Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2015 19:09:05 GMT -5
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BERLIN DEAN MAESTRO
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age newborn.
she had never intended to get pregnant. she hadn't even intended to sleep with him. mary-katherine was from a good catholic family and had eight younger siblings (five girls, three boys). she went to church on sundays and prayed every night before bed in the bedroom she shared with her two favorite sisters, victoria and maggie. she didn't even wear skirts that went shorter than her knees.
james had been so kind to her when she met him at the bar. she hadn't even really wanted to go but one of the girls from her bible class at university had found out she had recently turned twenty-one. mary-katherine had liked janie so she had accepted and they had gone to the bar on campus. james was there with some of his friends and they had invited them over.
mary-katherine hadn't had alcohol before and james had given her a beer and told her that she had to try it. she had thought it tasted gross but then she had kept drinking. he had gotten her a drink that tasted like strawberries and laughed when she drank it right up - she loved strawberries. then she had experienced being drunk and it was awful and wonderful.
they had dated three months and that was when she found out she was pregnant. her dad had been infuriated, the church members had all shunned her, her mother had just sneered at her and made her sisters change rooms so she was alone. james hadn't been any more excited but his parents, also at the church, had told him he had to the responsible thing.
that was how at twenty-two she was in labor in the hospital holding hands with a man that she didn't love (and who she suspected had been cheating with the secretary at the car dealership he worked at). she yelled in pain and pressed her head against the pillow. james just glanced down at his phone.
she didn't want this! she didn't want this at all. she wanted to go back to sharing a room with her sisters and going to classes about the bible. what did she do to deserve this? she hated janie. she gasped and pushed, feeling pressure and pain like she never had before and sweat dripping down her face. she gripped the metal on the sides of the bed and braced herself against it. james had moved to lean against the opposite wall, smirking at something he was texting.
with a cry mary-katherine gasped as the baby was expelled. the little boy made soft gasping sounds but didn't wail like she had seen on television. as they reached to place the baby in her arms, she pushed the nurse away.
"we...we don't want him." she decided. james just shrugged when the nurse looked at him. mary-katherine closed her eyes, pretending she was back at home, doing her sisters hair and ignoring the sounds of the hospital in favor of listening to the tiny droplets of rain hitting the nearby window.
-x-x-x-
age four
berlin knew that his mommy was his mommy but wasn't really his mommy. she was his mommy in what mattered, she had told him, but he was only the baby of her heart and not her body. he didn't really understand but she had just smiled at him and given him a cookie when he had told her that she was 'the bestest mommy anyone ever had' so he didn't really care.
mommy had told him that a lady was going to come and talk to him. he kicked his feet under the table as he waited, drawing on the paper with the pretty purple crayon. he liked the purple crayon the most. he sometimes used blue crayons for his pictures but if he could he liked purple. berlin hated the color red for his pictures 'cause mommy said it was angry and berlin didn't like angry.
"berlin?" a lady opened the door. she had pretty purple glasses so berlin turned to her, looking at her with wide light eyes and smiling at her, reaching over to shake her hand like mommy had told him to. "my name is mrs. casey." she informed him.
"hello mrs. casey"" the little boy chirped and swung his legs in the chair, sliding down and slouching so he was half off of it. he liked the chairs in daycare better. they were his height and a bright, bright yellow color. sometimes laurie took his favorite yellow chair so he would have to sit in the not-as-good blue one.
"i want to talk to you about jenna maestro." at the tilted, confused look of the four year old mrs. casey smiled. "your mommy." she explained and then berlin nodded excitedly.
"mommy is the best ever! she makes me cookies and sometimes auntie jordan comes over with mattie and we play ball in the yard and my room has spaceships and it's all purple and she got me light up shoes and..." mrs. casey cut the little boy off with a movement of her hand, laughing as he made gestured with his arms to indicate all the amazing things he loved about his mother.
she turned someone serious and took a seat across from the boy at the table rather than standing near him. "i work for adoption services. that means i need to find out if you can stay with ms. maestro forever."
berlin frowned. "why would they take me away from mommy?" did his original mommy want him? he hoped not, she had left him all 'lone and mommy had told him how she had been the nurse there at his birth and how his original mommy hadn't even spared him a glance. "i want to stay with mommy!" his lip stuck out in a pout and his eyes watered.
quickly backtracking, mrs. casey reached over and lightly patted the boys arm. "i'll do my best, berlin. i have to go a judge, a man in charge, and we have to file papers. " she leaned over, motioning as if she was going to share a secret. berlin was good with secrets. he knew all of them, how katie's big brother was the one that puked on mrs. tommie's shoes and how judy was gonna marry jake someday even if jake didn't know it.
"between you and me, i don't see there being any problem." she pulled back and winked at the little boy who gave her a toothy grin and piked up his crayon again. suddenly he huffed and turned seriously, resting his chin on his hand. "you'd better, mrs. casey, or else i'm gonna kick you 'n the shins and it hurts." he gave her a steady look before turning back to his coloring.
jenna maestro officially gained permanent custody over her foster son, berlin dean maestro, the next day and they lived happily ever after.
...or maybe not. but they were happy for a while.
