Royal Blood
Kolina Topel
For my children, Kailey and Austin. Thank you for making every day an adventure.
A very special thank you to Emily Joncas, for editing all of my mistakes (there were many), and standing beside me through months of “It’s not perfect yet” moments.
Alicia Dixon and Felicia Topel for being my guiding light, inspiration, and, at times, my motivation.
One
I have always been considered a pretty girl. Beautiful even perhaps, though I never really seemed to fit in with t he so-called “beautiful people.” Not just them , though, I never really seemed to fit in anywhere.
I have lived all over the country, never staying in one place for more than a year and often less. I’ve met endless brands of people, studied different religions and hovered in several social circles, but I always wound up back in the one place I never really wanted to be—New Albany, Indiana.
Not that I don’t like the place I most often called home, it just felt empty like most other places do. I suppose it has its perks though. It is small enough to be considered “small town , ” yet close enough to Louisville that there is usually something to do. There is one big reason that I always come back though—my mother.
My mother had traveled the world for several years before I was born. She is a very spontaneous woman who has a constant yearning for something and someplace new; driving tour buses for cruise lines in Mexico, training race horses in Florida, parasailing in California. She is much more outgoing and carefree than I have ever been. She settled down in New Albany some years before I was born and eventually met a man named Michael who would become my stepfather. He had two daughters of his own—Amber and Elizabeth. I’ve never met my real father. I was told he left when I was a baby.
Shortly after graduating from high school, I moved out of the house where my mother had raised me through all of my teen years, yet after three years of constant moving, my heart again began to yearn for home, for Mom, so I moved back.
This is where my story begins. This is when I became who and what I am—or at least figured it all out. It’s how I lost those close to me and discovered the truth about my past.
* * *
I was working a second-rate job at Wal-Mart and had been there for almost a year, making not much better than minimum wage. That didn’t bother me as much as my boss, Linda, who always seemed intent on making my already long shifts hell. Unfortunately, I usually got stuck with second shift.
It was mid-January, which meant it was freezing cold outside. New Albany amazingly has absolutely freezing winters, even though there isn’t always a ton of snow. I stepped outside of work after a grueling eleven -hour shift and looked at my watch, 8 p.m. already—too late to call Mom for something to do.
I snarled at the cold as I walked to my car, and I finally began to realize I hadn’t eaten since lunch (thanks Linda). I decided to stop at the bank and take out ten of the last thirty or so dollars I had to my name to get some fast food before going home to my food-barren kitchen.
When I pulled up to the ATM to check my balance and reached for the slip of paper out of the machine, my mouth dropped almost as fast as the paper fell out of my hand. The balance—it wasn’t thirty dollars like I had expected. It was $674, 389!
I took out my card and put it back in. “There must be some mistake, there must be some mistake,” I kept thinking. The bank was closed for the day, naturally , so I couldn’t go in and question the teller.
Same thing, $674,389. I couldn’t breathe. I don’t know how long I sat there, seconds, minutes, maybe longer, but finally someone behind me honked,
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