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February 1st

I hate February.

It makes me think of Dad's trial and all the resulting bullshit. It was the start of my time in foster care. My time in the system was brief, but long enough to tell me I never wanted to go back there. I didn't get a suitcase. All of my things were kept in garbage bags as they moved me from house to house, each one more horrible than the first. By the end of it, all my stuff smelled like garbage bags, that faint metallic, plastic smell. I threw away most of the stuff from that time, but I still have this one sweatshirt I kept. Only I can't wear it. Because I pick it up and all I can smell is garbage bags. You'd think the system would do everything they could to keep foster kids from feeling any more like trash than we already do. Well, actually, I guess you wouldn't. The system doesn't care about the individual kids, just their end of term numbers.

I was a temporary kid for those two months of my father's trial, before the decision was made to ship me off permanently to Hillworth. I don't know why they didn't just put me there in the first place. They acted as if they were doing me a favor putting me in the foster system, as if the "family" atmosphere would help me somehow. I can only assume that those in power have never actually lived in a foster home before. I got put in the kind of homes that temporary kids get put in, which are the kind of homes no kid wants to be in.

Today, I woke up and thought of Lionel Barkley. I don't know why. We only knew each other for two weeks. We were both in the McCraven house together. His mom killed his dad, and she was in jail. She had a sister, but the sister said she couldn't afford to keep Lionel. I'd never met any of Dad or Mom's family. If I did, it was when I was too young to remember. Either way, no one stepped forward to claim me, as far as I know. Lionel and I were placed in the same bedroom. There was only one bed, but Lionel agreed to sleep on the floor. I don't know why, but it made me like him immediately. He didn't even know me, and he was willing to inconvenience himself right off the bat.

Everyday, we woke up and did our chores together. I don't remember much conversation, but I think we both preferred it that way. Who wanted to talk about dead and jailed parents? It's not exactly friendly conversation. At night, we would sit out on the back porch of the house and toss dirt clods at the fence. The McCravens were old and had about 4 foster kids at any point, as well as their two kids. The McCravens weren't bad, but their kids were awful. The oldest was about Lionel's and my age, but twice as big as me. He liked to come into our bedroom and steal our covers. Or knock our drinks out of our hands. Or supervise us when we did chores. Stupid stuff, but the kind that would one day evolve into real cruelty as an adult.

That night, Lionel and I were throwing dirt clods at the fence and watching them shatter when the McCravens' son comes out. He tells us not to throw the dirt clods because they're his dirt clods and not our dirt clods because nothing in the whole house was ours. Then he looks at Lionel and says something, and I don't even remember what it was. Lionel was so passive, so calm, so peaceful. But whatever the kid said set him off. He was running across the yard before I could stop him. Even the McCraven kid wasn't ready. Lionel caught him by the collar and ripped him backwards off of the porch. The kid tried to punch him, but Lionel was fast and strong. He landed more blows than I could count before the McCravens' other kid -- a little girl around eight -- came out and saw them.

She ran to her parents, and they broke it up. By the time Lionel was pulled free, the McCravens' boy's face was unrecognizable, punched blue and black. I found out later his nose and cheekbone were both fractured, and he would need reconstructive surgery. Lionel was removed from the home that night, and I never saw him again.

But sometimes I think about him and where he ended up. He said he wanted to be a doctor, but I don't see how it could be possible. The McCravens pressed charges, which mean he would end up in a juvenile detention center. That didn't exactly look good on scholarship applications, and there was no way Lionel could afford it otherwise.

That night, I didn't do anything to help him or to stop him. I just stood there, watching a person who had been pushed too far. A person who tried to be good in a system that promised that good kids would make it out the best. A person who listened and obeyed. A person who watched every promise that had ever been made to him be irreparably shattered. I watched a respectable, honest person snap. And I can't even say I blame him.

I think about Lionel Barkley, and I wonder -- could I snap like that too? Maybe... maybe I just haven't been triggered.

February 13th 14th

Today, I feel less pathetic. Because last night, well more like a few hours ago, I finally kissed Dani. Finally. Finally. It was bad enough that she thought I was gay when we first started to hang out. It was worse when I couldn't ******** man up and kiss her for a month and two weeks. But I did it. I did it.

I DID IT. I KISSED HER.

It was nice, even if it was snowing. She was wearing a kind of ugly massive marshmallow-pink coat, but her hair was all down and loosely curled. She looked pretty, almost prettier than normal. I like seeing her like that, kind of stripped down from her typical self. Part of me still can't believe she came to meet me. Well, I guess not. Dani likes adventure. I just didn't know how her parents would react, if she was willing to sneak out, or any of that. Not like any of that matters now.

Because I kissed her.
And I'm going to do it a ******** of a lot more from now on.

It's odd to think that it has been years since my own first kiss. I think I've missed that kind of affection more than I realized. I've missed a lot of things I haven't realized. Sometimes being around Dani makes me feel stupid, and my thoughts get muddled. I don't care in that moment, but sometimes when I'm home alone again I worry about it.

