I Speak...Love (A Different Road #3) (3 page)

You know those
Safe Haven
signs you see on the outside of a firehouse or hospital? They could totally slap my mug on that baby. Yep, I was dropped off at the ripe old age of five days old. I wasn’t even given a legal name until I was eleven months old. I seriously thought my name was Baby Jane, as in Jane Doe. I was tossed around between foster homes and group homes my entire life. You’d think, being that I was an adorable infant, I’d get scooped up right away by a loving, young couple with a dream home, a white picket fence, a cute little dog named, Rocco, and a picturesque front yard with a towering elm tree that has a tire swing dangling from a large branch. But nope, that didn’t happen.

My first foster
family,
and the one who finally gave me a legal name, my
mom
went mentally nuts, batshit crazy and after only six months my
dad
gave me back. Who even gives a baby back? Is that even allowed? I was a baby, not a shoe that didn’t fit! I didn’t think refunds were allowed when it came to human babies . . . guess I was wrong. My second
family,
who I stayed with the longest, kept me for six years. They had several other foster kids, and my
dad,
let’s just say, he had favorites. Luckily, I wasn’t one of them, thank God.
Mom
eventually found out and quickly divorced his ass, then reported him to child protective services. All of the kids were taken away and placed back into the foster care system. By the time I was twelve, I had been placed in seven homes.

In those short twelve years, I learned never to complain no matter how awful the situation was, to never dare ask for anything, to do everything for myself, hide my feelings, and to always protect my heart. I also learned how to steal food when no one was looking, bathe in a bathroom sink, cut my own hair, and how to make a pair of pants last well past their prime, yet still look and smell like new. Good thing capris pants came into style when I needed it.

I was eventually placed in a group home that I ran away from more times than I could count, until I legally aged out of the system on the day I turned eighteen. Through all of that, I still managed to attend school, earning stellar grades and getting my diploma. School was the one place I could go where the majority of adults acted like they wanted me to be there. It was the one place I didn’t feel like I was a burden.

In between foster homes, I lived on the streets. Even though I was alone, it’s where I felt the freest. I used to do as many side jobs as I could just to make a couple of bucks, so I could buy myself a hot meal and the occasional luxury item from a second-hand store, like a pair of shoes that fit, if that isn’t ironic. More often than not, anything I bought was immediately stolen by drunks or drug addicts. It seemed like everything I ever worked for or wanted in my life was always stolen from me—a family, hell . . . any of the seven families I was placed with, food off my plate by other bully foster kids, the sweater off my back, my childhood, even my dignity. I’ve done so many things that I’m not proud of, but I swore to myself that no matter what, I’d always stay true to myself, and I would never, no matter how hungry or desperate I was, sell my body to anyone.

Even from a very young age, I could always find peace in nature’s beauty. I could never afford a camera, hell I could never afford a bra that fit properly, but I used to hold my hands out in front of my face at arm’s length like I was framing a shot and pretend I was a world famous, professional photographer. I loved to explore nature’s gifts at all hours of the day and night, and learn how shadow’s danced on the side of a building or on the profile of a woman sitting outside at a café. No matter how toxic a home was, I could always find inner peace by myself surrounded by nature.

I never lived in any one city long enough to qualify for a library card, so I could never check out books, but the peace and quiet of a library, as I studied photography magazines and books made my heart sing.

Every job I did, as painful as it was at times, I set aside ten percent in an old, ragged tampon box, so that one day I could buy myself a camera. Even at that, not even tampons were sacred among the people on the streets. One day, after years of saving, my tampon box that had at least thirty dollars in it was stolen. No matter what I had, it was eventually taken away from me, even tampons. After that, I did something I had never done before. I locked myself in a disgusting bathroom at a gas station, laid on the floor, and cried for an hour. After I had cried every last tear there was to cry, I picked myself back up and started over again. Picking myself up and starting over was something else I’ve perfected over the years.

When I was nineteen, I got my first real job at a diner as a waitress. The owner let me live in the back room, rent free, until I could get myself on my own two feet. I lived on my tips and saved my paychecks for my camera fund.

