Chapter Text
August 28th, 1990
Evan Buckley has been walking around the streets of Florida for a while his feet hurt and his arm hurts and he’s tired and just wants to go home but he can’t all he has to hope for is that his parents will come back for him except he doesn’t think they will, so he wanders the streets cold and tired.
“Mommy! Mommy! Where are you?!” Evan cries out to anyone who is listening. He decides that he’s done walking, and he can't do it anymore for the night, so he lays down in an alleyway on a trash bag even though it’s really smelly and goes to sleep. “Happy birthday me,” he says soo softly that nobody would listen even if someone was around. He cries as he looks at the stuffed puppy he’s holding and cries into it tears dropping and landing on the puppy's face and it still smells like his sister the raspberry scented lotion he always loved. She gave it to him as an early birthday gift and now it’s the only thing he has to remind himself of his parents who don’t love him and a brother and sister who will forget about him.
August 29th, 1990
He wakes up groggy, wondering why he’s not in a cozy hotel room, snuggled next to his mom and dad. He remembers and starts to cry again thinking of the worst birthday in the history of birthdays he’s ever had. He also notices people walking by but never notices the young boy just like his parents didn’t and he just sits there cuddling his puppy and crying. At some point, he goes back to sleep because he’s exhausted from all the crying and wakes up pretty quickly when he hears loud noises. Startled, he gets up and notices there’s construction nearby and the guys are breaking stuff and Evan has never seen something so awesome. He starts running towards the construction site when he runs straight into a lady holding a really big purse. “Oh, I’m sorry!” he apologizes profusely to the lady as he helps her pick up her stuff from her purse. The nice lady chuckles and helps the young boy.
“It’s ok little one, you didn’t mean t-” She pauses looking at the boy and taking in his physical features. He’s dirty all over like he hasn’t showered in a week, he’s bruised on his face and right arm from God only knows where, and he’s wearing a Spider-Man t-shirt, clutching tightly to a dirty stuffed animal, and swimming trunks…?
“Are you ok ma’am… you’re staring at me. Did I do someting wrong?” Evan asks, cringing when he messed up the word and standing up and hiding away thinking he’s going to get hit but she’s not doing anything, and he’s already picked up all her stuff. He starts to walk away forgetting where he was going in a rush when she puts a hand on his shoulder to gently stop him from going any further. He flinches.
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong and I’m not going to hurt you. Where are your parents?” She wonders continuing to stare at the boy. “Ok, um I don’t know where my parents are, they left me.” He says so quietly she barely hears him but it’s enough to make her blood boil at whoever his parents are because they don’t deserve this sweet sad boy. “They left you. How…How long have you been out here?” She asks cautiously, trying not to startle the young boy in front of her. “Yeah, they left me. We were celebrating my birthday yesterday and I saw the beach for the first time. It was beautiful. Do you like the beach, Miss lady? We were driving to our hotel for the night, and I was asleep on my mommy’s lap, and she told my daddy some things, but I didn’t hear very well and then daddy slowed the car down and mommy opened her door while we were driving and threw me out. I landed on the gravel and grass that’s why I’m soooo dirty and I slept on a trash bag so I probably don’t smell that great mommy would be soo mad if she saw me like this, but she probably wouldn’t care now though.” He said the last part barely above a whisper, starting to cry again.
“Oh, baby you poor thing I’m so sorry your mommy did that to you. Well good news is you get to come spend some time with me and get cleaned up and not sleep on any yucky trash bags tonight” Evan smiled at that, and she continued “And I’m sure you're really hungry…” She sing-songs the last part and he gives her the biggest grin and then as soon as it was there it was gone.
“Mommy said I wasn’t supposed to go with strangers.”
“That’s a very good thing to keep in mind but I help kids just like you, I’m a social worker and I run a group home not too far from here. Do you know what a social worker does? And as for my name you can call me Miss Charlotte.”
“Hi Miss Charlotte, my name is Evan and no I don’t know what a social worker does, but you said you help kids, so I trust you and I’m really hungry Miss Charlotte.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you Evan and a social worker is exactly what I said. I help kids find better homes because their homes aren’t safe anymore and even though to me it doesn’t sound like you live here you will live here for a while because this is where your mommy left you.” Now that she’s put it all out there Evan starts to cry again, and she instantly brings him in for a hug holding the boy in her arms in the middle of the sidewalk as he cries. Later after he’s done crying, she asks him if she can pick him up and take him to her car to get him cleaned up a little and he only nods and holds tight to that stinky puppy.
Evan decides to go with Miss Charlotte to her car where she cleans up the wounds on his arm and cleans his face a little bit. She tells him he can take a bath when he gets to her house where she told him she watches other kids there until they can find homes just like Evan now which makes him sad to think about but happy that maybe someone will love him like Miss Charlotte says he’s supposed to be loved.
