top of her head. She had opened my curtains and the way the sun hit her made her look like an angel. I remember jumping out of bed and hugging her legs. I remember her scent, lavender vanilla. She had looked down at me and the way she had smiled at me made me feel like a princess. She got me dressed up in the new dress she had bought me a week before and we held hands as we walked down the stairs into the living room.

My aunt was already there. (Later, I would find out that she had helped my mother with all her drug business and also had a warrant for an arrest.) She had been wearing a plain white t-shirt and a pair of jeans. She ran up to me and gave me a big bear hug.

"Happy Birthday, Mandy, baby!" She smiled down at me.

"Thank you." I said. I tugged on the hem of my mother's dress.

"Can we open presents now?" I asked.

"We have to have breakfast and eat cake first." My mother said.

"Oh, pleeaassee?" I squeaked. I looked up at her with my big green eyes.

"Yeah, please?" My aunt got down on her knees, jokingly.

"Oh, okay...but we're having cake first." My mother smiled, laughing at her sister.

I sat at my spot at our small, square table and waited for my cake. While my mom and aunt were in the kitchen talking in a hushed tone, I began looking around for presents. There weren't any that I could see while sitting down, but there were some of my mother's "special medicine" that I wasn't allowed to touch on the bookshelf. I looked towards the doorway as my mother walked in with the cake. My aunt followed with her camera flashing.

My mom set the cake down in front of me and lit the number seven shaped candle with her always ready lighter.

"Make a wish and blow it out." My mother whispered in my ear. I closed my eyes and leaned forward, but just as I puffed my cheeks up with air and thought of my wish there was a knock on the front door. My heart sunk. I let the air out through my nose and stepped away from the cake.

"I'll go upstairs." I mumbled, so disappointed. My mother nodded and after I got up to the top of the staircase, she opened the door. I ran to my room and quietly shut my door and crawled under the covers, wishing that whoever was at the door would just leave and let me make my wish.

I heard a bang and jumped. Whoever it was there was a lot of them. I could hear many footsteps throughout the house. I could hear footsteps pounding up the stairs. I pulled the covers over my head. This had never happened before, when I had to go upstairs no one ever came up before my mother told me to come down. I got really scared and ran into my closet. I crawled up on top of my old toy chest and carefully stepped on the coat rack onto the shelf above it. I crawled over to the corner and held my knees. I waited for whoever was upstairs to leave and for my mother to tell me to come down and finish my cake.

But instead someone crashed through my door. I held my breath and covered my face with my hands, trying to disappear. I heard more footsteps and then they stopped. I couldn't tell exactly where they were, so I uncovered my eyes. And there standing in front of the closet was a man in a blue uniform. It wasn't a cop, because I had seen cops on the TV before.

"Can you come down here to me? I'm going to take you to see a very nice lady and she is going to explain why this is happening." He said in a very nice voice. I nodded and uncurled my body. He reached out to me and I held on to his strong arms. He held me like a baby all the way down the stairs. When we got to the living room, I looked over his shoulder and saw my birthday cake, the seven still glowing.
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