Soon I realized I loved to cook. I’d spend many hours in the diner kitchen experimenting with different dishes. The diner owner took notice and soon, some of my creations were on the menu. I worked my way through several restaurants, building my reputation and my way up. Eventually, I was able to afford my very own tiny apartment. Soon my tampon box became an actual savings account at a bank. As much as it broke my heart, instead of using that money for a camera, I used it to put myself through culinary school, along with the help of financial aid. Photography, though, was never far from my thoughts or my heart.

Not long after I graduated, I was offered a job that I couldn’t refuse. An up-and-coming catering company,
California Chef,
which was run by co-owner’s and best friends, Joss Meyer and Nina St. James, wanted me to work for them. I had already been doing some random side jobs for them with their bigger catering events, but eventually they hired me full time.

The money was good, real good, and I was able to save enough money to purchase a used camera. I walked into a camera shop, and I knew exactly which one I wanted. I had done my research with my newly acquired library card, and I was on cloud nine. The clouds quickly turned stormy when, even though I had saved and saved, my used dream camera was still more than I had saved. The owner said he had recently purchased another of the same camera. The shell was in pretty rough shape, and some of the features didn’t work, he’d sell it to me for what I had. Even though it wasn’t pretty on the outside and everything didn’t work on the inside, it reminded me of myself. My life has been rough and on the outside, my face shows it. Inside, I’m a shell of a human, but this camera was mine, purchased with my own hard earned money, and I loved it.

California Chef
quickly moved from a catering company to a personal chef business, and I started taking my camera with me to client’s homes. My passion for cooking deliciously collided with my passion for photography. I had developed a lust for food porn. One day, Nina saw some of my photos that I had left in the catering van, and she instantly fell in love with them. Nina is the company’s Webmaster extraordinaire, and each and every single photo on the
California Chef
website was taken by me. I’d never been so proud of anything in my life!

A few months ago, Joss and Nina moved out of the home they own just outside of Malibu and moved into River’s beautiful Malibu beach house. Josh, who is River’s right-hand man and personal assistant, lives twenty-four seven at the beach house as well. Joss is now engaged to River and Nina is engaged to Josh. How does something so perfect like that even happen to fall in line?

As a perk for working at
California Chef,
Joss and Nina allow me to live in their home rent free. Nina has taken on more of an administrative, office manager role in the business
,
so not only do I use Nina’s catering van for business, I also get to use it as my personal vehicle. Trust me, they’re both things I’m just waiting to be taken away from me.

Knock, Knock, Knock,
taps on my driver’s side window, scaring the shit out of me.

“What are you doing? Class starts in five minutes,” Kate says, muffled from the other side of the glass. “Get your buns moving, girl!” she says, then walks back inside her yoga studio.

Kate is the first person I’ve ever allowed myself to get close to. Actually, she more or less
inserted
herself into my life, but I didn’t exactly stop her. But, like everything else in my life, she was taken away from me when she nearly drowned. She was given back because she
nearly
drowned and didn’t
actually
drown, but still, I didn’t like the feelings I felt when I thought I had lost someone I love. I’ve worked my whole life at perfecting the art of
distance,
and those feelings of loss caught me completely and utterly off guard. It was strange, though. I was devastated when I thought she was gone, but when she wasn’t, those feelings were magnified by a million. I realized then that happy hurts so much more than the loss. I didn’t understand it and, honestly, I didn’t know if I ever wanted to feel those things again.

Kate is an extraordinary, special person. She’s been through hell and back so many times, that I’m sure she’s on a first name basis with the devil himself. When she was five, she begged her family to go to Legoland for vacation. Everyone agreed on the destination, except Stephen, he wanted to stay home. On the way, Kate, her parents, and other brother, River, were in a horrible car accident. Tragically, neither of her parents survived the crash, and River was left permanently blind from the head on impact. Kate ultimately blamed herself for the accident, since Legoland was her idea.

