𝒕𝒃𝒂 !

Livia was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. Her family life wasn’t at all normal, being the only child to two failed musicians who loved drugs more than their own kid, (combined with her father constantly coming and going) caused her childhood to be tumultuous at best. She spent her early years alone most of the time, finding ways to escape the situation, playing with her imaginary friends became her salvation. The times her parents were around, both respectively hungover and irate with her mere presence were some of his worst times. Being ridiculed and yelled at for seemingly no reason other than being wrong in some way. Broken promises and disappointment were the norm. Livia learned to avoid this completely, never getting in the parent’s way and always secluding herself in her room. Never asking questions, always quiet. You could’ve sworn the kid was mute. This kept on until she was ultimately forced to grow up at the age of 11, that was the year her father split for good, leaving her to take care of the now always drunk mother. Leaving Livia to clean up her messes. She truthfully didn’t want it, refusing to give up what little freedom she had for a life of giving love to someone who would never return it. Eventually, she faded away like Livia thought she would. Leaving one day to never come back. She was only 12.

After being thrown into the system, deemed an orphan since no one had a clue where her father was, Livia had to unlearn everything she’d been put through. The first family to meet her were nice enough, apart of the upper class with no idea how to parent a child- let alone one with as many problems as she had. They were a young couple, both professionals who wanted nothing more than to adopt. They took one look at her and fell head over heels, but the change in environment got to Livia, she started to lash out. Resenting the world for dealing these cards, what did she do to deserve any of it? She spent 6 months with them before they decided they’d exhausted all efforts and dumped her right back at the girl’s home. Rejection like that only made it worse, it was right then and there that she decided it wasn’t worth the effort. She’d just make herself so undesirable, so miserable that nobody would want her. It worked, partially; her teenage years were spent in and out of foster homes, the sudden fear of turning 18 and not knowing what to do when she aged out got to her. Her behavior switched overnight, astonishing the social workers who had lost hope for her. She finally found home in the next foster placement, they were her grandparents’ friends after all and she was 16 at that point, she needed them. Moving into their home was the best thing for her, plus they were normal. Nothing remarkable about them and that’s how she liked it. 

Finally, after years of turmoil she got used to a little bit of normalcy, growing to absolutely love the mundane schedule she had. School, home, sleep and back at it again. Packed lunches with two warm meals for breakfast and dinner. She finally figured out that this was her salvation, something that seemed so foreign and unattainable and yet under all that hatred, it’s all she really yearned for. She spent her last two years like that, her grades being good enough that she actually thought about college. It was her one shot at forgetting about her past, starting anew. Livia was accepted to her surprise, her now-grandparents were ecstatic for her. Using what they had to help fund her trip. College was the best time of her life, the first two years she buckled down and rarely socialized, focusing on her studies until she could barely see. Though with all things in this life, it all came to a halt, her grandmother got sick and passed on during her fifth semester, smack dab in the middle. This all sent her into a deep depression, she almost dropped out, used alcohol and any drug she could find to rid her sorrows. It was in the span of a week that she had to face everything she’d internalized, all the sadness, the inner turmoil, and maybe even the worst of it all. It made her sick to think about.