-x-x-x-
age eight
berlin was eight when she got sick. he was just starting to play baseball and his mom's fiance, thomas, was teaching him how to pitch. the wedding was going to be in a few months and berlin was going to be walking his mom down the isle. his birthday was just a week after the wedding and mom and thomas were taking him to disneyland.
instead, he sat at the edge of the hospital bed and kept rubbing his eyes. he couldn't cry, he had to be strong. thomas patted his shoulder and held him when he started to cry. he was scared he'd lose his mom, the one person that had always been there for him. he remembered the day they officially got the papers that she was his permanent family, he had been really young and they had made cupcakes.
the doctors weren't sure what was wrong with her. thomas had come home and found her collapsed in the kitchen. berlin never said anything but he wondered to himself if she wouldn't have gotten sick if he had been home rather than at liam's house, he would have been home to call the hospital for her. as it was, he had heard the doctors talking about embolisms and aneurysms and strokes and he didn't know what any of them were but he knew they weren't good. thomas' face just kept sliding down, frowning.
on the third day of his mother not moving, laying in the bed with her face pale and almost yellow, they got an answer. her liver was failing. the doctor told them that it was likely she had taken some tylenol and it just was enough to push her into a coma. she was going to need a new liver if she was to survive. the woman had never smoked, very rarely drank unless it was a special occasion, had only ever had sex with three men (all steady boyfriends)(not that berlin knew that fact) and kept herself healthy. she even ran every other day. it was some sort of genetic condition that she could never had known about - like berlin, she had been left by her parents at birth and adopted.
so instead of having a beautiful wedding in her white dress or a fun day at disney, berlin would just go sit with his mother in the hospital. she was too ill to return home, requiring care to make sure that the small, small bit of her liver working correctly continued to work as they tried to find a donor. they had originally thought about a living donor donation as was common with liver disease but given her illness they would prefer her to have a deceased donor to get as much liver as possible. her disease was rare enough that she had specialists flying in to examine her.
berlin hated it. all he wanted was his mom to get better and all these strange men and women in white coats would poke at her and hurt her. thomas had to take him in the hall sometimes because he'd get so upset that he'd start screaming at them to fix his mom but they never would.
he sighed and laid next to his mom who ran a yellowing hand through his hair, her breath soft and weak. he just wanted her to get better.
the liver transplant occurred exactly three months after berlin's ninth birthday. his mother barely survived, it was touch-and-go for a while, but berlin spent his tenth birthday running around disney, his mother and stepfather running beside him.
-x-x-x-
age twelve
sometimes courts make mistakes. these mistakes can snowball until things get into a tangled mess. add in a corrupt lawyer and a few thousand dollars placed in the judge's right hand and balance of justice became seriously uneven. regardless of the validity of the claim, rulings can be made and unquestioned because of the right amount of money in the right hands. there are lawyers who thrive in that sort of thing and others who actually seek justice. james toole was one of the former.
enough money and suddenly it looked like berlin's adoption papers had some errors. his birth certificate that had been filled by his adoptive mother, jenna, was suddenly contestable. he waxed tales of how he had been coerced into signing the papers and his late wife had forced him to give up his 'beloved baby son'. any questions of why he suddenly wanted that kid back after twelve years were deemed 'too personal' and, somehow, through some gross injustice of the court system, berlin was torn away from his mother and father (thomas had officially become his father when he was eleven) and placed back with a birth father who didn't truly want him.
james toole wanted to have the perfect son to go with his image. the nice lawyer who managed to get back his long lost baby boy. he wouldn't have cared but a reporter had found out about the baby somehow and james couldn't risk the bad publicity with his newly started firm. so he had stolen back the son he didn't want.
berlin kept his face down, one of the duffel bags he managed to pack before james was ushering him out of the maestro home over his shoulder as he approached his new house. it was roughly three sizes larger than the house that berlin had grown up in and he instantly hated it as he followed james (that man was not deserving of being called father) through the sterile white hallway towards a door at the opposite end of second floor from the opulent doors that his father had informed him were his rooms and that berlin was never to go in them.
the man sneered as he opened the door to a small room with a bare mattress and a dark wooden desk in the corner. he placed a hand on berlin's shoulder and practically shoved the young boy into the room. placing his bag on the bed, he looked up to the tall man who he looked nothing like.
"this is your room. if i tell you to stay in here, you stay. i don't care if there is a fucking fire, you'll burn here before you disobey me. if you tell anyone what goes on inside the toole house i will go back to that house with your beloved parents and light it on fire with them trapped inside." the man gave an ugly sneer to the young boy. "berlin. what a fucking stupid name. " he shook his head and left the room.
berlin heard a lock click on the other side of the door and sat on the edge of his bed. he pushed back until his back was against the wall and wrapped his arms around his knees and pressed his face into them. he wanted to go home.
