When I woke up, it was past noon. My head was pounding, and if felt like the sheets were stuck to my body. I took a sip from the water glass on my nightstand. I rubbed my eyes, and brushed my hair from my eyes. Sunlight poured through the open window, and the sound of traffic felt louder than normal. I stumbled into the bathroom, and promptly threw up.  Seeing my reflection in the bathroom mirror was a jarring experience. My brown hair, a tangled mess, earrings from last night still in my ears. I took them out and turned on the faucet to the shower. Pulling off my t-shirt and underwear I 'stepped into the shower. Twenty minutes later, after I'd done my best to scrub the hangover off my body I stepped out. In the steamy mirror, I looked a little more like myself. I wondered, as I did every time I saw myself, who I really looked like. I'd determined, I didn't look a lot like my mom. I had her eyes though, caramel colored, the kind of eyes that showed everything I was feeling. 

As I was getting dressed there was a knock on the door. 

"One minute!" I yelled, pulling a shirt over my head. As I made my way through the mess of boxes and bags in my living room I smiled, I still had a lot of unpacking to do. When I opened the door I found my best friend Kiana standing there. She held out a coffee from Starbucks and I took a grateful sip.

"The best hangover cure." She said. I took it gratefully. 

"Hey how you feeling?" She asked as I opened the door for her to come in. As she took a seat at the table I shrugged.

"Hungover, but better." I said taking a seat across from her. Kiana had been my best friend since fifth grade. We had ended up in group homes together, and were once marvelously placed in the same foster home. She had dark skin and long silky black hair, that I was always jealous of. Last night, she had dragged me out to a club, in celebration of my eighteenth birthday. It had been a night that I would never forget.

"Well fuck, what are you going to do now?" She asked, stirring sugar into her coffee. I shrugged. She made a point, I was eighteen now, an adult who could make her own choices outside of the ones made for her for all her life. Just then my phone chimed. I picked it up, to see it was a text. 

Owen: Hey, remember me? 

I typed a quick reply.

Evie: Hey, yeah I do, how are you?

I smiled. Kiana raised an eyebrow. 

"Is that the guy from last night?" She asked leaning to look at my phone. I nodded, supresing my smirk. 

"Yeah, didn't even think I was going to get a text." I said. She shrugged.

"Hey, did you ever think about finding your parents?" I asked. Kiana choked on her coffee. She wiped her lips and scowled.

"Fuck no, why would I want to find people who abandoned me." She griped. I reached for the small stack of photos on the table. The first one was a photo of a young girl, maybe around my age, holding a baby. The photo was taken in a dimly lit bathroom. The woman, was my mother, and the baby was me. I handed it to Kiana.

"That's my mom." I said. She smiled.

"She was pretty. You're like a carbon copy of her, Jesus Christ." Kiana said. I shook my head. I didn't see it, to me we looked like strangers. 

"All my fucking childhood, all I ever did was wonder where she went, her and my dad, how can someone just disappear off the face of the earth?"  I quipped. Kiana didn't say anything. From the years of bouncing around foster care, and the years of no gifts on Christmas, no daddy-daughter dances, I'd always wondered what happened to them. I'd tried, over the years to ask questions, and I'd never gotten any straight answers. 

My phone chimed again. It was my boss. I swore under my breath. Reading the text reminding me I had a shift to work. I had completely forgot, in light of the brain fog I was still struggling through.  I typed a reply, telling her I'd be there as soon as I can. 

"I have work." I groaned, swigging the last of my coffee.