The Story of Janine, Part 2.

Attempts at fostering Janine were a disaster, and she learned very quickly not to get attached to anything…or anyone. She insisted it was always the same reason; her pseudo-sister, better loved than she, simply would not leave her be. Janine told them she was being followed, by this girl that none of the social workers could see. They determined it was her imaginary friend that she was talking about, and tried to juggle being dismissive and being supportive.

She was thirteen when she was, at last, adopted for good. Eight years of being shuffled around from family to family had left her with a broken education and even less patience. She was a terrible student, wary and antisocial, perpetually afraid of abandonment. Her adoptive parents – a solid couple, two women who had been married for five years – paid for weekly visits to a child therapist and did all they could to ease the transition, but the damage of her childhood couldn’t be so easily soothed.

As a teenager, she was flighty, masking caution and fear with flirtatiousness and avoidance. It was difficult, telling her to do anything, for she was also stubbornly independent. She often went through bouts of declaring she didn’t need parents, and that she was more than capable of taking care of herself. Janine lashed out, at times, and always regretted it.

She started dating in tenth grade. It was never serious, and she gained an unsavory reputation (for which she couldn’t care less about); boys lasted about a week, before she was through with them.

Janine rarely did much of anything, with them. She was simply…wary, of letting them get too close.

In her last year of high school, it was as though something clicked. A sense of safety, perhaps. Her mothers sat down with her, and told her that no matter what she wanted to do after high school, she had their support. They showed her how much they’d saved, for her college fund – if that was what she wanted to do. She could use it however she pleased, whether it was to travel the world, invest in higher education, buy a car. Janine cried and hugged them both, and told them about her fears.

She was scared of committing to any decision. College was daunting; she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life, and the idea of choosing a field of study, only to find out that it wasn’t what she’d wanted… It seemed a terrible waste.

They told her she could take as much time as she needed, and that put her fears to rest at last.

Janine spent two years living at home, getting work experience in a variety of places before applying to college, two cities away. She wanted to study business, she’d decided. She wanted to feel in control, independent, and commit herself to something she created, instead of dedicating her life to serving someone else’s dream. It was a long term goal, she knew, but for the first time…she felt secure in what she wanted. Her mothers helped her move in, made her promise she’d contact them at least once a week, and then…she was on her own.