-x-x-x-
age fourteen
things didn't get better from the first day. in fact, they got much, much worse. berlin's room didn't have any of the heat the rest of the house did so it was often cold and he'd huddle in his sweats and try not to shake from the wind that would seem to seep in through his window. james often had a parade of different women over and whenever they were over berlin would be stuck back in his tiny room with the door locked.
james (he was not his father, merely a sperm donor, really) had made mentions to his birth mother. from what berlin understood, his birth mother was fiercly catholic and hated being married to james. the man had treated her horribly (james had always said he was just putting her in place) and eventually she had slit her own wrists in the bathtub.
berlin sort of understood. the worst part about living with james was that the man liked to hit berlin. he would always smile and laugh as he took his belt to berlin's back or a bat to berlin's ribs. he was sure that all of his ribs had been broken at least once, he had stopped changing in the same room as others during gym because his body was often varying shades of purples and blues. berlin had never hated someone like he did james. every time the man would threaten his mom and dad, jenna and thomas, and berlin knew he couldn't risk it. he couldn't let them be hurt.
"berlin. here, now." berlin winced and quickly ran to his birth father's study. he had learned in the past few years that he was never to leave james waiting. it just made things worse. he quickly entered the room.
pain blossomed along his side as he gasped and fell on the ground. his father stood above him, looking menacing with the wooden bat in his right hand and a tumbler of scotch in his left hand. it was always worse when he was drunk. the bat swung and berlin couldn't help but scream as pain blossomed on his knee. james usually avoided his legs and arms.
"shut up, you little asshole! it's your fault!" the bat swung again and berlin could only just gasp. "we lost our biggest client and it's your fucking fault for existing."
berlin keened in pain as the bat hit again and again, his vision going dark around the edges. james grabbed him by his arm and lifted his limp body up. "i'll make you regret you ever existed." he dragged the teenager from the arm, ignoring as berlin batted weakly at the hand.
he was stuffed into the car and berlin floated in and out of consciousnesses. he snapped back into a some sort of coherancy as he was dumped against the curb in the city. james grabbed his chin and dragged him forward, forcing him to look at the building. it was james' office, he knew that. the back entrance. "you made my business die, it's only fitting you will here too."
the bat was raised again and with a crushing blow to his head, berlin blacked out with an explosion of pain.
doctor's say his life was saved thanks to two good samaritans walking nearby who knocked his father so that the blow wasn't at full power because any harsher and berlin would have been dead.
-x-x-x-
age fourteen (and a half)
epilepsy. berlin just stared at his fingers as his mom gasped and his dad ran his hands against berlin's back. berlin had spent the last four months in a hospital, healing from james' attempted murder. he had very little memory of the first month, vaguely an impression of talking to police and being told that the maestros were here. he remembered at about a month and a half into his stay his mom and dad got permanent custody and adopted him once again. this time, the judge made sure it was incontestable and the judge that had sentenced berlin to his hell had been fired and was facing criminal charges.
james toole got fifty years without parole for attempted murder and child abuse. berlin hoped that he died in prison. the doctor just gave him a sad look and left the small family in the hospital room that had become berlin's home for months.
they had told him that it was likely that the seizures would stop as time passed, when the head trauma healed. it had been terrifying at first, they still were, actually. berlin had felt funny, irritable and his head had really hurt. then his body had felt like it was tensing and he had cried out. things got fuzzy after that but he woke and things hurt a lot and he was shaking and held on his side. his mom had been crying. apparently, it wasn't his first seizure but it was the first he remembered.
months passed and he experienced the big seizures, the tonic-clonic ones, at least once a week. he had a frequent amount of myoclonic seizures (something would just jerk and he was unable to stop it, like when he was holding something and he suddenly dropped it or a weakness of his leg that made him fall). the worst, though, are the ones they called atonic seizures. he would just tense up and fall and be unable to move for fifteen seconds or so. it was scary and he cried whenever it happened, feeling weak and hating it.
with the amount he had the doctor had officially diagnosed him with epilepsy. medication would help, they'd have to make sure that he had people who knew how to react during a seizure (both of his parents did after the seizures kept happening in the hospital) and making sure there wasn't too many sharp things for him to hit his head on until his atonic seizures became more regular.
berlin couldn't say anything, just continued to stare at his hands. he didn't know how he was supposed to deal with this. he wondered, briefly, if he would have preferred to be beaten. he hated the seizures, they all scared him. his mom looked nervous after each one, sad as she ran her fingers through his hair and kept telling him how much she loved him.
thomas patted his shoulder and snapped berlin out of his thoughts. he looked up at the redhead, the man smiling down at him softly. jenna sat on the bed beside him, resting her arm around his back and pressing a kiss to his forehead. "we'll make it work, bud." his dad murmured. "we love you."