They stop for something to eat for Evan and Miss Charlotte picks Mcdonalds which Evan says he’s never had before but is very excited. Miss Charlotte orders him a happy meal and he takes it gratefully eating everything in there I guess Miss Charlotte was right he is really hungry.
Twenty minutes later they get to a big three-story house that kind of looks scary, and he makes sure to tell Miss Charlotte that when she parks the car. “Miss Charlotte, this house looks scary, are you sure we're at the right place?” She chuckles from the front seat and answers the sweet boy.
“Yes, we're at the right place. I live here. I should know, don't you think Evan?” She gives him a smirk as she grabs her bag and gets out of the car.
“I guess you're right.” He grabs his puppy, unbuckles his seatbelt and hops out of the car where Miss Charlotte is waiting for him by his door. He takes her hand when he gets out and she leads them to the top of the front porch stairs. Evan takes in the house. The stairs lead to this big white door and there's a lot of toys and chairs scattered around the porch. When they first pulled in, he saw a whole bunch of windows and a roof with two chimmy's. It was a big brown house; he also saw a little bit of the backyard where it looked like there was a playground, but he couldn’t see too much because there was a super tall fence. The house kind of looked like a pancake and Evan couldn’t imagine how he was supposed to live here with so many other kids but here he goes anyway. When he walks in with Miss Charlotte, she starts calling out all the kids to meet in the living room. When they get to the living area it’s huge and everything about this house is huge. I mean when Evan first walked in, he was greeted with staircases on each side.
He stands next to Miss Charlotte as kids of all ages start walking in from all sides of the house. The big kids come from the front where they walked in from. Kids Evan’s age and older come from the back door and other rooms in the house all to gather in the living area. Evan can’t even count on his two hands how many kids there are and that’s really scary to think about cause he didn’t know there were going to be this many and as everyone is gathered in some sitting at the chairs and couches while other ones are standing up and leaning against the doorframe while others are sitting on the floor but he thinks there all here and all staring at him.
“Everyone quiet down! This is Evan and he’s going to be staying with us for a while and we want to make him feel welcomed. Right, everyone?” She asks the big group Evan’s grip on her hand getting tighter. “Yes Miss Charlotte” they all respond by asking questions on why he’s dirty.
She ignores the questions for now not wanting to overwhelm Evan and continues on. “Great now,” She searches through the crowd of people until she finds who she’s looking for and it’s another little boy around Evan’s age. “Tyler come up front please.” She asks the boy known only as Tyler and he gets up and approaches them.
“Yes Miss Charlotte?” Tyler asks, looking at Evan and then back at Miss Charlotte.
“I need you to grab some clean clothes for Evan for the day. He looks to be about your size and it’s only for today and then I’ll have one of the girls go to the donation bin and get some clothes of his own.” Miss Charlotte orders the boy while the older girls in question nod in understanding and he disappears for a bit before he comes back bringing some clothes for Evan to wear.
“Here you go Evan, I didn’t know what you liked but I saw your Spider-Man shirt and thought you liked superheroes so here…” Tyler handed Evan a Batman shirt and some shorts, socks and underwear.
“Thank you, Tyler. I like all kinds of superheroes.” Evan says as his face gets brighter with that smile Miss Charlotte knows is genuine.
Miss Charlotte talks to the kids more, giving them their chores for the day and sending them off except Evan. She takes Evan to the bathroom so he can get cleaned and offers to clean his puppy when Evan violently shakes his head, she knows that it’s really special to him so instead of putting it in the washer she takes a washcloth and wipes it clean even if it’s just a little bit cleaner it’s better than nothing.
Evan is squeaky clean and changed into the clothes Tyler gave him and he immediately notices the shorts are a little too big but at least him and Spot are clean. (that’s the puppy’s name spot, his sister helped him pick it out) Once he’s clean he follows Miss Charlotte to her office where he tells her everything about him leading up to him being tossed out and as he’s talking, he notices she’s writing everything down, but he doesn’t know why but it probably has something to do with her being a social worker. Once he’s done, she looks very sad with his story but then calls Tyler in again and Tyler is instructed to show Evan his room which is actually a bunk room with several other bunks and his bunk is by Tyler’s. He also had to walk upstairs to the second floor which is apparently according to Tyler where the kids from ages 5-12 live on this floor while the preteens and teenagers live on the third floor. He also learned that when Evan is more settled, he has to do chores but that’s ok because the littler kids according to Tyler don’t do that many chores unlike the older kids who do some of the harder chores.
On the way to their room Evan and Tyler talk and he learns a little bit about Tyler and Tyler learns a little bit about Evan and they decide that day forward that they're going to be best friends forever and Evan is just happy he made his first friend ever and he thinks it’s not going to be bad here.
Evan wants to be happy but right now all he can think about is his family even though they probably don’t care about him or thought about him since he was thrown out.
Oh well at least he has a friend.
Things can only get better.
Right?