• No one could believe it was me. No one would think I could do the horrible things I did. I killed a man, but I never thought the consequences would be like this.

    The judge looked too old and brittle-bone to lift his gavel yet somehow he did. Innocence. In other words, the law system failed me again.

    When I was only 8, I was put into a foster home. My parents were killed in a house fire. The police ruled it an accident. They said i was in shock. I was only 8, my imagination was getting the better of me. They never even looked for the man I saw strike the match; the man who I watched run from my burning house; the man who killed my family and ruined my life.

    When I was 9 I moved to a foster home in northern California. It was there that I met Dylan. It's also where my innocence was taken from me. My foster mom was a beautiful woman. She was tall with a slender figure and golden blonde hair. Her beauty went unnoticed by her husband. Every night, he would come into the girls' room. There were 5 of us. I wasnt the first one he raped, but I was the last.

    Dylan was well behaved yet received beatings on a daily basis, if not from our parents, then from the other children. Dylan was my only friend when I lived in that house, and I was his. We were close because we were different. When the other kids went outside to play noisy, immature games with the neighborhood games, we stayed in and played cards. When all the other kids came home from school dirty from playing with friends, I was clean with my hair pinned perfectly in place and my uniform spotless. Dylan graduated when he was 15 but from the way his bed was always made, his shoes were neatly tucked under his bed, and his clothes were always folded and put away, I imagine he would be the same at school.

    We didnt care what the other children thought. "I only have 2 more years in this place, after that ill be gone and wont have to speak to any of the ignorant people from this house." He told me this when I walked in on a beating from our "dad" one day. What he didnt seem to realize is I was only 9 and by the time I turn 18 it would be too late.