-x-x-x-
age eighteen.
it had been hard to catch up to the other students. after the attack, he had been in the hospital for about half of the school year. not only that, but he was trying to figure out how to deal with his seizures and living with the dark cloud that was his epilepsy. it was recommended, by both his doctors and his old teachers, that he repeat the year rather than struggling with entering his junior year.
berlin had been livid. he wasn't going to put himself through the ridicule with going back to his old school and having them see him in a grade lower than he should be. it was bad enough that he had his condition, he wasn't going to give any more reasons for people to make fun of him. when his parents had told him they were seriously considering it they had been in his therapist's office and berlin had lost it. he had raged, jumping up from his seat and exclaiming how he had to enter his junior year, how he had to be normal.
rather than show off how rational he was and how dedicated he would be to his work, he stressed himself out to the point where he triggered a tonic-clonic seizure. it wasn't long enough to necessitate hospitalization but it had left him exhausted and humiliated. however his parents made an agreement with him, he was to study during the summer with a tutor and after a month of junior year if he was at all struggling, and they would ask his teachers, he was going to repeat sophomore year.
as he had planned, berlin had managed to study himself into surviving junior year. he had always been smart and absorbing the information was easy. he loved to read, aced english classes and would constantly be found with his nose in a book. he held a solid b+ as his lowest grade in math and showed that he could do it.
it didn't mean things were smooth sailing. he had very few friends in high school. after witnessing a seizure in the cafeteria (tonic-clonic, fortunately he didn't lose control of bodily functions) people avoided him like it was contagious. he usually spent at least one day at week at home, recovering from a tonic-clonic seizure and studying on his own.
at seventeen, he had started on the medication. he hated them, they made him feel odd and sometimes numb. the only benefit was they lengthened the time between his major seizures, allowing him some semblance of normality. given the choice, berlin wasn't sure if he liked taking them but even he could admit they did help with the frequency.
he snapped out of his thoughts by his moms hand on his shoulder. he was staying at home for university, sticking in san diego. it was a good school but he always knew he had wanted to go somewhere farther north but...things change. it wasn't safe for him to be on his own when he still had problems recognizing the signs of a seizure and his parents knew how to deal with his seizures and aftercare.
it was like his independence was gone. other people were off getting apartments on their own or going into party dorms to live their life and berlin was still at home. "coming, mom." he murmured, fingering the epilepsy medic alert bracelet that his mother had bought him within hours of his diagnoses.
berlin shrugged his shoulder and walked out of his room, trying to ignore how all the sharp corners had been covered with fabric and padding. this was his life now.
-x-x-x-
age twenty-three
he didn't really want to admit it because he was a grown man but he was completely and utterly excited about getting a dog. not any dog, but a seizure alert dog. the idea had been suggested by one of his doctors when he had told them about how he missed his independence. it had taken about a year to research and get in contact with the group that trained seizure alert dogs.
berlin already had placed a down payment on a small house in san diego, fairly close to the university with a large enough yard that the dog could run around. he had read about all the things that the dogs could do, alert to seizures, bring help, clear the way, and he was desperately hoping he'd bond with the dog and get some independence.
he had planned to move out anyways so the fact that the day he was allowed to go in to meet his companion was so close to the move-in date was amazing. it was like all the little things were falling into place. of course, if he actually got the dog would depend on if he bonded well with the dog and if the dog could demonstrate that he could do what he had been trained for.
bouncing on the balls of his feet, berlin felt like a little kid. he had never had a dog, his only pet as a child was a lizard named frankfurt who ran away when he was seven. it wasn't until he was seventeen did he actually find out that his mom had given him to a reptile specialist because she hated him. berlin wasn't that fond of him either so it wasn't any great loss.
"hello, you must be berlin, right?" an older woman with greying hair pulled back in a bun opened the door with a wide smile on her face. her shirt had the logo for the group that trained the dogs and she moved so he could enter the house. it was colored with warm browns and felt inviting.
"the dog we have for you is back here, he's a golden retriever named edison. real sweetheart." she lead him towards the back where there were three crates lined up, dogs sleeping in each of them. the dog on the end lifted his head and berlin's smile widened.
opening the cage, the women let the golden retriever wander out. the young dog wagged his tail and went straight for berlin, licking his hand and wagging his tail. berlin felt like he did when he looked at pictures of puppies and kittens on the internet, mushy and warm. he smiled and knelt down so he could scratch the dog behind the ears. this was the key to his independence - a happy looking dog staring up at him with golden brown eyes.
"hey, edison." he murmured and laughed as the dog licked his cheek. yeah, this was going to work.
-x-x-x-
ten things berlin dislikes:
nine things berlin likes
eight books berlin read recently
seven things berlin bought recently
six random things in his house
five songs he recently listened to
four not-so-secret talents
three degrees
two secrets
one current job
she had never intended to get pregnant. she hadn't even intended to sleep with him. mary-katherine was from a good catholic family and had eight younger siblings (five girls, three boys). she went to church on sundays and prayed every night before bed in the bedroom she shared with her two favorite sisters, victoria and maggie. she didn't even wear skirts that went shorter than her knees.
james had been so kind to her when she met him at the bar. she hadn't even really wanted to go but one of the girls from her bible class at university had found out she had recently turned twenty-one. mary-katherine had liked janie so she had accepted and they had gone to the bar on campus. james was there with some of his friends and they had invited them over.
mary-katherine hadn't had alcohol before and james had given her a beer and told her that she had to try it. she had thought it tasted gross but then she had kept drinking. he had gotten her a drink that tasted like strawberries and laughed when she drank it right up - she loved strawberries. then she had experienced being drunk and it was awful and wonderful.
they had dated three months and that was when she found out she was pregnant. her dad had been infuriated, the church members had all shunned her, her mother had just sneered at her and made her sisters change rooms so she was alone. james hadn't been any more excited but his parents, also at the church, had told him he had to the responsible thing.
