The Eight - Part Two: Since The Orphanage

[twice the size, half the quality]

My theory is, to understand who someone is, you have to understand who that person was.
Maybe that doesn’t apply to the eight of us, but it does for most people.
I was left in the orphanage when I was a few months old with a piece of paper that said I had been born on May 15th 1991 and that my name was Jessica Foster. Which I hate. So it’s Jesse to you, please.
I had a normal orphanage life until the day of my third birthday when a girl about my age came to the orphanage. No name, no date of birth. But the ladies in the orphanage looked at her eyes, one light orangish brown and the other green and named her Amber Jade. Where the Elliott came from, I don’t know.
We became best friends soon after she arrived. When I was nine a couple came to look at us all and maybe adopt someone. They chose. I must admit, I was the prettiest girl there, with my straight red hair and huge green eyes.
Come on, otherwise I would never be going out with Mr. Davidson. I bet every straight girl and gay guy in my school fantasizes about him. He’s just too hot. But it doesn’t matter right now.
So Mr. and Mrs. Harris wanted to adopt me, but I told them no. I wasn’t going anywhere without AJ.
I was forced to spend afternoons and weekends with them for a month until they finally decided to adopt both of us.
I bet they truly regret it.
We start going to a new school. It was okay for me, but not for AJ. In the beginning they’d stare confusedly at her until she told them it was the eyes that made her look weird. It’s insane the amount of people that would notice something strange about her but couldn’t see what it was. The different eyes.
It wasn’t long until they started seeing her as a freak. Me, I was fine, surrounded by giggling girls. The kind of girls who’d give odd looks if AJ came around.
We met Cassie when we were about 13. She was new in our class and she had to choose where to sit, she sat next to AJ. They became almost instantaneous friends, and through AJ also I got the chance to befriend her.
There was a reason why Cassie chose the seat next to AJ’s, but we only found about it later. She was always seen as freak because when she’d get too happy, she’d levitate a bit, staying about 30cm above the floor. It was super cute.
That same year, we started having Maths with both Will and Christopher. They already were best friends. We liked them immediately, especially because they were away from everybody: people made fun of Will for being albino.
For a couple years, it was just us five. The Freaks.
But I hadn’t become completely uncool, I still had my other friends. And it was through them that I met another outcast.
So there was this girl with short dark hair and greyish eyes, super thin, that would sit alone on the entrance benches during the breaks. No one sat near her. It was strange, seeing her all alone.
And then I noticed my friends looking oddly at her and getting really quickly out of the way every time she’d pass near us. I watched this for two or three days until I asked them what was up with the girl.
They gave me surprised looks with wide-opened eyes and replied something like ‘Don’t you know?! She’s a…,’ they made horrified and disgusted faces ‘… she’s a lesbo!’
I must have made one of those you’re-all-so-stupid faces. Well, they were stupid. Still are. ‘So, that’s it? You act like she has any contagious disease.’
‘Of course! What if she falls in love with one of us?’ More terrified faces and even a few squeals.
‘It’s not like that. You don’t fall in love with every guy that crosses your path – okay, you do, but that’s not what’s normal – so why would she fall in love with any of you? I’m going to talk to her.’
I felt their eyes on my back while I walked up to the girl. She was so relieved to have someone talking to her, she was really nice. Her name was Belladonna. She became immediately part of our group, but I lost my popular friends. What a pity.
We were six for three years.
Then Polly Weiss and her cousin came into scene.
Me and AJ, we’d known Polly for years. She’d left the orphanage about seven months before us and was about our age. She’s the kind of person adults love and most people her age (except the cool ones) hate – always ready to go tell the adults the shit we’ve done.
Like me sharing the bed with our Maths teacher.
I keep falling into that subject. Oh well. I’ll talk about it later. Maybe.
And by the way, it’s not because of the grades. I do feel something for him. Lust or love, I don’t know.
So Polly Weiss came to our school. And class. She and her adoptive cousin, Hester Hester. Everyone would always giggle at her name. Even though they weren’t really relatives, they were a bit alike, both with blonde hair and huge blue eyes. But Polly had an amazing body while Hester was (and is) a bit fat, the kind of fat that makes people cute and childish and not exactly ugly.
Polly quickly became really popular while Hester stayed in the background. She was very shy and didn’t actually try to get along with other people. During breaks she’d just walk around alone. Some people would even make fun of her for being a bit fat (everyone here is perfectly fit). Cassie got annoyed by it so she got Hester to integrate or group. And, I must admit, Hest is the best of us. She’s really sweet and always ready to help.

Some time after we met Hest, we got in a fight. We were waiting outside school for our buses to arrive and suddenly a group of guys that didn’t look very nice started picking on us. They threw stuff at her and even punched Christopher for trying to stop them while some girls pulled our hair and scratched our arms with their long nails. We could take the girls, but as soon as the guys saw them walking away from us, they kicked up all to the floor. When a guy with horrible teeth was about to slap me, we heard someone shouting.
‘Hey, men, what’s the problem?’
Everyone looked and we saw a tall guy with crossed arms staring at the people who had attacked us, who were at that moment sharing looks that said ‘let’s get rid of this idiot’.
But suddenly they weren’t there anymore. They had been magically (that’s what I thought) thrown to the floor with the stuff they had thrown at us. The guy standing gave them a disapproving look and shrugged. ‘Well, you didn’t answer...’
He walked away but we got immediately on our foot and followed him. We all thanked and greeted him and asked him to become a part of our group. I remember thinking he had awesome powers and envying him.
He was Seth, the boy no one wanted to see enraged.

We’ve been the Eight since then. Yeah, we do call ourselves that. It makes us feel more important. Or maybe not that much. Whatever. Names don’t matter.
The most amazing thing is that we remain friends no matter what. And I always think about that when I do shit.
Especially when I’m with Mr. Davidson. It’s my biggest sin, if you believe in that type of things. But they don’t mind it, whether it is because of the sex or the grades. But I don’t think they’d believe it was love. Not saying that it is. I’m more into getting laid with the hottest teacher, get proof of that and then breaking up with him when Polly Weiss and everyone finds out.
But I haven’t broken up with him yet.