The Evolved

 

Thatcher Kline was a freak. Or at least he always thought of himself as one. He often wondered how it would feel to be like other boys his age. To have a happy home, to have gone to school on a regular basis, to have never lived on the street or eaten out of garbage cans. But he knew his life was destined to be different. From the day he was placed with his first foster family he knew his life would be complicated. He had no parents, no siblings, and no friends. All he had was an uncanny ability to create and control fire.

He didn’t want anyone to know his secret. He was too ashamed and consumed by guilt to do anything but try to ignore it for most of his life. But, sometimes he played with it. Sometimes he used it to help him or keep him warm when he found himself sleeping outside after another escape from a foster home or orphanage; which he would probably find himself doing again in the very near future. He had been back in state custody for a week after his most recent escape.

His case worker, Mrs. North, had picked him up at 8am that morning for another meeting with another family to be placed in another foster home. She was the one who picked him up from the police station the night his parents died so many years ago. She was the one who picked him up from the police station every time he did something stupid.

“Look Thatcher, this family is your last chance.” The social worker tried to touch his hand, but he pulled away.

He was too absorbed in thought. Maybe they’ll finally let him go, he won’t have to go through foster home after foster home, month after month. He was going to be 18 in seven months, why didn’t they just give up?

“When are you going to realize I just don’t care?” he snapped.

“I don’t believe that at all. And deep down, I don’t think you do either.” She looked at him for a moment more, and then looked back at his colossal placement folder, with a frustrated sigh.

Thatcher felt tears stinging his eyes as he remembered the reason his life had turned out this way. But he couldn't allow himself to think about that anymore, so he looked up at Mrs. North. She was more like family to him than any of the foster homes he’d been placed in through the years. Family was a foreign concept to him at this point, so he turned and looked out the window.

Mrs. North was talking, but he wasn’t listening. He'd turned his attention to the billboard across the street. He smirked as he lit the O’s on fire in the word hemorrhoid, and let a single hoot of laughter escape him when the people on the street began to point.

“Is there something funny about what I said?” the social worker asked incredulously, “I don’t think there’s anything funny about you having to finish your seventeenth year out at an orphanage instead of in a foster home.”

Thatcher was brought back to reality. He had made up his mind, he would let them place him with this last foster family, then he would take off on his own the first chance he found. He knew Mrs. North would be disappointed in him, but he was too detached to care.