For so many years, she lived with so much devastating loss, personal blame, and immeasurable guilt that she started to listen to the voices in her head, and she believed that everyone would be better off if she just committed suicide. She downed a bottle of prescription strength pain killers and gave up. I’m not going to lie and say I’d never thought about it myself. I’d hit the lowest of lows so many times that I completely understood where her head was. I think that’s what drew me to her in the first place. Kate is a lot like me in the regards that she bounced around from rehab facility to rehab facility, much like I bounced around from home to home in the foster care system. But unlike Kate, I refused to give karma, fate, or whatever the hell it was out there that had a grip around my throat, the satisfaction of winning. I’m just too stubborn I guess.

I met Kate shortly after she was released from a strict rehab facility where she finally learned the correct tools to cope with her severe depression. Today, with the help of medication, a strict diet, her love for yoga, her boyfriend Cooper, and his amazing dog, Sadie, Kate is my hope in life, that maybe, just maybe, if you stick around long enough good things will eventually happen.

Cooper’s dog, Sadie, is now a registered emotional support dog and goes absolutely everywhere with Kate. I’ve never seen a dog more in tune with another human being like Sadie is with Kate.

Knock, knock, knock,
I hear again on my window. The first time it scared the shit out of me, you’d think the second time it wouldn’t, but this time I let out a little scream.

Kate is on the other side of the van door with her eyebrows raised up on her forehead, and her hands jerking in front of her in a
what are you waiting for
gesture.
I shake off my insecurities, grab my yoga mat, and get out of the van. Kate opens the door to the building, then follows me with her eyes as I enter.

She takes her place at the front of the packed class and starts her lesson. Kate is slender with lean, defined muscles in all the right places. She has beautiful long brown hair and gorgeous, stunning brown eyes. She seriously belongs on the cover of a fitness magazine, and she was! Her yoga studio was featured in a magazine, and they ended up putting her on the cover. Someday, I’ll take a photo that’s used on the cover of a magazine. Shit, I didn’t mean to think that out loud in my head. Karma has better hearing than an owl.

As beautiful as Kate is, I’m the exact opposite. I’ve got straw like, red hair that never seems to behave itself, freckles that cover the majority of my nose, cheekbones, and shoulders, and as Joss likes to say,
I like to eat the food I cook.
I’m not the lanky, thin girl I used to be as a child. Oh, it was terrible being a wiry redhead with gobs of freckles and a body like a string bean to boot. Which, is why I’m extremely grateful Kate insists I take her yoga classes for free . . . because I like . . . no, love my food. I do try to pay her, but she gives me a dirty look every time I do.

After class, Kate searches me out through the crowd and narrows her eyes at me.

Oh, shit. What did I do?

She weaves through her clients and makes a beeline straight for me, loops her arm through mine, and then pulls me into her office. Sadie follows closely behind us and stays glued to Kate’s heels.

“I need to drop off some paperwork at Mason Group,” she says, letting go of my arm.

“OK?” I question, confused.

I’m not quite sure what that has to do with me. She grabs a few files from her desk, then she latches onto my arm again and pulls me back through the studio.

“Wait! I can’t go over there looking like this!” I say, digging in my heels.

I dragged my ass out of bed, put my hair up in a ponytail, brushed my teeth, then came here without caring who saw me in yoga class, and now I’m a hot, sweaty mess. The term
hot mess
doesn’t even come close to describing what I’ve got going on. I’m for sure not dressed or look anywhere near decent enough to go inside a classy place of business like Mason Group!

“There’s nothing wrong with the way you look. What’s wrong with how you look?” she asks, looking me over from head to toe. “You look just like me,” she fires back. “Come on, Sadie, let’s go see River,” she calls.

Ha! Like her brother, Stephen, I think Kate needs glasses. Kate and I look absolutely nothing alike. Sadie’s tongue happily lolls out the side of her mouth, and she immediately falls in step with Kate and follows us to the door. I wonder if Stephen is in the office yet this morning. Kate pulls me out of the studio, and we walk arm-in-arm the two doors down to Mason Group, as I nonchalantly pick a sweaty, unladylike wedgie out of the crack of my ass.