Jumping out of my window, on that Friday night in the summer of 2012, was the scariest thing I think I have ever done. Mostly because my room was on the second floor and had a concrete sidewalk down below. I looked back at my room hoping that it was the last time. On my nightstand, lay a pink folded piece of paper with my favorite perfume sprayed on it. The note said “I left for a reason, so do not come trying to find me,”- Alex. When I jumped, I landed on two feet so it wasn’t so bad. The real reason I am leaving is because I want to find my real parents. See, I am adopted and I really want to meet my parents. The other reason is that my non-biological parents don’t really care about me. My dad is an alcoholic and gets drunk all the time and when I try to tell him to stop, he hits and abuses me. My mom is just like him, only she does drugs. She never stands up for me so I don’t help her with her problem.
After I jumped out of the window, I didn’t know where to go so I went to my best friend, Kasey’s house. She lived a couple miles away so it took me a long hour to get there. My blonde hair drifted in the wind as I ran as fast as I could. I was cold, but knew I could not go back to get a jacket or else my parents would keep their eyes on me for the rest of the night. When I got to her house, I knocked on her bedroom window which had been on the first floor so it wasn’t such a hassle. I would have texted her but my parents never got me a phone because they said I did not need one, but it’s mostly because they didn’t have the money for one.
Kasey came to the window looking surprised, “ Alex, what are you doing here?” she asked as she opened the window to let me in.
I answered with the obvious answer, “I am done with my fake parents.”
She invited me in and we talked about what they had done to me today.
“Then they both told me that I didn’t have a say in anything and that they wished they had never adopted me,” I told her.
“I am so sorry, but it will work out for the best and until then, you can stay with me,” she exclaimed.
I smiled back, “I want to go find my real parents.”
She answered with, “I think that is the best thing for you, and my parents and I can help you go through with this.”
Her parents were Ann and Drew Williams, they were the cool parents in town. They were the parents that everyone wished they had. Whenever I would go over to Kasey’s house they would always welcome me in and make sure I had a good time. Nancy works at the adoption center that I came from and I just knew that she could help me with finding my parents. Adam works for the government and would know all the steps for finding them.
Kasey offered for me to stay overnight, so I did. I went to bed thinking how great it would be if I found my parents but I also feared that I wouldn’t. But if I did, would they even want to see me. I wondered if my parents at home had seen the note or looked for me yet. But I knew they didn’t care about me and probably hadn’t even noticed that I was gone. I decided I should go to bed because I would have a big day tomorrow, so I prayed and fell asleep.
I woke up to the smell of pancakes and bacon, which was Mrs. Williams’ famous breakfast meal. Kasey had just woken up so we went into the kitchen and were greeted by her parents.
“Good morning girls,” Mr. Williams shouted.
“Good morning,” me and Kasey said at the exact same time.
We sat down and ate the breakfast that Mrs. Williams had prepared for us. I ate three pancakes and two pieces of bacon while Kasey ate two pancakes and three pieces of bacon. We each had a bowl of fruit, that we scarfed down in about thirty seconds. After breakfast, we went outside and rode her four wheeler for about thirty minutes. The breeze in our face felt amazing and woke us right up. We went back inside and talked to her mom about me finding my parents.
“It would be a long process and we would have to go to the adoption center and see if the files are still there from when you were adopted,” Mrs. Williams replied to me about telling her about what I wanted to do.
I replied with, “I will do whatever it takes to get my real parents back.”
We got into her parent’s car and headed to the adoption center. When we got there, I saw all the little kids that had no homes yet. It made me tear up to think that I was one of those kids. Mrs. Williams found the files and found mine but it was empty like someone knew that I wanted to find my parents. We searched all the desk drawers for hours but found nothing.
There was one more desk left to look in until we would have to leave, it was Mrs. Williams. I looked in the top drawers while Kasey looked in the bottom ones. Mrs. Williams was in the back offices asking for some help in looking for my file.
I found some files that had my name on them and wondered why Mrs.Williams would have them, but soon got over it because I had to look in the file. It had my birth certificate in it with both of my real parents names on it. Their names were Annabelle and Andrew Johnson. I was going to search them online when Mrs. Williams said it was time to go.
