Billy Watson had just turned seven years old when tragedy struck: his parents, Mary and William, met their untimely demise during a freak car accident, leaving Billy in the care of his Aunt, Beatrice. However, there wasn't much of a grace period allowed for poor Billy to mourn the loss of his parents. His aunt was a cruel older woman; she had no interest in having children of her own and found that Billy was just a burden that just wasn't worth it to her.
It wasn't hard to imagine that Billy didn't want to be there either. His aunt was a miserable one that barely paid attention to him. Often times, he'd get "lost" on his way home from school just so that he didn't have to be around her. And it wasn't that she noticed.. or cared. She had no particular preference if the boy was home, safe and sound. She'd turn a blind eye to him once he finally came back around, dirty and starving, and that was the way that they managed their lives together for several years.
It was when Billy was thirteen years old that things seemed to change for him. After one of his teacher's had found Billy departing from an alleyway, they confronted the boy on school grounds and asked him how he was doing at home. Hesitant at frst, Billy eventually opened up to his teacher and to say they were appalled would be an understatement. After going back and forth with the teacher, his guidance counsler, child services, and his aunt (the only remaining family the poor kid had, and family was a word to be used loosely), Billy was then packed up and moved into the care of the state.
Going in and out of foster homes wasn't all that bad. There were some where chores were an every day and expected thing of each and every kid, but they weren't child labor camps. The families he spent time with were good to him, even if Billy's immediate reaction was to find a way all on his own; unlike his aunt, they were active about searching for him and always found him a few hours later sitting outside a convenience store or at the park.
At the age of fifteen, Billy had surrendered to the fact that he would never really find a family to call his own and thus allowed himself to grow attached to his foster family of a mother and father, a younger sister, and an older brother. They worked and cared for each other like a normal family did, even if they weren't the least bit normal. Eventually, prior to Billy's eighteenth birthday, the Monroe family did adopt Billy, but allowed him to keep his last name as it was one of the few things he had to relate to his mother & father.
College was an odd time for Billy. While he was used to being on his own, he was repeatedly told that college was a 'rite of passage' and should 'experience independence' and somehow he was led to believe that this was different than anything he had been through in his earlier years. And much to his surprise - and it took him a little while to realize - he could actually enjoy his independence.
His freshman year was a mixture of independent studies and going over the many options in which he could "major" in. He had, in essence, the whole world at his fingertips and he couldn't figure out where to begin. He was mid-way through his freshman year when he met another student out on the quad. This student had a binder that was structured and color coded. He kept checking his watch and mouthing to himself the number of steps it took to get from one building to the other. Curiously, Billy introduced himself and asked if he needed any help.
It had come to Billy's attention that the student that he had met was autistic. In an effort to understand more, he spent time in the library and asking professors more about it. It was then that Billy decided on what he wanted to do. And in the meantime, he managed to make a new friend.
Now, at the age of twenty-six, Billy has completed his master's in special education and has taken a position at the League School of Greater Boston as a behavioral specialist, working with children from 3-5 years old that have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and asperger's syndrome.