text: kk Saving Ace 
   
   
     
   May 21, 2005 
  	As I step out of the little black car, the old man says it’s going to be okay, that I’ll find another family. The pit in my stomach got even bigger. They are gone; the only people who have ever been there for me are gone. As I look at the ground I silently let tears overflow down my cheek. 
  “You’ll be okay.” The old man says while he puts his hand on my shoulder. I look up at the 60 year old man; he looks as if he is too tired to even talk. 
  “Let’s get this over with.” Another man about the age of 25 says impatiently. He reminds me of one of those hairless dogs, ones that no one likes, and are really annoying .Even in this situation, thinking of that man today, still makes me laugh.  
  As I take another step I take another deep breath trying to steady myself. I look at the place. It has a little sign over the front door saying ‘Angle’s Corner’ the name was nothing compared to the building. It looked like something that shouldn’t be allowed to have people living in it… When I reach the front door the old man turns around and explains that he has a lot of other things to do, all of which were more important than what he was doing now. 
  “Yes, Erin. This boy needs to get away from all the things he witness.” The old man says looking down at me. 
  “Whatever, as long as I get paid, I don’t care.” Erin says rolling his eyes. The old man looks down at me with sorrow in his eyes. I take a deep breath and knock on the door, a middle aged woman that towards over me answers. 
  “This is the kid; take him so I can leave.” Erin says shoving me into the house. The lady moves over so I can come in. I look back at the old man one last time, as I look into his eyes; I see pain, sorrow and regret. I try to smile but my lips don’t move the right way and the lady slams the door in the man’s face. The loud sound brings me back to that day, the day I wish I never had happened… 
  It was my birthday. I was turning 6 my mom and dad were talking to me at the kitchen table, asking me what I wanted to do to celebrate. I told them I wanted a car piñata. As I tell them this, my mother gasps in pain. 
  “Oh, it’s okay honey, it’s the baby.” She tells my dad and me. 
  “Oh, okay,” I said looking down. I was looking forward to a little sibling, but I didn’t like the way it was hurting my mom. Then my mother told me to get ready, that we would go shopping for the party stuff. I ran to my room, as I was brushing my teeth I heard my mom scream and my dad say it was okay that they would be at the hospital in a few minutes. 
  “Ace, go over to the neighbors and tell them the baby is coming and that we asked if you could stay with there for a little bit, okay?” my dad asked when I cam into the kitchen to see my mother getting a bag ready with baby stuff that was on the counter with a puddle under here. 
  “I thought mommy was a big girl, she had an accident.” I said 
  “No, honey, the baby’s coming.” My mother said to me. 
  “Oh.” I said as I backed away and ran to my room to get my bag of stuff to do at the neighbors, liked me a dad had practiced for when the baby was coming. 
  I walked over to Mrs. Roseberry’s house and told her what my dad told me to and she let me in and told to watch TV while she made a few phone calls. After watching SpongeBob I fell asleep on Mrs. Roseberry’s cat on my chest. I woke up to the sound of Mrs. Roseberry crying in her bedroom. 
  “What’s wrong?” I asked walking over to her and jumping onto her bed to sit down. 
  “Umm…. Well… I think you should ask your father that question, okay? I’ll call him right now okay?” she told me. 
  “Okay.” I answered while she was dialing my dad’s number. 
  “Michel, you need to tell Ace, he has the right to know.” Mrs. Roseberry said. And after my dad said a few things I couldn’t hear to her, she handed me the phone. 
  “Daddy what’s wrong?” I asked, scared to hear the answer. 
  “Well bud, do you remember when we were at your favorite park, and you saw the family burying their doggie in their backyard? And you asked why they were putting it in the ground? And I told you the doggie left, that it wasn’t coming back anymore. You mommy left too. She won’t be here anymore either. Just like the doggie?” 
  “Well when she is coming back. I miss her. She’s gunna miss y party.” I said/ 
  “She won’t be here anymore bud.” My dad said then I heard this big crashing sound and the line going dead. 
  “The phone broke! Where’s my daddy!!!! I want my daddy!!!! I want my mommy!!!” 
   “I'm sorry honey, but they are gone.” 
  “No they were just here! How can they be gone?” I asked confused and scared.  
  …… 
  “Hello?” the lady practically yelled at me. 
  “I'm sorry, what did you say?” I asked. 
  “How old you are.” 
  “7.”  
  “Okay you are going in the room upstairs, first door on the right. Don’t go into any other rooms.” The lady said. 
  “Umm… okay.” 
  “By the way, I'm Ms. Rose.” 
  As I walked up the stairs, I noticed little voices in and I saw another  boy there.  He was sitting on a bed looking at a picture. He had blue eyes with brown hair that covered his eyes. 
  “Umm… hi, I'm Ace.” I said to him. 
  “Adam.” 
  “Why am I here?”  
  “Because you have no other place to go, no one wants you.” The boy said. As the realization sunk in, I started to feel the lump in my throat appear. I swallowed hard to keep myself from crying. 
   
