Not that Ester was much better. However, where as John used his fists first off, she would use barbed words. If they had no effect, THEN she would resort to fists. Ester always told Sharon that "Everyone out there was trying to get you" since the day Sharon was old enough to understand, starting Sharon's fear of anyone moving past their yard (especially the garbage men).

"It is always the quiet ones." As a young child in school, growing up in this setting, she tended to be very quiet, hardly talking to her peers. When she did speak, it was to tell them absurd things/stories that got reactions varying from fear to disgust.
~ * ~
Jared, an eight-year-old, crinkled his nose, staring down at the bowl of soup he just tried, "Ugh.. this soup is nasty."
"Yeah, but you gotta eat it, or the teachers won't let you go to recess," Beth sniggered at him and took another bite of her soup.
Jared grumbled and took another bite, only to pause part way when an unfamilar voice rang out.
"There's blood."
Jared lowered his spoon, looking back at the pale haired girl sitting alone a table away. He had seen the girl a couple times before, and knew she was in the same class as his younger brother who was six. "What?"
Sharon looked back, tilting her head as she looked at him quizically. "You didn't know? That nasty taste.. it is blood. There's blood in the soup. That's why I always get something else."
Jared looked down, and stared at the soup queasily. He missed as Sharon stood with her empty tray, and began to walk away. When he did look back to ask how she knew, she was already well away.
"She's lying! Schools don't have blood.." Beth intoned in a self important fashion, staring after Sharon with a look of distaste.
Jared didn't reply, and missed out on recess because he did not finish his soup.
~ * ~

After various complaints of this kind of behavior, too many extended absences as her parents kept Sharon home after the more severe beatings, and other such things, her parents just forbid Sharon from going to school at all. Screams of "you're more trouble then you're worth", and "I'll kill you if you put another toe wrong", echoed through their little home that went through its phases of being messy and sterile clean depending on the temperment of her mother. As well other things were done to Sharon that are best left unmentioned.

After awhile, someone, a teacher who had noticed Sharon's odd behavior and got worried, finally put in a call to social services. This was when Sharon was around seven. The first social services came, all seemed well enough. The house was just leaving being sterile clean, so was not too unkept. Her parents were home and shook Sharon telling her to say all was well before they came in, so she was on best, if quiet and shy, behavior. No bruises were obvious. Thus they came, they poked about, and they left.

At the second check, the front door was wide open and Sharon was inside on the floor nursing a bloody nose, the parents were gone, and the place was completely trashed. Without waiting, they took Sharon, even with her kicking and screaming, and eventually put her into another home.

While at times these foster homes can be good things with people who genuinely care, Sharon was, very unfortunately, saddled with a family who wanted the pay checks from it. They could not stand Sharon. Her psychological problems, her talking to herself, claims at hearing voices, and panic attacks were "attempts to get attention", and more often then not she was smacked, spanked, slapped, and locked into her sparse room in the basement. When the social workers checked in, and her pleas to let her leave were shrugged off with an explanation from the parents that she was just being spoiled, she finally ran away.

She did not fair well on the streets, especially the first year. Starvation, dehydration, and sickness was the norm, combined with hallucinations, panic attacks, her delusions concerning trash men and various people in uniforms, and her fears that anyone she met would hurt her kept her fleeing in a panic whenever she was approached. She learned of her own ability to augment during this time, as part of a delusion that she could fly away from her "tormentors". She leaped up to fly over a fence, and actually completely cleared the 10 foot fence, and dropped nimbly to the other side to keep fleeing from the trashmen walking down the alley. Her insanity doubled, and she nearly went over the deep end. It actually took a homeless man whom she sheltered with during a rain storm to start calming her down.