that was how at twenty-two she was in labor in the hospital holding hands with a man that she didn't love (and who she suspected had been cheating with the secretary at the car dealership he worked at). she yelled in pain and pressed her head against the pillow. james just glanced down at his phone.
she didn't want this! she didn't want this at all. she wanted to go back to sharing a room with her sisters and going to classes about the bible. what did she do to deserve this? she hated janie. she gasped and pushed, feeling pressure and pain like she never had before and sweat dripping down her face. she gripped the metal on the sides of the bed and braced herself against it. james had moved to lean against the opposite wall, smirking at something he was texting.
with a cry mary-katherine gasped as the baby was expelled. the little boy made soft gasping sounds but didn't wail like she had seen on television. as they reached to place the baby in her arms, she pushed the nurse away.
"we...we don't want him." she decided. james just shrugged when the nurse looked at him. mary-katherine closed her eyes, pretending she was back at home, doing her sisters hair and ignoring the sounds of the hospital in favor of listening to the tiny droplets of rain hitting the nearby window.
-x-x-x-
age four
berlin knew that his mommy was his mommy but wasn't really his mommy. she was his mommy in what mattered, she had told him, but he was only the baby of her heart and not her body. he didn't really understand but she had just smiled at him and given him a cookie when he had told her that she was 'the bestest mommy anyone ever had' so he didn't really care.
mommy had told him that a lady was going to come and talk to him. he kicked his feet under the table as he waited, drawing on the paper with the pretty purple crayon. he liked the purple crayon the most. he sometimes used blue crayons for his pictures but if he could he liked purple. berlin hated the color red for his pictures 'cause mommy said it was angry and berlin didn't like angry.
"berlin?" a lady opened the door. she had pretty purple glasses so berlin turned to her, looking at her with wide light eyes and smiling at her, reaching over to shake her hand like mommy had told him to. "my name is mrs. casey." she informed him.
"hello mrs. casey"" the little boy chirped and swung his legs in the chair, sliding down and slouching so he was half off of it. he liked the chairs in daycare better. they were his height and a bright, bright yellow color. sometimes laurie took his favorite yellow chair so he would have to sit in the not-as-good blue one.
"i want to talk to you about jenna maestro." at the tilted, confused look of the four year old mrs. casey smiled. "your mommy." she explained and then berlin nodded excitedly.
"mommy is the best ever! she makes me cookies and sometimes auntie jordan comes over with mattie and we play ball in the yard and my room has spaceships and it's all purple and she got me light up shoes and..." mrs. casey cut the little boy off with a movement of her hand, laughing as he made gestured with his arms to indicate all the amazing things he loved about his mother.
she turned someone serious and took a seat across from the boy at the table rather than standing near him. "i work for adoption services. that means i need to find out if you can stay with ms. maestro forever."
berlin frowned. "why would they take me away from mommy?" did his original mommy want him? he hoped not, she had left him all 'lone and mommy had told him how she had been the nurse there at his birth and how his original mommy hadn't even spared him a glance. "i want to stay with mommy!" his lip stuck out in a pout and his eyes watered.
quickly backtracking, mrs. casey reached over and lightly patted the boys arm. "i'll do my best, berlin. i have to go a judge, a man in charge, and we have to file papers. " she leaned over, motioning as if she was going to share a secret. berlin was good with secrets. he knew all of them, how katie's big brother was the one that puked on mrs. tommie's shoes and how judy was gonna marry jake someday even if jake didn't know it.
"between you and me, i don't see there being any problem." she pulled back and winked at the little boy who gave her a toothy grin and piked up his crayon again. suddenly he huffed and turned seriously, resting his chin on his hand. "you'd better, mrs. casey, or else i'm gonna kick you 'n the shins and it hurts." he gave her a steady look before turning back to his coloring.
jenna maestro officially gained permanent custody over her foster son, berlin dean maestro, the next day and they lived happily ever after.
...or maybe not. but they were happy for a while.
-x-x-x-
age eight
berlin was eight when she got sick. he was just starting to play baseball and his mom's fiance, thomas, was teaching him how to pitch. the wedding was going to be in a few months and berlin was going to be walking his mom down the isle. his birthday was just a week after the wedding and mom and thomas were taking him to disneyland.
instead, he sat at the edge of the hospital bed and kept rubbing his eyes. he couldn't cry, he had to be strong. thomas patted his shoulder and held him when he started to cry. he was scared he'd lose his mom, the one person that had always been there for him. he remembered the day they officially got the papers that she was his permanent family, he had been really young and they had made cupcakes.
the doctors weren't sure what was wrong with her. thomas had come home and found her collapsed in the kitchen. berlin never said anything but he wondered to himself if she wouldn't have gotten sick if he had been home rather than at liam's house, he would have been home to call the hospital for her. as it was, he had heard the doctors talking about embolisms and aneurysms and strokes and he didn't know what any of them were but he knew they weren't good. thomas' face just kept sliding down, frowning.
