Into the Garden (#5)

When our group sessions had ended, I really didn't believe that the other girls wanted to be friends and keep in touch, even though we all said so...

We all revealed so many intimate secrets to each other. Sometimes sharing such things ties people together tightly, binds them in knots that are almost impossible to break.

Misty's mother and father had a bad divorce and her father was in a romance with a much younger woman. Her mother was trying to see other men, but was still quite self-absorbed with her pursuit of youth and beauty, and poor Misty felt so alone.

Star lived with her grandmother, her mother's mother, after her father had deserted the family first and then her mother had run off with a boyfriend. Yet Star was still the proudest and in some ways, the strongest of the four of us.

And then there was the official president of our club, Jade, a beautiful and rich girl who lived in a Beverly Hills mansion. Her parents treated her like another possession, an asset over which to battle during their nasty divorce.

It was really the other girls who had made me questions why my mother had wanted to adopt me in the first place. She never seemed comfortable with me and hated the responsibilities that came walong with me.

The revelation was enough to make me feel sick to my stomach and even more unwanted and confused...