The quilt Ms. Davis had given her just barely hung off the edge of queen sized bed, her sheets twisted and tangled around her long legs, and beads of sweat dotting her brow. She’d had the same nightmare time and again, only it wasn’t a dream, it was the reality of her past haunting her, teasing her with fleeting images of parents she could barely remember.

Her mother, frail and broken both inside and out, her olive toned flesh, marred with bruises old and new alike. All she remembered of her father was his coffee brown skin and the faint smell of cigars, only one of his many addictions. Jamie prided herself on being strong, stoic even, and hated that years later her she could still wake up in the middle of the night, eyes rimmed red, and face tear-stained as her mind tried to process the parents who’d given up on themselves and left her behind.

They’d met when her mother, Paola, had come from Brazil to study abroad in the States for the year. She was young and inexperienced and had fallen hopelessly, madly in love with just the type of man your parents always warned you about. Even after her year abroad was over she couldn't leave him.

Justin was handsome, he was intelligent and charming, and had a way of convincing her that he could do anything. She didn’t know until later that his larger than life personality and overwhelming self-assuredness was fed by the nasty crack habit he’d picked up. At first the drugs had been something they'd done at parties together, he’d take a hit from a crack pipe while offering her a line a coke. The fine white powder would ensure she’d have a good time, ‘no need to get you’re hands dirty’ he’d say. But when Paola had gotten pregnant at 20 she'd quit cold turkey, scratched her skin raw as she struggled through withdrawals, and put back on the 20 lbs. cocaine had taken off. Paola had thought Justin would quit too. Excited about the prospect of being a father, he’d gotten a job and cleaned himself up. At least that was how it appeared. But what is done in the dark always comes to light, and Jamie’s birth put a strain on their tenuous relationship. While Paola had thought Justin was clean, he’d been taking hits and having sex with the crack whores from his old neighborhood. Out of sight, but freshly in her mind, when Paola began to notice the changes in him.

He was always agitated, almost as if he were fighting to get out of his own skin. He would disappear for days at a time, only to return as if nothing had happened and not a day had gone by. Violent outbursts became common in their once happy home, forcing himself on her, striking out at her with his fists that had once fought for instead of against. As Jamie grew, she watched her mother beginning to waste away, her once rosy cheeks, sallow and sunken in, bright hazel eyes, now without luster. He never hurt Jamie, she was the one thing Justin was afraid to tarnish with his touch, and you could say she was the better for it.

If only.

If only her mother hadn’t stopped fighting, hadn’t given up on raising her daughter on her own. The burden of dealing with Justin and his addiction too heavy a cross to bear.

 Jamie was 8 when life as she knew it ended. She’d come home straight from school early one Friday afternoon. She called out for her mother who was usually in the kitchen fixing a snack for her or down the hall in the bedroom reading. When she hadn't answered, she searched their modest 2-bedroom apartment, checked for the note that her mother usually left if she'd run out to the bodega on the corner or something.

Jamie found nothing.

Jamie hadn’t been concerned right away. Her father was apt to disappear, her mother doing her best to disguise them as “business trips.” Only Jamie knew better, she’d seen her father strung out on the corner waiting for a fix, the places she wasn’t supposed to be, with the friends her mother didn’t approve of, far away enough to ensure that Paola wouldn’t see him. But Jamie only knew her mother to always be there, masking the pain of bruised ribs and a busted lip to help Jamie with her Halloween costume or bake cookies for her 3rd grade class. As the hours ticked on, and the street lights came on, she'd still seen no sign of either of her parents. Worry set in.

It wasn't as if she had anyone to call, her father didn't have any family that he was close to, his drug abuse had made sure of that, and her mother's family all lived thousands of miles away in Brazil. Jamie waited curled up in her bed for someone to come home. The telephone spooked her, the sounds of the boisterous older kids in the hallway, the ground shaking bark of Ms. Pritcher’s Pit Bull 3 apartments down, forced for her to hide away in the safety of the only home she knew. Hours turned in to one day and then two.

Alone for 5 days before someone came looking for her. When she hadn't shown up for school the following Monday, without a word from her parents and their phone calls went unanswered the principal had gotten suspicious. Five days after both of her parents had abandoned her, the police came to pick her up and she was turned over to child protective services. She'd begged and pleaded with them, told them that she needed to wait for her parents to come home, only to be told that no one was coming to get her. No one wanted to tell her where they were or why they weren't coming back.

She'd bounced around from foster home to foster home, being abused by one and then acting out at the others because of it until Miss Davis took her in and helped straighten her out. She’d always been athletic, taller than boys her age, just as strong and fast, and Ms. Davis had encouraged her to try a sport. When she tried out for the volleyball team, the coach had been surprised she’d never played in any organized fashion before then. Her natural talents shone through and having that one thing to focus on helped turn her life around.

 Even after she'd turned 18 and aged out of the system, Miss Davis hadn't sent her packing as she’d seen happen to kids in her other foster homes. Despite not receiving a check for Jamie’s care, Ms. Davis had allowed her to stay as long as she continued to do well in school, stay out of trouble and help with Clark and Campbell, the two younger foster children in Ms. Davis’ care.

At 18, Jamie had also found out what really happened to her parents. Her mother had received a phone call from the city morgue. There was the body of a man matching Justin's description, dead from an apparent overdose. After Paola had gone to identify him, she’d taken a hard look at what her life had become. The man she loved abused her, abandoned her, and killed himself with the drugs he loved more than his family. And she’d taken the abuse, withdrawn into herself, and tried her best to raise the daughter she could hardly stand to look at sometimes because of her shame. She was a weak woman, a shell of the bright and eager student of life she’d once been. She’d cleaned whatever money she had hidden from Justin out of her savings account and took the first flight back to Sao Paulo, erasing all traces of ever being with Justin, of ever loving that man, and leaving their daughter behind.

Jamie wiped a stray tear from her cheek, rolled over on her side and curled herself into a ball. Thinking about Alex and the mother who had left him had triggered memories she’d always fought to keep suppressed. Alex deserved better, they both deserved better than the women who had given birth to them, the women who had put themselves and their own hurt before their children. Refusing to allow her self another minute of self-pity, she kicked the covers the rest of the way off and rose languidly out of bed.

She dressed in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Nothing could improve her sour mood better than running outside, the quiet solitude, save for the pounding of her feet on the pavement matching the drum of her own heartbeat in her ears. She didn’t listen to music only used the earphones to tune out the din of the outside world while she ran.