on the third day of his mother not moving, laying in the bed with her face pale and almost yellow, they got an answer. her liver was failing. the doctor told them that it was likely she had taken some tylenol and it just was enough to push her into a coma. she was going to need a new liver if she was to survive. the woman had never smoked, very rarely drank unless it was a special occasion, had only ever had sex with three men (all steady boyfriends)(not that berlin knew that fact) and kept herself healthy. she even ran every other day. it was some sort of genetic condition that she could never had known about - like berlin, she had been left by her parents at birth and adopted.
so instead of having a beautiful wedding in her white dress or a fun day at disney, berlin would just go sit with his mother in the hospital. she was too ill to return home, requiring care to make sure that the small, small bit of her liver working correctly continued to work as they tried to find a donor. they had originally thought about a living donor donation as was common with liver disease but given her illness they would prefer her to have a deceased donor to get as much liver as possible. her disease was rare enough that she had specialists flying in to examine her.
berlin hated it. all he wanted was his mom to get better and all these strange men and women in white coats would poke at her and hurt her. thomas had to take him in the hall sometimes because he'd get so upset that he'd start screaming at them to fix his mom but they never would.
he sighed and laid next to his mom who ran a yellowing hand through his hair, her breath soft and weak. he just wanted her to get better.
the liver transplant occurred exactly three months after berlin's ninth birthday. his mother barely survived, it was touch-and-go for a while, but berlin spent his tenth birthday running around disney, his mother and stepfather running beside him.
-x-x-x-
age twelve
sometimes courts make mistakes. these mistakes can snowball until things get into a tangled mess. add in a corrupt lawyer and a few thousand dollars placed in the judge's right hand and balance of justice became seriously uneven. regardless of the validity of the claim, rulings can be made and unquestioned because of the right amount of money in the right hands. there are lawyers who thrive in that sort of thing and others who actually seek justice. james toole was one of the former.
enough money and suddenly it looked like berlin's adoption papers had some errors. his birth certificate that had been filled by his adoptive mother, jenna, was suddenly contestable. he waxed tales of how he had been coerced into signing the papers and his late wife had forced him to give up his 'beloved baby son'. any questions of why he suddenly wanted that kid back after twelve years were deemed 'too personal' and, somehow, through some gross injustice of the court system, berlin was torn away from his mother and father (thomas had officially become his father when he was eleven) and placed back with a birth father who didn't truly want him.
james toole wanted to have the perfect son to go with his image. the nice lawyer who managed to get back his long lost baby boy. he wouldn't have cared but a reporter had found out about the baby somehow and james couldn't risk the bad publicity with his newly started firm. so he had stolen back the son he didn't want.
berlin kept his face down, one of the duffel bags he managed to pack before james was ushering him out of the maestro home over his shoulder as he approached his new house. it was roughly three sizes larger than the house that berlin had grown up in and he instantly hated it as he followed james (that man was not deserving of being called father) through the sterile white hallway towards a door at the opposite end of second floor from the opulent doors that his father had informed him were his rooms and that berlin was never to go in them.
the man sneered as he opened the door to a small room with a bare mattress and a dark wooden desk in the corner. he placed a hand on berlin's shoulder and practically shoved the young boy into the room. placing his bag on the bed, he looked up to the tall man who he looked nothing like.
"this is your room. if i tell you to stay in here, you stay. i don't care if there is a fucking fire, you'll burn here before you disobey me. if you tell anyone what goes on inside the toole house i will go back to that house with your beloved parents and light it on fire with them trapped inside." the man gave an ugly sneer to the young boy. "berlin. what a fucking stupid name. " he shook his head and left the room.
berlin heard a lock click on the other side of the door and sat on the edge of his bed. he pushed back until his back was against the wall and wrapped his arms around his knees and pressed his face into them. he wanted to go home.
-x-x-x-
age fourteen
things didn't get better from the first day. in fact, they got much, much worse. berlin's room didn't have any of the heat the rest of the house did so it was often cold and he'd huddle in his sweats and try not to shake from the wind that would seem to seep in through his window. james often had a parade of different women over and whenever they were over berlin would be stuck back in his tiny room with the door locked.
james (he was not his father, merely a sperm donor, really) had made mentions to his birth mother. from what berlin understood, his birth mother was fiercly catholic and hated being married to james. the man had treated her horribly (james had always said he was just putting her in place) and eventually she had slit her own wrists in the bathtub.
berlin sort of understood. the worst part about living with james was that the man liked to hit berlin. he would always smile and laugh as he took his belt to berlin's back or a bat to berlin's ribs. he was sure that all of his ribs had been broken at least once, he had stopped changing in the same room as others during gym because his body was often varying shades of purples and blues. berlin had never hated someone like he did james. every time the man would threaten his mom and dad, jenna and thomas, and berlin knew he couldn't risk it. he couldn't let them be hurt.
"berlin. here, now." berlin winced and quickly ran to his birth father's study. he had learned in the past few years that he was never to leave james waiting. it just made things worse. he quickly entered the room.
pain blossomed along his side as he gasped and fell on the ground. his father stood above him, looking menacing with the wooden bat in his right hand and a tumbler of scotch in his left hand. it was always worse when he was drunk. the bat swung and berlin couldn't help but scream as pain blossomed on his knee. james usually avoided his legs and arms.
