TW//CW - This chapter will have descriptions of child/infant abandonment, mentions of sexual affairs/cheating, lying and allegations of kidnapping. Please proceed this chapter with caution if you so choose to continue reading on this warning. Please don’t proceed if you are easily triggered/extremely sensitive about the topics that will be covered and reach out for help to either a counsellor, therapist or respective hotlines/text lines in your area.
Again, please be responsible with your consumption and don’t read on if you're sensitive to the topics of child/infant abandonment, sexual affairs/cheating, lying and allegations of kidnapping. Thank you.
…If you look at everyone in my family - my mother, my father, and my brother, I look nothing like them. My father and Charlie have blond hair [before the whole zebra hair stuff going on], heterochromia that made his eyes not match each other and pale skin. My mother had reddish-brown hair like a fox, hazel eyes and medium skin. I, on the other hand, stuck out like a sore thumb; dark hair and eyes like the endless void and tan skin. We’re a chaotic bunch, a messy melting pot of looks but… I like it. But, obviously from a young age, I noticed how much I stuck out. So I kinda questioned my place in my family. I think I was about… I think I was five years old, when Charlie sat me down and told me my whole ass backstory when I asked him why I looked really different from the rest of them. Guess I should start at like… the very start like how my brother did if my therapist is going to read these journal entries when I go to my next appointment. SO-
My bio ma and pa ditched me in a park in this town when I was just a couple hours old and Charlie was on his way home from one of his friend’s house. The bus stop that’s near our childhood home was near the park where I was dumped. Charlie took me home and the rest was history. I was fostered by them till I was finally able to be adopted after a real lengthy court case with my bio parents.
Do I give a shit that I don’t actually don’t know my bio parents? No. I don’t. From what Charlie told me about how they acted in the court, they just straight up lied about dumping me, said I was kidnapped but my family, a whole police case broke out, my family had alibis for the time frame along with testimonies, my bio parents continued to lie till the court dug up the park CCTV footage and boom. Bio parents go bye-bye, and my family finally got to adopt me. Oh, to add on to the bio parent’s shittiness, when my family got the birth certificate, they found out that my biological family didn’t bother to name me.
Now, do I forgive them for what they did to me? No. I don’t. And I have the right to not forgive them. I don’t give a shit about their reasoning behind it. Maybe I was a mistake, or a result of an affair, or they couldn’t raise me, or they just didn’t give an actual shit about me. They left me to rot, in the middle of one of the cold nights of Winter, 2004. I was only a couple hours old for fuck sake, not even in a blanket or coat. Just layed on those metal slides, under the flurries… heh, that’s how Charlie described it to me… It was flurrying when he found me and it felt like he was supposed to find me, as if his wishes of having a younger sibling. It sounded really magical when he spoke about it… he still smiled and his eyes water when he talks about it still. Heh, I remember how he told me that he begged our parents to keep me… he was really determined to have me as his sibling at the end of the day. It’s kinda cute… cringe, Charlie. That’s so cringe, ha ha.
But still… I have to care for my biological parents, I don’t care what they’re doing now, and I don’t care if they want to reach out to me. All I hope for is that they aren’t going to have any more kids to leave to rot like me. They disgust me to the core.
I guess the only thing that came out of this whole situation of being left to rot was that I was lucky with this family… Thanks to my birth certificate and the whole court case, I at least have closure with my race which is Asian… more accurately, Filipino. And out of the million things that have gone wrong, at least I scored with this family, they’re a melting pot of nationalities. My ma is half Filipina and half Spanish, my pa is the one that makes this a whole melting pot - pretty sure he’s got like, the whole world in him, Mr. World wide if you will. Same goes for my brother although he leads more to his pinoy roots, but my father does that as well. So I grew up close to my culture at least, I know a couple words but I would always butcher them with how much a slur up my words sometimes.
I’m just really grateful for Charlie finding me that night and that my family took me in. I may stick out like a sore thumb out of them but it’s night… we’re just one big messy family, in a good way tho. In a good way… The best way even.
Anyway, that’s enough of my memory section of my journal entry, now on to my recap of my day today… okay. So I wok
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Light poured into my bunk as my privacy curtain was yanked open, making me hiss as I squinted my eyes at the sudden brightness. “My eyes! What the fuck?!” I felt my headphones get pulled off and put around my neck.
“Cee, Cee!” A familiar voice exclaimed, “I’ve been calling you down for the past 5 minutes to eat, I got take out for us.”
I blinked a couple times, my eyes getting adjusted to the sudden light change. As my eyes focused slowly, I saw the familiar blond and black streaked hair.
“Char-bear!” I said with a slight gasp, pulling into a hug by wrapping my arms around his neck.
“You once again didn't tell me you were coming.” I felt Charlie’s arms wrap around my upper torso, feeling the mattress sink as he knelt on it so we were the same level as we embraced.
“I know but it was last minute. Tim offered to drive me back to town since he needed to pick up some spare drum sticks from his music room at home… Besides, I wanted to surprise you” Charlie spoke softly, pulling away from the hug and putting a gentle hand on my arm comfortingly, “I mean… It was a good surprise, right?”
I nodded reassuringly, “Mmm… it was a good surprise…”
“Come on, you didn’t eat dinner yet, right?” Charlie asked, getting off my bunk.
“No, I haven’t… what food did you get?” I questioned him without looking, focusing more on cleaning up my stationary from journaling.
“There’s a new Korean place in town so I decided to check them out. Food smells pretty good. Got some spicy food too for us.”
“Nice, I’ll be down in a second.”
Charlie walked out of the room, leaving the door open for me as the floor creaked with each step he took. I got out of my bunk and followed close behind him.
“Cee-cee?” Charlie said, looking up at me at the bottom of the staircase as I made my way down.
I hummed in response, “What’s up?”
“What have I always told you about writing in the dark?”
“It’s bad for my eyes…?”
“And what were you doing?”
“...Writing in the dark…”
“Exactly.” Charlie said with a huff, putting his arm around my shoulder and guiding me down the entrance hall to the open space of our living room on one half and the dining set up on the other. “I gotta get you one of those reading light I have for myself one time. You’ll need glasses if you keep writing in your journal like that. Straining your eyes. You’re already partly blind, we don’t need you having any other problems.”
“God, you sound like ma and pa when you scold me like that.”
“Yeah, and I’ll keep sounding like that because I’m the kuya here and your legal guardian. I need to look out for you or else I will get the tsinelas from ma.”
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…and finally, I had dinner with my brother before he left. Safe to say… today was a good day… Charlie has always found strange ways to come back when I need him the most or just thinking about him… family is weird like that. [Journal entry - 10/10/2020]
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