“But I found my birth certificate and my parents names are in your desk!” I argued.
“What were you guys doing looking through my drawers without my permission?” she asked in a stern voice.
“Why do you have my birth certificate in you desk?” I shot back.
“We will talk about this later,” she added as she left the building.
I followed close behind with the papers in my hand and got into her car.
I did not want to ask her so quickly and make her change her mind about telling me what is going on, so I didn’t talk the whole way home.
We passed my house, but I didn’t see anything different about it. When I looked into my bedroom window I saw that it was dark and no one had been in there since I left. I could see the little pink note sitting in the same place on my nightstand. My parents should really take a hint when they realize I haven’t came out of my room for at least twenty hours, something is probably wrong.
We got home but Ann went straight to her room without speaking a word to me or Kasey. We could hear her talking on the phone to someone that was unknown. She was asking the person what to do and I had to wonder if she was talking about me. Like what could I have done for her to make a big deal about all of this?
“What is going on?” I asked Kasey.
She turned away from me and said, “I don’t know.” She acted like she was embarrassed about her mom acting the way she did.
I didn’t say anything back but just asked questions inside my head. What could be happening? Who was Mrs. Williams talking to? Who were my parents?
I decided that I was going to look up who Annabelle and Andrew Johnson were. I went over to their computer without their permission and looked them up real fast. It turned out that they live in the same place I did, Manhattan, New York. I looked them up on Mrs.William’s facebook page that was already logged into on her computer. It was weird because it wouldn’t let me search people with that name for some reason.
At that time, Mrs.Williams came out of her room and asked what I was doing. I clicked off the page immediately as I heard her ask the question.
“Nothing,” I replied.
Mr.Williams came in the door as the awkward conversation ended. He went straight to his room without even saying hello. Mrs.Williams followed close behind. Kasey was acting weird as if she knew what was going on but wouldn’t tell me. She just sat on the couch with her phone. I could faintly hear what her parents were talking about but couldn’t hear it clearly.
They came out about an hour later and said they had something to tell me. I listened while they told me what had been going on.
“You were put up for adoption by a couple who were not married yet and didn’t have enough money to keep you. You had a twin sister that was not put up for adoption, but kept with the couple,” Mrs. Williams explained this to me. “We know who gave you up, it was us,” as she pointed to herself and her husband.
My jaw dropped to the floor in shock. “You mean to tell me that you have known who my parents were my whole life? You never thought about telling me that your daughter’s best friend is also your daughter?”
“We thought about it but it wasn’t our decision to make,” Mr. Williams answered to my questions.
My heart was beating faster than ever because I was having an argument with my real parents. I was mad at them for not telling me but happy at the same time because I had just found out who my real parents were.
I ran out the door and went to the nearby church. I calmed myself down from my anxiety attack and sat down in the front row of seats.
I prayed out loud for special reasons only and thought this was one of them. “God please let this not be true, please help me through this. I am glad they are my parents but also mad at them for not telling me until they had to. Give me some advice for what to do and please speak to me.”
I heard a strange voice for the first time but somehow it sounded like I had heard the voice all the time. “You shall forgive them, they wanted to tell you but knew they couldn’t.”
I had a long conversation with this voice and at the end of it, I figured out that it was God talking to me. I was really talking to God and didn’t even know it. I loved it.
“I am going to go and forgive my parents because that is what God wanted me to do,” I thought.
I walked back to their house and forgave them for giving me up and thought about how happy I would be to live with my real parents and best friend rather than living with people who don’t even care about me. I put the pieces together and realized that Ann stands for Annabelle and Drew stands for Andrew. I asked them why it said on my birth certificate that their last names were Johnson. They explained to me that since they were not married yet that Ann’s last name was Johnson. Since they didn’t want me to find them, they had Drew say that that was his last name too.
A month later I was living with Ann and Drew in their house with Kasey. We acted just like a normal family. I got the rights from the government to live legally with them and move out of my old house. Drew helped me out with that because he works with those things all the time. I was living the life with my best friend at my side. And now I can call her my sister.