Paula's rage

The thing about system kids it isn't like a prison sentence. A prison sentence tells you how much time you have left . The system they take you as they see fit and there is nothing you can do about it. My mom has been playing house with Darwin and his spoiled ungrateful brat of a daughter. While we were being raised by other people and being taught life lessons she was at home being mom to another child besides her own.She would bring her happy new family up to the group home to see us as she was still standoffish . Melina would do her bare minimum as her mom who gave birth to her being a mother to another while her own kids were in the system didn't settle right with her.I never understood how she was allowed around kids when she was convicted of a sex offender charge along with my dad for keeping him away from the law. I started to see my mom's priorities were all messed up as she was always choosing everything and everyone else over her own children. Like we were the bane of her very existence. No one told her to be a mom. In fact it don't take two brain cells to get pregnant. But the fact she did it four times consecutively should have been a clear indicator she wasn't right upstairs and her motives best suit her.The system made her go to glasses in order to practice tough live and her being my mom the idea of following any type of rules was her breaking point. She didn't like be told how to act. How to think. How to respond to her adolescent children because that was what we all were adolescents. She was drilled in being a responsible mother and I suppose the weight of doing right broke her spirit and drove her absolutely insane. This version of my mom was not the mom I knew. She was more calculating and knew how to look like she was playing by the rules but in truth she didn't want us back and I could feel it deep within. I could feel it how she played house with another forgetting she had four kids of her own to claim as we spent years in a strangers hands. Being raised by strangers who were paid to make sure they got paid for keeping us alive .Her mother came to visit her a few times even brought her some roller blades as she had a love of skating and when Melina asked her mother to skate with her she realized her mother had no idea how to skate. Melina had tried to reach her mother on more than one occasion to be a mother she needed. She knew her mother was selfish and wasn't even bothered by her kids being taking away from her the second time. I'm sure she thought it was a great relief knowing she could go where she wanted and do what she wanted without the nagging concerns of children constantly under her.Her new boyfriends daughter was basically raised by his mother and when he was was a child he was raised by his grandmother. It was like a family tradition that the grandparents raised the kids instead of the actual parents so I suppose two people running away from parental responsibilities was perfect for each other. A match made in neglectful hell.When Melina saw her mom show up with her family she wanted to be she would say a few words and disappear to go skate as she avoided how Paula allowed her mother to play this role not realizing the hurt of us two being here and she is playing house with her boyfriend and his daughter. Melina knew when her mother's visitation increased it meant something had changed in the case against her mother and it was a matter of time before she was forced to return home with her knowing the kind of mother she truly was.Melina was skating on Day as she hit a rock as she rolled and scaped down many yards of concrete as she managed to hit everything on her body with the results of from her shins to her knees on both legs . Her elbows down to her wrist on both arms and half side of her left of her face and neck was all skinned up with a fleshy red meat exposed and very painful.This disfigurations was not as painful as her mother sitting on the porch with her new family as she ignored her daughters fall . The pain was bearable compared to the utter rejection Melina saw as he mother left her at the group home not even caring she just got badly hurt at all. She got to go in her car and leave . While Melina had to stay and watch her mother drive away.This physical pain didn't even bother her as Melina had became numb to any type of trauma that inflicted her body . Once again she was not taken to the hospital to cure her as the house parents her said all it needed was some air to heal it as Melina knew better than that as she knew she could hear herself with water. She went to the bathtub as she placed salt in the hot water knowing the pain would only hurt for a moment as she began to was off her scrapes she had as she washed and prayed in the water to heal her scars and heal her body .She could feel the water and the salt seep in her blood as the scars in front of her began to dry up to where only half of the scrapes remained to be healed. She knew she couldn't heal herself all at once because she was already tired from the small amount she had healed . Then she remembered the reason for her tripping over the rocks was because Scarlett was riding her bike in front of the path as Melina skates waiting for Paula to be free to play with her.Melina sort of felt bad for Scarlett that she had never seen the girl receive one visitor since she arrived at the first home and even her dog she arrived with was also removed from her care as she could t keep it . The only animals we were allowed if it came from house parents litter . We weren't in the habit of picking up strays .Melina remembered something her hunter had said as she thought of Scarlett as she thought of her scars that took three days to heal completely like nothing had happened an only one scar on her left knee remained in a soft bubble of a reminder of her hurts . Melina saw scarlet after she had healed herself and she saw scarlet had her scar on her face and on her arms in the same place Melina had them.It took almost twice as long for Scarlett to heal her scars from the crash she caused Melina as she didn't remember scarlet falling just her. She realized she had healed herself by transferring all her scars to Scarlett . She smiled at some form of satisfaction as she didn't mean to transfer it to her but what was done was done.

