Hell's Future Princess

Chapter 2.1

*Shae PoV*

It was happening again. I sat in my therapist's office, staring out the window next to the door with wide eyes. The male receptionist who covered for the usual girl whenever she was off was talking on the phone. Don't get me wrong, he was a handsome man with a strong jaw, full lips, and an oval face complemented with sapphire eyes that brought them all to life.

He swept his chestnut hair off his forehead, hung up the phone, and met my eyes. He smiled softly and waved before motioning that I should be paying attention to the therapist behind the desk. Instead, my eyes were on the black, large, talon-tipped wings folded on his back.

My foster mother was talking to my therapist, but it was all background noise at this point as I swallowed nervously. I had seen things like this ever since I could remember, random people on the streets with two different kinds of wings: white feathered wings or the leather talon-tipped wings like my therapist's stand-in receptionist.

When I was a child, I would stare and stare at these people, and I'd always get mixed reactions. The ones with the feathers would sneer at me, looking disgusted before trying to put as much distance between me and them as they could. Then, the ones with the leather wings were always so nice to me. They would smile and talk to me, patting me on the head and even sometimes giving me snacks.

As a child, I thought it was normal. Then, I started talking about it to my different foster siblings. I was apparently the only one who could see these things, and my claims perturbed the ones I lived with. I would point to the different people with wings and loudly say, “Look, look! That guy has feathery wings! You can't tell me you don't see them!” The person in question would glare back at me in shock. Then, when they noticed no one believed me, they walked away hastily. Their reactions made me think it was real, but everyone told me it was my imagination. I was seeing things.

I started going to therapists as a young child because of it, and I was placed on multiple medications. I was also diagnosed with ADHD and an overactive imagination so powerful that they considered it to be a “fantasy-prone personality” disorder. This was due to how strongly I believed in the things I saw. But the images never went away. So, I did the next best thing I could think of: pretend I didn't see anything. If I could manage this, the others would stop making fun of me.

It stopped the laughter, but they still thought something was wrong with me. That was when the jumping from foster home to foster home began. A new family would take me in, I'd be there for a while before they realized something was abnormal with me, and then I would be placed in a different home. I never did anything bad, I was always a good kid. I did what was asked of me, going far and beyond to ensure I was the best I could be.

My mother died when she gave birth to me, and no one knew who my father was. The hospital couldn't find any living relatives, so, I was put into the system. And, like any child in the system, I just wanted a family to love me.

Nothing I had ever done was good enough. I did all my chores without being asked and then did extra work. I went to school without complaint, and my grades were always perfect. I was a model child, but it was to no avail. I was tossed from home to home.

When I was 10, I was with a family that sent me to a private Christian school, and there I found God. I was enthralled with the idea of a higher being and walking into the gates of Heaven. If I lived a good, clean life, went to church every Sunday, and worshiped Him with every ounce of my being, I could be allowed into eternal paradise once I died. Perhaps I could find my mother, or even my father, there. I considered myself to be saved. God soon became my life.

I insisted on going to church every week, no matter what family I was with. Some were happy with this idea and would accompany me, whilst others would tell me to find my own way to and from if I wanted to go. I always made it, and I never missed a single service. I was a good little Christian girl with perfect grades and an ideal demeanor. So why did no one love me?

I snapped one day. My current family had called me into the living room to tell me that my foster mother, who had previously been told she couldn't have children, was now pregnant. But the excited-to-be-parents only had one extra bedroom: mind, and they needed it for the baby. So, the couple that had kept me for 2 years, longer than any others, were giving me a 9-month eviction notice. I was told they were going to find a great home for me because I was a good kid, but they would just not be able to have me around the baby when it was born.

I trashed my bedroom as I screamed and cried. They were supposed to adopt me and call me 'daughter'. For the first time in 15 years, I felt loved. And now they were dropping me like I never meant anything, just because they finally had their own child. I didn't blame the baby. I wanted to be so happy for them, but it made me realize how worthless I really was.

Because of the breakdown, and the cuts that now lined my arms from the shattered glass of my mirror, my soon-to-be ex-foster mother set me up with a therapist. I hadn't been to one for years since I finally stopped telling other people what I could see, and for the entire time I was with Kristy and Gary, I hadn't seen anything. I had been happy, so the fantasies either disappeared or it just didn't matter. Yet, here I was in the therapist's office staring at the male receptionist with the talon-tipped wings. I'd been coming here once a week for four months, and this was my third time seeing him.

“Ms. Taylor,” my therapist said, breaking me from my trip down memory lane. I shot my eyes to her, my mouth still slightly open.

“Huh?” I asked, still dazed from my thoughts.

“I was asking if you have been feeling better since your visits first started with me,” she said, a frowning that I had allowed myself to daydream so thoroughly.

“Oh,” I said, straightening myself in my seat. I smoothed down my plain white skirt to ensure it was still past my knees and threw on my most convincing smile. “Yes, I've felt much better. Speaking with you has done a lot to help with the thoughts and feelings I'd been keeping bottled up. I guess I never realized how keeping it locked inside could make it that much worse.”

Dr. Joyce nodded, a sad, knowing smile on her face. “You have improved a lot since you first came here, but you weren't bad to begin with. You see, Mrs. Shelton,” she turned her attention back to my foster mother as if the question had just been for show, “Shae is not an ill girl. She has been in the system her whole life, and that can be very trying for a child. She feels unloved and just seemed to think that you and your husband also did not love her.”