  “You’re sleeping here.” Adam said nodding to the bed across from the bed he was sitting on. 
  “Okay.” I said quietly. As soon as I sat down on my new bed, I could feel my eyes lids getting heavier and heavier every second. When I laid down I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until Adam was yelling at me to get up so I could do my chores. 
  “Okay.” I whisper knowing he can’t hear me. I guess this is my new life now… 
   
   
  October 7, 2013 
  I hear her on the phone, my real mother. I can tell by the rage in Ms. Rose’s voice that my mother wants to take me home, and with me gone, Ms. Rose won’t get as much money. Nothing comes between Ms. Rose and her money. I try to concentrate, to hear my mother’s voice once more, quiet, nervous, low and fast. 
  “Mary… Ellis was it? Ace isn’t your boy. You had your chance to keep him. And you chose to give him up. You can’t have him.” 
  As soon as I hear Ms. Rose’s response, I know the only reason she wanted me is for the state money. I rest my hand on the gold locket dangling around my neck, my mothers. I look at the picture she put in it of herself, looking so young, and careless. I try to imagine her on the phone trying to get my home, to a real home, not the roach invested orphanage of Angles’ Corner. 
  When Ms. Rose hangs up the kitchen phone, she looks at herself in the mirror. She is a middle aged woman of forty-five with hair red as fire and a temper to match.  She scribbles something on a post it note then folds it and places it under the microwave. When I hear her go upstairs to her room, I walk into the kitchen and take the note from under the microwave. When I open it, I see an address. I look at a mental map and figure that it’s about a hours walk from here. 
  After a horrible dinner, like always, I go upstairs and into my room that I share with four other boys around my age. When I shut the door, Adam whispers “Is she in her room yet?” 
  “No” I answer then walk over to Adam’s bed.  
  “I hope she goes to bed soon,” Adam scoots over so I can sit too. “I want to surprise Britney; it’s been a tough week for her, with her mom and dad splitting up. I just want to be there for her.” Adam explains. 
  “I heard my mother’s voice today.”  
  “I thought Ms. Rose said she died horribly in a fire with your dad.” Adam said, confused. 
  “No, she lied. My mother’s alive. I'm going to see her. I have her address.” 
  “What if Ms. Rose catches you?” 
  “Well, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.” 
  “I’ll help you if you need me too.” 
  “Thanks.” 
  When the triplets come into our room, the collapse on their bed and fall asleep almost as soon as they hit their pillows. I watch them sleep; they all have strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes that see only good in everyone. It’s a shame that when I go with my mother, they will be all alone. Maybe mother can take them too I think to myself. As I get ready for bed I think about the triplets more. But once my head hits my pillow, I think of nothing. I dream of nothing….but my mother. 
   