"shut up, you little asshole! it's your fault!" the bat swung again and berlin could only just gasp. "we lost our biggest client and it's your fucking fault for existing."
berlin keened in pain as the bat hit again and again, his vision going dark around the edges. james grabbed him by his arm and lifted his limp body up. "i'll make you regret you ever existed." he dragged the teenager from the arm, ignoring as berlin batted weakly at the hand.
he was stuffed into the car and berlin floated in and out of consciousnesses. he snapped back into a some sort of coherancy as he was dumped against the curb in the city. james grabbed his chin and dragged him forward, forcing him to look at the building. it was james' office, he knew that. the back entrance. "you made my business die, it's only fitting you will here too."
the bat was raised again and with a crushing blow to his head, berlin blacked out with an explosion of pain.
doctor's say his life was saved thanks to two good samaritans walking nearby who knocked his father so that the blow wasn't at full power because any harsher and berlin would have been dead.
-x-x-x-
age fourteen (and a half)
epilepsy. berlin just stared at his fingers as his mom gasped and his dad ran his hands against berlin's back. berlin had spent the last four months in a hospital, healing from james' attempted murder. he had very little memory of the first month, vaguely an impression of talking to police and being told that the maestros were here. he remembered at about a month and a half into his stay his mom and dad got permanent custody and adopted him once again. this time, the judge made sure it was incontestable and the judge that had sentenced berlin to his hell had been fired and was facing criminal charges.
james toole got fifty years without parole for attempted murder and child abuse. berlin hoped that he died in prison. the doctor just gave him a sad look and left the small family in the hospital room that had become berlin's home for months.
they had told him that it was likely that the seizures would stop as time passed, when the head trauma healed. it had been terrifying at first, they still were, actually. berlin had felt funny, irritable and his head had really hurt. then his body had felt like it was tensing and he had cried out. things got fuzzy after that but he woke and things hurt a lot and he was shaking and held on his side. his mom had been crying. apparently, it wasn't his first seizure but it was the first he remembered.
months passed and he experienced the big seizures, the tonic-clonic ones, at least once a week. he had a frequent amount of myoclonic seizures (something would just jerk and he was unable to stop it, like when he was holding something and he suddenly dropped it or a weakness of his leg that made him fall). the worst, though, are the ones they called atonic seizures. he would just tense up and fall and be unable to move for fifteen seconds or so. it was scary and he cried whenever it happened, feeling weak and hating it.
with the amount he had the doctor had officially diagnosed him with epilepsy. medication would help, they'd have to make sure that he had people who knew how to react during a seizure (both of his parents did after the seizures kept happening in the hospital) and making sure there wasn't too many sharp things for him to hit his head on until his atonic seizures became more regular.
berlin couldn't say anything, just continued to stare at his hands. he didn't know how he was supposed to deal with this. he wondered, briefly, if he would have preferred to be beaten. he hated the seizures, they all scared him. his mom looked nervous after each one, sad as she ran her fingers through his hair and kept telling him how much she loved him.
thomas patted his shoulder and snapped berlin out of his thoughts. he looked up at the redhead, the man smiling down at him softly. jenna sat on the bed beside him, resting her arm around his back and pressing a kiss to his forehead. "we'll make it work, bud." his dad murmured. "we love you."
-x-x-x-
age eighteen.
it had been hard to catch up to the other students. after the attack, he had been in the hospital for about half of the school year. not only that, but he was trying to figure out how to deal with his seizures and living with the dark cloud that was his epilepsy. it was recommended, by both his doctors and his old teachers, that he repeat the year rather than struggling with entering his junior year.
berlin had been livid. he wasn't going to put himself through the ridicule with going back to his old school and having them see him in a grade lower than he should be. it was bad enough that he had his condition, he wasn't going to give any more reasons for people to make fun of him. when his parents had told him they were seriously considering it they had been in his therapist's office and berlin had lost it. he had raged, jumping up from his seat and exclaiming how he had to enter his junior year, how he had to be normal.
rather than show off how rational he was and how dedicated he would be to his work, he stressed himself out to the point where he triggered a tonic-clonic seizure. it wasn't long enough to necessitate hospitalization but it had left him exhausted and humiliated. however his parents made an agreement with him, he was to study during the summer with a tutor and after a month of junior year if he was at all struggling, and they would ask his teachers, he was going to repeat sophomore year.
as he had planned, berlin had managed to study himself into surviving junior year. he had always been smart and absorbing the information was easy. he loved to read, aced english classes and would constantly be found with his nose in a book. he held a solid b+ as his lowest grade in math and showed that he could do it.
it didn't mean things were smooth sailing. he had very few friends in high school. after witnessing a seizure in the cafeteria (tonic-clonic, fortunately he didn't lose control of bodily functions) people avoided him like it was contagious. he usually spent at least one day at week at home, recovering from a tonic-clonic seizure and studying on his own.
at seventeen, he had started on the medication. he hated them, they made him feel odd and sometimes numb. the only benefit was they lengthened the time between his major seizures, allowing him some semblance of normality. given the choice, berlin wasn't sure if he liked taking them but even he could admit they did help with the frequency.
he snapped out of his thoughts by his moms hand on his shoulder. he was staying at home for university, sticking in san diego. it was a good school but he always knew he had wanted to go somewhere farther north but...things change. it wasn't safe for him to be on his own when he still had problems recognizing the signs of a seizure and his parents knew how to deal with his seizures and aftercare.
it was like his independence was gone. other people were off getting apartments on their own or going into party dorms to live their life and berlin was still at home. "coming, mom." he murmured, fingering the epilepsy medic alert bracelet that his mother had bought him within hours of his diagnoses.
berlin shrugged his shoulder and walked out of his room, trying to ignore how all the sharp corners had been covered with fabric and padding. this was his life now.