The man, Don, was a former English college professor that lost his career due to alcohol abuse that started after finding his wife had been cheating on him. He became a mentor and friend to the crazed, and just barely at the time, teenager. He would share his alcohol with the 13-year-old and spend hours just talking of the things he used to teach, including to correct her grammer, his views on the different problems of the world, cities, and in working life. He would even explain to her how he had gotten to where he was, the importance of being able to see things from another's eyes, and anything else that popped into his head, especially during the last year of his life when he began dying. In fact, the main part of their relationship was him speaking, and her listening rapturiously.
~ * ~
Sharon slunk down the alleyway, cautiously approaching the man wrapped in newspaper in the back, as she nervously looked over her shoulder. She had been told that not everyone was out to get her, but there was a garbage can in this alley, which meant THEY would come sometime. -They- left Don alone, but that did not mean -They- would miss seeing her here. She turned, then crouched by the figure as he awoke coughing, peering down at his face.
"Donny, why do people hurt each other?"
Don blinked at the question, and slowly sat up, regarding the teenager, before rattling on. "Well, there are various reasons one might feel compelled to hurt their fellow man, though most of which are from delusional beliefs. They might hurt each other for a real or imagined justice, example being a man sees another hitting a girl, so starts a fight with him over it as real justice, or an imagined wrong of someone tells a man he is ugly as sin, so the man, angered, turns and slugs the man for saying that about him. Not that that is a good thing, don't ever hit someone for something bad they say, as often they don't really mean it. Sometimes they are in a bad mood and things just fly off their tongue. Other times it is control. People who are insecure sometimes resort to violence over others to feel more secure...."
Sharon toned out the next few sentences as she pondered over this statement, thinking back to her parents. Did they just want control? But they always had control, so why would they want more? That can't be it.
Eventually Don's speaking derailed to talking of wars and the various reasons that they started. This was interesting, so Sharon put aside her wonderings for the moment to focus in.
~ * ~

As Don's condition worsened the topics he spoke of varied more and more widely. He would begin to speak of one thing, and then switch to something totally different in the middle. Finally one day, he told Sharon not to come back.
~ * ~
"My girl.. you have been very sweet to me, coming to listen to the rantings of an old man, but you need to stop coming now."
Sharon blinked, falling from her crouch to her hands and knees as she stared in disbelief at the old man. "B-but.. What did I do?"
Don smiled kindly, and reached out a wrinkled hand to take her's. "Nothing dear.. nothing. I just am too old, and it is time for me to go on. You're a sweet lass, and though you haven't said much about it, I know you have been through a lot. I don't want you to see me die."
Sharon's lip quivered as she clung tightly to his hand. "Die? You're going to leave me?! You can't leave! You're not allowed to die!"
Don patted her hand with his other consolingly. He did have feeble hands, Sharon finally noticed with some dejection. "I hurt, and am miserable. I have lived long enough, and make some terrible mistakes, but I have been blessed to have you for these past years to talk to. You need to go, and do something with yourself. Don't die alone.. be happy..." Don gave a sigh and closed his eyes. "I am so tired, girl.. I need to sleep. Be good, and live well.." As Sharon's hands continued to clutch his own, Don opened one eye and peered at her. "Go on now, go do something with yourself."
Sharon reluctantly released him, and, tears streaming from her eyes, walked away as she heard him snoring.
The next time she saw him, he was being zipped up in a body bag.
~ * ~

After that, Sharon went to it with a will to not be alone. However, this proved to be a very bad thing as the companions who first welcomed her were a group of drug addicts who pulled her into their ways. She became "friends" with a few drug dealers, and their customers, being the middle woman at times who "shared the happy stuff" with others, who in turn gave her money "in thankfulness" that she gave to the suppliers (though why anyone would want random paper was beyond her), who in turn would give her drugs for delivering their stuff for them. On top of that, she was often invited along for drug parties, as she was a "good luck charm" for feeling better highs, as she tended to augment at random while drugged up. She was made out with and groped while drugged, details of which we will not get into, however she has had the good fortune not to be full out raped by these fellows. Can't pick overly much on the "good luck charm", after all.
~ * ~
"So what's your name, sweet stuff?" A man grinned hazily after speaking, showing he was missing a few teeth.
"Mmm?" Sharon looked up in a drugged haze, and muttered pleasantly. "Will be carin' and sharin'... Hehe.. I'm so witty." She giggled endlessly as the toothless man eyed her, grinning a bit wider.
"You're a looney."
She paused, seeming to actually come out of her haze enough to take insult. "Am not! I'll get a different name!" She wobbly stood.
The toothless man blinked. "Hey now.. no need to be upset doll. Why doncha come sit over here with me and we'll just calm you right down, eh?"
"No no.. must.. get name.." She stumbled away from the man, intent on renaming herself.
Not too long afterwards, out on the streets, she stopped to listen to some boys commenting on a "Tina Turner".
"Tina... Turner... ..Hee! That'll do!" The three young men looked up, blinking at the drunkenly skipping renamed "Tina" half prancing down the street, while occasionally thudding into walls and various other obstacles.
~ * ~

The drugs however did not help her mental condition any. She began having worse detachment from the world around her. For example, she would stare up at a flickering street lamp, and get the impression that the light wanted to be free.
~ * ~
There, she heard it. That faint crying from the trapped light flickering above. Her eyebrows knit together in worry. She wanted so desperately to help that light, and free it from its prison. She looked around, searching for something, anything to throw, and finally found a chunk of brick that had fallen loose from a building. She smiled as she hoisted it. The light would soon be free.
~ * ~