Besides Heather’s failed attempts at having another child, Ella heard the truth to a question that had been nagging at her from day one. Why Ella? The answer had been so simple she wanted to slap herself. It was Ella, or it was nothing.

The wait to adopt an infant was years. Ella didn’t know if Heather just had the world’s worst luck, or the stars were just aligning themselves in a way to keep Heather from having a baby at any and all cost, but every match had seemed to fall through at the last minute. Whether it was the agency deciding another family was a better fit after months of planning, or a mother deciding, after holding her newborn baby, to not give it up for adoption afterall. It was one disappointment after another.

Heather’s plan had then been to foster a baby instead, that was until she learned it was not a permanent placement. The thought of getting attached, and then having to say good-bye quickly put a stop to that idea. She had almost given up on the idea of raising any more kids when she had come across a picture online of an adorable, albeit sickly, looking five or six year old girl sitting alone in the hospital. A phone call later revealed that Ella hadn’t been a kindergartener at all, but nearly a ten year old!

Heather wasn’t looking to take in an older child, she already had one teenager and that was enough. She was about to turn her down, but the woman on the phone kept insisting she come down and meet her. “She is just the sweetest thing! She’s just so quiet and shy!”

The first trip, Heather had driven down by herself. She was shocked by what she saw. She was so tiny! Were they sure she was really ten? If she hadn’t been led in by Rose, she would have assumed she had walked into the wrong room.

“She’s had a hard life.” Rose had told her after their visit. “Her mother died in the middle of her treatments and she’s been alone ever since. Now that she’s in remission, we’ve done all we can for her. What she really needs now is a family.”

That had been the first time Ella had learned the truth. Ella hadn’t been chosen over all the other kids. She was the only kid. A part of her felt like she should feel hurt, but deep down she had known it to be the truth all along. She really had been the last doll, broken and alone, sitting on an otherwise empty toy shelf.

Another thing Ella had learned was the true motivation behind the sudden push of getting rid of her bucket. It wasn’t that Heather thought Ella was ready, it was that Danielle was still pissed and Susan had seemed to have taken her side. According to Susan, Danielle had every right to be upset. Not only had she lost her room, but she had been expected to put up with the sight and smell of someone using her space as a restroom. The bucket had to be moved. Instead of moving it, Heather had taken it upon herself to wean Ella off of it. This had been met with a scolding both Ella and Danielle had secretly relished.

The only people Ella fully opened up with were Jasmine and Kaylee. If Ella had known everything she shared was being put in her file and sent to Heather, Ella may not have trusted her so much. As for Kaylee, It had taken time, but she had opened up about why she was so upset. It had apparently not been the first time parents had tried to separate her from their children. Adults seemed to see her as an infectious disease there to ruin their babies innocence. Kaylee had pointed out that the kids in question, whose parents worried for their innocence, had never been all that innocent to begin with. They had just seen her as a scapegoat.

The girls had quickly made up, and soon the two were connected at the hip. Kaylee had always lent her an ear, or in Ella’s case eyes, when Ella needed to vent her frustrations, whether it be schoolwork, homelife, or Brian’s ever growing taunts at her. If there was one drawback to befriending Kaylee, it was it that it had put her on Brian’s radar.

“Worth it.” Ella had said one afternoon when Kaylee had apologized for the upteenth time for drawing a target on her back. If there was one thing Kaylee seemed to do more than tic, it was to apologize. It hadn’t taken long at all for Ella to notice Kaylee wasn’t nearly as confident as she had pretended to be on day one. By day three, she was certain that her story about making money by purposefully shouting obscenities at Mrs. Garcia had been nothing but a lie. Kaylee shrank at the woman’s mere presence, and the times she did shout, her words were accompanied by such complex movements, Ella had a hard time believing those had been purposeful.

After prodding her day after day, Kaylee finally cracked and the truth had come out. She had never faked her tics, not even once. The rumor had been spread by none other than Brian.

“From what I heard, he had been caught reaching into my desk.” Kaylee explained. “I always had my lunch money in it. He got caught trying to steal, but he said he wasn’t taking money, he was giving it to me as payment for calling Mrs. Garcia a-well, I don’t remember the actual thing, but they started getting suspicious as to why I always had money.”

Don’t you always buy stuff from the vending machines here though? Ella had asked.

“Yeah, but apparently they never noticed before. I have this thing called echo-lala, or echo-something, it makes me repeat what I hear. Brian told the other kids that if they repeated stuff a bunch of times, I’d say it too. They started making a game out of it. They’d follow me around repeating crude things over and over until I ticced it. It got to the point when I’d get stressed, out they would come, and well, Mrs. Garcia stresses me out.” Kaylee said with a shrug of her shoulders. “She’d walk by, and my brain would decide, ‘now would be the perfect time to hit the playback button’.”

Didn’t you tell anyone?

“I didn’t understand that I couldn’t control it at the time. It was still kind of new to me then. I didn’t used to be like this a few years ago.”

Me neither. What happened?

“I don’t really know. I don’t remember being like this back in Texas.” Kaylee explained as they sat on a pair of open swings and gently rocked back and forth. “We moved here, I went to a new school, and then a couple weeks in… I don’t know. It felt like something was inside me trying to get out. I had to move. I had to yell. If I didn’t it would just keep getting worse until I thought I was gonna blow up or something. It started with movements, then noises, and then I was yelling whole words and phrases out of the blue! I started yelling words I had never said in my life! I must have spent a whole month grounded and in detention before we finally figured it out.”

Were you scared?

“A little bit. I think I was more angry since no one believed me.”

How did you end up here?

“I got kicked out of my old school. I kind of… kicked a guy in the nuts for picking on me. Worth every bit of trouble I got into for that.” They both giggled at that. “What about you? Who was that guy you drew in your book and why were they freaking out about it?”

It’s just a dream.

“Must be one scary dream to make you scream like that.” Ella cocked her head to the side in confusion. “On your first day, you fell asleep and started screaming, ‘MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY!’ We were surprised because they said you didn’t talk.”

I do sometimes, it’s just hard. Heather makes me talk at home. It’s just faster if I write it.

“Who is Heather?”

My foster mom. She’s kind of like a mom, but…

“Wouldn’t calling her mom be easier than Heather? Like at home since she makes you talk. If you needed to get her attention.”

Ella shook her head. She’s not my mom.