If she can make me this happy, then what will happen when we fight? I'm trying really hard not to poison this thing. Natalie told me I "poisoned everything I touch" before we broke up. Really nice of her to say. Really uplifting. The thing is, I never cared about how I acted around Natalie the way I do around Dani. Kissing Natalie was never a big deal. Kissing Dani felt like a culmination of something.

Who knows.

When I leave this shithole excuse for a school, I'm going to get an apartment in town. And then Dani can actually come visit me where we can be alone. I'm not exactly the type to sneak into a girl's bedroom, and if I went to her house otherwise, I'd have to meet her parents, which I don't want to do. Dani is kind of the type of girl who might be willing to break into Hillworth, but I don't want to take the risk. I don't know how Jaimie would feel about that either, and even if she did come in here, it wouldn't be private. It would be her, me, and Jaimie sitting around.

I'm just so ready to move on with my life: to graduate, to move out on my own, to finally be in charge of my own life. The computer repair business could be better, but I make enough to get by and then some right now. I looked into rent in Destiny City. I'd have to get another job, or maybe join up with an official computer company that could give me benefits. Would they hire a kid fresh out of high school? I wonder if there is an aptitude test that I can take...

I'll have to look into that on Monday. I need to sleep so I can wake up and get stuff ready for Valentine's Day with Dani. They'll come by to check our room soon too. I don't want to get caught and sentenced to yard duty all day tomorrow instead.

Writing in his journal was no longer an option for Parker. It was a liability, a risk. For a time, he considered writing up some kind of code that only he could decipher, but that too seemed like an unnecessary risk. It would be foolish to think that no one would be able to crack it. And if they did? They would find out that he was Sailor Taranis. They would learn that his girlfriend was Sailor Magellan. They could learn any number of things that could end up with him getting killed.

The Proletariat Provost, his beloved blog, had gone without an update for an entire month. He stopped logging into the account after reading the first few messages a week after his absence. Some called him a coward for quitting. Others wanted to know if he was arrested, or dead. The latter made him laugh. Did they expect him to read messages six feet under? At first, he thought about taking the blog in a new direction, one that supported the sailor senshi and garnered support for them. He still hadn't ruled that out. The problem was finding the time.

All day, Parker went to school. Some days, he got saddled with detention or yard duty, as was typical of his position at Hillworth, and other days, he had a precious few hours of free time. This was usually spent down in East Heights hanging out in his apartment. The little gray kitten was fattening up nicely. He hadn't named it yet. A name was an important thing, and Parker wanted to dub the kitten something appropriate. Aristotle had come up. Copernicus. Einstein. Locke. Rousseau. There were plenty of options to consider.

If he didn't go out to eat with Dani or Tate, he'd come back to Hillworth to nap until 9:00PM unless he had to report to GeekSquad. Jaimie would usually be milling about the room toward lights out. He'd feed the blond boy some excuse about sneaking out to see Dani and would be off of Hillworth's grounds by 10:00PM. Then it was patrolling until the wee hours of the morning.

For a boy who scoffed at anything that wasn't perfectly erudite or logical, Parker loved parading around at night as a tiara'd hero. He was getting much better at his work, he was fitter, he was more confident. Becoming a senshi had done wonders for his self-esteem and even better things for his general disposition. Parker would always be a negative guy, but now he believed in good -- truly believed in it. And he believed it was his mission to help that good survive.

What he hadn't counted on were the side effects. Parker was tired all of the time. He slept through classes. He was tasked with extra credit in almost every subject just so he could pass and graduate on time. His lack of sleep made him grumpy, his cheeks sunken. Yet whenever the moon rose in the sky, Parker felt compelled to rise with it, an addict to the moonlight, to the power. He never expected to feel so euphoric, so invincible. Even when he got his a** kicked, Parker returned home satisfied.

He was special. He was unique. He was the ******** master of his own universe.

At least, this is what Parker believed. Some of the administrators were convinced he had developed a drug habit. His sudden streak of spending time with one Dylan Rasmussen did little to dispel the rumor. And maybe it wasn't a rumor. Fighting crime was Parker's drug, and he imbibed nightly. As addicted as he was to Dani, he was just as addicted to Sailor Taranis. Sometimes, it scared him. He felt powerless to slow down, or stop. Even when his limbs shook, weak from overexertion, Parker could not spend a night without donning his fuku.

Out of necessity, some nights he only patrolled for an hour or two, but that still cut into his sleep schedule. He chugged coffee and slammed caffeine like his life depended on it. Parker used his body like it wasn't worth preserving for old age. And maybe it wasn't? He could die any day. Any day. This wasn't the same as his philosophical ramblings about how death was a cruel mistress that could and would kill everyone, innocent or evil, rich or poor. By awakening as a senshi, Parker had increased the odds of his own death exponentially.

So why wasn't he more afraid?

These were things he would have written about in his journal, but he couldn't. That privacy wasn't private enough. The only solace Parker could find for his thoughts would just have to be in his head. That would have to be enough.