Paula had also seen my mother come and go with her new family as she all pretended like she was fine with it as she pretended she like my mom's new boyfriend and his daughter but as soon as she went home the two weeks between visits was the aftermath of Paula's true feeling about the situation. Paula became friends with an older girl that lived in the hunt house where Scarlett lived and she was tall and leggy blonde girl named Cassie . Cassie and Paula was inseperateable . Where one was the other was. She was still friends with scarlet and even got her in the cheerleading squad with her . Because I was held back two grades scarlet was a grade ahead of me . Her and Jim started dating and he quickly broke up with her when he realized she was a tormented little soul. When Paula and Cassie were together it was bad news. During this time there was a complications with our house parents because of one of the girls decided to try to sleep with the son of the house parents . The rule with the children of the house parents were that we were not allowed to play or associate with their children. We were not allowed to be in their apartment alone with their children without supervision. We were not allowed to fight with their children. If any of these rules were violated the house parents were removed and the girls would be placed in another home until replacement parents were arranged. Paula and Cassie and I was placed in the hunt home as unfortunately I was roomed with Scarlett. Scarlett thought she would take advantage of the opportunity to try to set her foot down with me and she was sadly mistakened when I threw her around the room. Then she tried to be nice to me and try to dress me for school and it was a temporary solution to her hate towards me. But I took it in store and accepted the white flag of a truce. The hunt house had a very tempermental house parents. The dad was as dumb as rocks as he really didn't have any say in the daily life things as he worked outside of the house in construction as his wife handled the house as a stay at home wife and foster mom. Sheila had a mighty temper . It didn't take her much to tick her off . Something as small as spoiled milk or expired can foods pretty much was the limits to her temper. Simple things that was actually no big deal and easily remedied was a temper flare. She yelled and screamed one minute and then was all girly and fun singing karaoke in her apartment the next minute. You could say she was nice is she liked you and the damn devil if she didn't like you. Paula she did not like at all. I knew better than to try her as I knew this was the house I was stuck in until I was assigned new house parents to return to the Bailey home. These people really wasn't down with the religious side of things either as they went to the assigned church but as soon as we came home there was not a single discussion of a religious path in our daily lives not like the Bailey home where if you messed up the bible verses and a piece of paper was our benediction to our salvation. There would be entire nights of writing entire books of assigned Bible verses until our hand hurt since spanking wasn't allowed at this group home . So we were religiously reminded the devotion of got by sore hands and memorized bible verse. Paula and Shirley didn't get along because of their similar tempers. There was a girl there that lived in the house that was a year older than my sister that wore skirts too short that had a big butt and she was short too like my sister. The two girls didn't see eye to eye and often picked at each other . I remember one incident where the girl stopped me when we lived in the Bailey home before we had to be relocated where I was told to tell my sister Paula that " if you can bleed then you can breed." As it was a subliminal attack calling my sister a lose ways and commenting on my sisters history with the boys at school as she was not a good girl and she did things with boys. This set a fire under Paula hearing her little sister being told to relay this message to her as Melina didn't understand the words as Paula didn't like being called a loose girl by a big butt girl. When we moved to the hunt house within the first week she jumped this girl and when the mom Shirley tried to reprend Paula and she became disrespectful to her over a fight that wasn't her business. She told Paula she had to be placed elsewhere if she could follow her rules for the house and when she tried to remove Paula from the home Cassie and Paula jumped Shirley the house mom . Police was called and Paula was removed from the home and it was an entire ordeal as Paula and Cassie took off before the police came to file a report. They ran away from the group home for two days before the police found the runaways and brought them back. Cassie was placed in another home and Paula was placed in the Newman home where the parents were stricter and had low tolerance for mean girls. I was left in the hunt home utterly alone seperated from Paula because she wasn't allowed near Shirley since she put an order on her not to come near her at all. Paula was mad she couldn't put hands on other adults as they didn't understand that this was the type of behavior my biological mother taught us how to handle conflict. My mother did not sit us down and talked to us gently she yelled and pushed us until we lost our tempers and a full blown fist fight between a child and a mother was all over the house. They didn't understand that Paula's reasoning of her not seeing what she did was wrong was rooted by my mother and her temper towards us when we were home. Paula didn't see it was wrong because her and my mother would often fight each other then laugh about it later like nothing happened. Such behavior was encouraged in our home. When Paula was punished for it she felt like she was wronged and ran away and decided all house parents were against her. Paula was pretty messed up what was considered a working functional relationship between children and parents. So in Paula's eyes she was frustrated she was being punished for beating up another girl in the group home and the first time someone tried to show the consequences of her actions and try to punish her like the bad child she was she retaliated her frustration of her being sent away from Cassie that instead of looking at the pigger picture of them being able to see each other still but in seperate houses she decided to fight her way out. A few days passed and Everytime her and Cassie couldn't be together they would cause strife and trouble with the houses they were placed in . This kept going on until Cassie finally was allowed to go home without Paula . Melina knew watching her best friend be able to leave without her and she was still stuck her would make her act out as she tried to run away with Cassie as she was caught before she could execute her plans. When we finally was assigned new house parents Paula was angry and bitter and hated the world and everything in the world.