-x-x-x-
age twenty-three
he didn't really want to admit it because he was a grown man but he was completely and utterly excited about getting a dog. not any dog, but a seizure alert dog. the idea had been suggested by one of his doctors when he had told them about how he missed his independence. it had taken about a year to research and get in contact with the group that trained seizure alert dogs.
berlin already had placed a down payment on a small house in san diego, fairly close to the university with a large enough yard that the dog could run around. he had read about all the things that the dogs could do, alert to seizures, bring help, clear the way, and he was desperately hoping he'd bond with the dog and get some independence.
he had planned to move out anyways so the fact that the day he was allowed to go in to meet his companion was so close to the move-in date was amazing. it was like all the little things were falling into place. of course, if he actually got the dog would depend on if he bonded well with the dog and if the dog could demonstrate that he could do what he had been trained for.
bouncing on the balls of his feet, berlin felt like a little kid. he had never had a dog, his only pet as a child was a lizard named frankfurt who ran away when he was seven. it wasn't until he was seventeen did he actually find out that his mom had given him to a reptile specialist because she hated him. berlin wasn't that fond of him either so it wasn't any great loss.
"hello, you must be berlin, right?" an older woman with greying hair pulled back in a bun opened the door with a wide smile on her face. her shirt had the logo for the group that trained the dogs and she moved so he could enter the house. it was colored with warm browns and felt inviting.
"the dog we have for you is back here, he's a golden retriever named edison. real sweetheart." she lead him towards the back where there were three crates lined up, dogs sleeping in each of them. the dog on the end lifted his head and berlin's smile widened.
opening the cage, the women let the golden retriever wander out. the young dog wagged his tail and went straight for berlin, licking his hand and wagging his tail. berlin felt like he did when he looked at pictures of puppies and kittens on the internet, mushy and warm. he smiled and knelt down so he could scratch the dog behind the ears. this was the key to his independence - a happy looking dog staring up at him with golden brown eyes.
"hey, edison." he murmured and laughed as the dog licked his cheek. yeah, this was going to work.
-x-x-x-
ten things berlin dislikes:
- plain black coffee
- loud people in the library
- the color red
- baseball (the bats give him nightmares)
- fleas (edison had them once...the horror)
- radishes
- cigarettes
- beer (he prefers whiskey)
- quinoa
- seizures
nine things berlin likes
- earl grey tea
- books
- converse
- dogs
- quiet (everyone is just so loud these days)
- bendy straws
- cool ranch doritos
- bacon (edison loves it more, though)
- sunshine
eight books berlin read recently
- a portrait of an artist as a young man - james joyce
- as i lay dying - william faulkner
- frankenstein - mary shelley
- beowulf - unknown author
- the fault in our stars - john green
- the waste land - t.s. eliot
- hedda gabler - henrik ibsen
- the zombie survival guide - max brooks
seven things berlin bought recently
- peanut-butter filled pretzels
- 'the illusionist' movie on dvd
- a london fog from starbucks
- a pair of jeans (skinny)
- a bag of baby carrots
- dog treats
- fruit loops
six random things in his house
- a cow-shaped salt shaker (but a regular, red pepper shaker)
- a figurine that looks like golden retriever
- a hole puncher that only actually punches holes in paper 50% of the time
- a pair of bright pink scissors
- a squeaky toy shaped like a piece of bacon
- a book about italian grammar despite the fact that he can't speak italian
five songs he recently listened to
- fix you - coldplay
- one life - boyce avenue
- symphonie fantastique - berlioz (he has a soft spot for classical)
- demons - imagine dragon
- let her go - passenger
four not-so-secret talents
- playing piano (he's really good at it)
- quoting random passages from literary works
- remembering where he put his keys (unfortunately he can't ever remember where he put his bus pass)
- can read, and absorb, information at an above average speed.
three degrees
- bachelors in library science
- bachelors in fine arts (english) (double major with the library science degree)
- masters in english literature (focus on medieval epics)
two secrets
- he purposefully doesn't take his epilepsy medication sometimes because he doesn't like how they make him feel
- he dealt with serious depression in his late teens that only his therapist knew about - he never told his parents.
one current job
- librarian at a high school (he's working on his phd in english literature so he took the job so he'd have free time and he likes working with kids)
DANIEL SHARMAN - LOCAL - WRITTEN BY CACE
Love it and him and can't wait to throw some of my characters at him. Don't forget the claims dear.