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Tempest listened intently to Nadia’s story (I did, too, even though I was one of the main characters in it). I was hoping that her story would be enough for him, but he still looked at me expectantly once she finished.
Great. I really didn’t want to tell Tempest my story.
I hadn’t even told Nadia my story and I’d known her a lot longer than ten days. Well, I guess I technically knew of Tempest longer than ten days, but that was beside the point.
“You already know how I felt when I found out I was a Struzapan,” I pointed out.
That wasn’t a lie. I did tell him even if it was a while ago now and mostly in passing.
“No, but we don’t know what your life was like before you found out,” Nadia argued, “Come on, Spence. You can’t hide your past forever. You taught me that, remember?”
I hated it when she was right, but I knew she was right this time and that there was no use in trying to argue with her. I told her that she couldn’t keep running away from being Struzapan all those years ago and just like she couldn’t run away back then, I couldn’t run away from my past now... even if I really, really wanted to.
“Fine,” I groaned, “You two better be grateful for me sharing this.”
☆☆☆
Unlike Nadia, my life didn’t start out as sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. Actually, it was never sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.
I never knew my father. It was almost like I didn’t even have one and - honestly - I might’ve been better off that way. I’ve never even seen a picture of him and I certainly don’t know his name. My mother was jobless and homeless for many years, long before she got pregnant with me and long after that, too.
She gave birth to me on the streets. She couldn’t make it to the hospital in time, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she could. She wouldn’t have been able to afford the bill.
My mother died shortly after I was born and didn’t even live long enough to give me a name. I was then taken in by the gang that my mother was a part of and they raised me from that point forward. By “raised me”, though, I meant they made sure that I didn’t die while I was still useful to them. They made sure that I knew that they would abandon me within the next second after I stopped being useful to them.
They called me “Kid” since they weren’t sure what else to call me and didn’t care to figure out what to call me anyway and I was nothing but another tool for them to use. They would make me go with them when they went on their crime sprees and act as their “lookout” or, sometimes, make me commit the crime for them so that they wouldn’t get into trouble. If I refused to do as they told me to do, I was beaten, starved, or otherwise abused. Even if I agreed to do what they told me to do, I was still routinely beaten, starved, or otherwise abused. The worst of them was the leader. I didn’t remember his real name, but that was because I only referred to him as Satan. I thought I remembered his name being something akin to Bruce.
I was thirteen when I was finally able to get away from the gang and I ran as far as I could in a tiny town that had a barrier around it. A few weeks after running away, I met Jade and Miss Brodeur for the first time.
Jade and I weren’t exactly fast friends. Jade was the first person to show me kindness, to show me what it meant to be nice to someone you didn’t even know. I’m ashamed of how much of a jerk I was in return, but I didn’t know how to respond to it. I will never be able to pay off the debt that I owe her - I know that much.
When Jade and Miss Brodeur asked me what my name was, I didn’t know how to answer. I knew that I hated being called Kid (and I still do), but I didn’t know what name I actually wanted. Eventually, I chose to name myself Spencer - purely because I always felt a connection to that name for whatever reason. Some people tended to regret the name they chose later on - regardless of whether they chose it for themselves, their child, their pet, or whatever else people liked to give names to - but I didn’t regret my choice.
I liked being a Spencer (and I still did).
Despite our rocky start, Jade and I became increasingly close as time went on. I was with her when she found out that her parents had been exiled from Wolf’s Hollow and I watched her go from spiraling into a depression to almost completely pushing them out of her mind in a matter of weeks. It was scary, but I understood.
When I was with the gang, there were many times when I saw people die right before my eyes and, while I didn’t get along with many of them, I did have some friends within the gang. In fact, my first time having a vision was while I was holding my best friend in my arms while he died from a bullet to the chest.
I learned to turn off my emotions, too, and not just when people died.
Jade and I pushed through everything together. We met Priamos and Nadia at the same time and I was the one that helped her get her parents’ place back so that she could make it into Struzapan Manor.
I never had as much as Nadia, Priamos, Tempest, and even Jade did growing up. I didn’t have a family, I didn’t have a social standing to keep in mind. I had a gang that loved and hated my guts depending on what was best for them at the time and I was known as Wolf’s Hollow’s menace most of my early childhood because of how many crimes the gangs made me commit for them.
But that didn’t mean that it was easy for me to accept being a Struzapan. There was a long time where I didn’t think I was one.
I spent a lot of time comparing my experiences to what the others experienced and deciding that I wasn’t a Struzapan because I wasn’t like them.
It just meant that I didn’t have as much to lose when I did accept it. And I dare say: I’m a lot better now than I was before I did.