   
  October 8, 2013 
  When I wake up, Ms. Rose is already gone. This might be only chance I have no choice. I swing my legs off the bed, my bare feet hitting the cold floor. I shiver but stand up, looking at the triplets, and Adam, who were still asleep. Tiptoeing across the room, I thought about people would react when they found out I was gone, then I realize Ms. Rose would just lie and say I was here, and still the state money, so she wouldn’t care. I can’t think about this right now.  
  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to grab breakfast, disgusting as it was, at least it was food. Quickly, I stuffed the few clothes I owned in a bag, glancing at the triplets. Adam can look after everyone for me, besides, Brittney needs him more than I do right now. I can do this on my own. I slip on my shoes and try to figure out how to get out of here quickly, quietly and safely. I suppose the window… but it’s not very safe, but it only makes a little scrapping sounds when it’s opened I think. So I throw my bag down first, then I jump out of the window and land on the roof right above the front door, after throwing my bag on the ground, I jump of the roof and into a bush to cushion my landing. 
  “I-I-I made it out!” I whisper to myself, I can’t believe I did! It was almost too easy, before I have a chance to talk myself out of doing this; I burst into a sprint, not exactly sure where I was going. After running for a while, I stop, look around and notice I was actually running in the right direction. In only about 45 minutes I would be at my mother’s doorstep. I wondered what her house would be like, what my room would look like, what kind of food she’d make, and what kind of mother she’d be. What would she think of me? Her son, the one she left at a rundown orphanage, at her doorstep. She called, so she must want me. 
  “She has to…” I thought, looking down at the dusty stone that I have been kicking for the last five minutes. What about Adam? What about all of them? They’ll be fine I thought to myself again. Adam offered to help me, so I’m sure he’ll do his part to help everyone while I'm gone. 
  I lose myself in my thoughts, until I notice the numbers painted on the mailboxes of random houses. “I'm so close,” I say excitedly. My pace quickens until I make my way the road a bit further. 
  “There it is.” My gaze settles on a medium sized house painted light yellow with cream colored shutters with ivy climbing up the side of the house, just above a tiny garden. 
  “I’m here.” 
  As I stand there, looking at the house, I try to gather enough nerve to walk up the driveway. I sigh and walk the paved pathway leading to the front door.  After ringing the doorbell, I think about her reaction, then when I heard her voice say “Hold on a second... be right there.” I suddenly get scared.  That is, until she opens the door… 
  “Hi… Mom.” 
  “What do you …” she starts to say, then interrupts herself and says “Ace?” 
  “Yes. It’s me” 
  “How did you…?” she asks looking around for a car. 
  “I walked.” 
  “In the middle of New Jersey? You could’ve been run over… or worse.” 
  “I know, I just couldn’t take living in that terrible place anymore. I'm sorry.” 
  “Who’s that Mommy?” a little girl with blonde hair to match mine and mom’s hair with my hazel eyes, wearing a pink dress with her hair in matching pigtails. 
  “No one… Just go back with Daddy.” Mom says. 
  “Okay.” The little girl says. 
  “Why did you tell her?” I asked, feeling like I was going to cry, feeling unwanted. 
  “Because she and your father don’t even know you exist.” 
  “Why?”  
  Mom sighs and yells “Jack!!!!”  A tall man with dark hair and hazel eyes came up behind her and asked what she needed. 
  “We need to talk.” She says to him. 
  “What’s wrong? Who is this boy?” 
  “His name is Ace, he’s our son.” 
  “What do you mean?” the man who is my father asks.  
  “15 years ago, when I told you I was a France for the year… I was pregnant, and …” 
  “How could you do this to me?!” 
  Mom sighs and asks me to come in out of the cold and to sit in the living room, while they go in the kitchen. As soon as they enter the kitchen my father starts to yell at my mother. 
  “How could you?” 
  “I was scared, 17 and pregnant…what was I supposed to do? Neither of us was ready.” 
  “How do you know that?” 
  “I'm so sorry… I never wanted to hurt you, but he’s here now… we can’t just throw him out in the streets.” 
  “What. Like you did?” 
  “I did what I thought was best for him! I love him!” 
  “You don’t know him!” 
  “He’s out boy!” 
  “How do we know that?” 
  “Look at him!” 
  “How do I know that he’s mine?” After hearing a slapping sound, and  the front door slam shut I follow my mom, only to see her trying to wipe her eyes and cross the street. She wasn’t paying attention. The car is going at least 15 miles over the limit. I try to yell at her to get her to move out of the way as I run to her. She turns around and smiles at me, and starts walking towards me, but she doesn’t get out of the way soon enough. When the car hits her I can’t look. I close my eyes and let tears fall. 
  When my father comes outside he screams when he sees. He runs to her and tries to save her with CPR, but deep down, he knows it’s too late. He sits and cries on her limp body. I sit with him and cry silently. When he stops crying enough to talk, my father calls the ambulance to get her. As he is doing this the little girl comes outside. When she sees her mother she runs to our father and asked him why mommy was sleeping in the middle of the road, that it isn’t safe. When he gets off the phone, he explains to her that mommy has died.  
  When the ambulance gets our mother, the girl starts to cry on her father’s leg. 
  “W-w-what do I do now? I can’t go back to the Angle’s Corner… it’s too horrible.” I ask my father, hoping for him to say I can stay with him. 
  “You can’t stay with us. I just lost my wife, and Isabella just lost her mother. I can’t deal with another child.” 
  “You say that she little girl has lost a mother… well so have I !!!!” I scream the turn around and run as fast as I can away from what I just witnessed. I run until I can’t run anymore. I just want to disappear, to have never have existed.  
   
   
  It’s been a couple of days, I can’t believe what’s happened. I try to sleep so I can think it’s a bad dream, that if I sleep long enough, maybe I’ll wake up from the horrible nightmare that is my live. I stop at a little roadside diner. As soon as I step into the diner, the smell of fresh coffee and apple pie overwhelm me. I'm not here to eat I think to myself. I'm here to rest so I can leave. I sit at a booth in front of an old man about 60 or so he is reading a newspaper. As I sit down a waitress walks up to my table and sets a cup of hot coffee on it then says while popping her gum “It’s on the house.” 
  “Thank you.” I say to her. After sipping on the coffee I hear the waitress that gave me my coffee talking to another waitress “… it’s a shame really, the man kills himself after he wife died last week.  I read it in the paper… so sad.” 
  I do a mental double take. Then I get up and get a newspaper form the stand next to the front door. The head line reads “Man Preformed Suicide after Wife’s tragic Death” the article said he hung himself in his backyard and that he didn’t have any other family but my sister and mother… but he did, he had me I think to myself. It’s all too much to bear. 
   
  After reading the graphic details on my father’s death, I start to get dizzy, like u do when you stand up too quickly… only I  knew it wasn’t from standing up to quickly… it was from shock. I run out of the diner before I had a chance to cry right there in the booth. I run as fast as I could to the nearest park where I sat and cried until all I had left was little hiccups. As I sit there thinking…wondering what was going to happen to Isabella, was she going to Angle’s Corner?  Or another family member? As I try to come to a conclusion as to what I'm going to do, I decide I will never see Isabella again. I will leave her alone, she won’t remember me. 
  	As I walk to my mother’s grave I think about all the things I'm never going to have… that I never had. Before I can cry I pick up a red rose from a bush and set it on my mother’s grave. I hope she still loves me, I think to myself as I walk away forever. Never to return. 
   
   
   
   
   Publication Date: January 28th 2012 https://www.bookrix.com/-kurstin