When you have a father that's an alcoholic, workaholic and all around jerkaholic, and a mother that never wanted a child in the first place, adoption and the foster system seems like the way to go. That's essentially what Cambrie Callaghan was able to teach herself about her upbringing. For as long as she could remember, she was in and out of the foster system. Her parents gave her up for adoption not long after birth, and it was more or less up to her to make up her own origins story when she was old enough. Whether or not her father was a working, drinking, all around douchebag of a man and her mother child hating socialite, she would never be entirely sure, but it's what she was able to tell herself to get over.

Due to her knack for getting into trouble and being a bit of a rebellious soul, Cambrie found it hard to stay in one home for very long. Unlike most kids she grew up with, it wasn't that she didn't like her foster family or the rules they set in place for living under their roof, it was only because they couldn't tame her. As a youngster, she was something of a wild child and found herself in trouble constantly. At least for the most part, she was more or less just a victim of circumstance and found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. She and her foster sister that were mostly a package deal would find themselves in bad situations all the time. In her early teens, she was busted a few times with incriminating notes from school (that she didn't write!) or paraphinalia in her backpack (that she swears wasnt hers!) and would go on to knowing the principal and vice principal of her school on first name basis. And sometimes, she would get into trouble for things that weren't even worth getting in trouble for. To this date she'll never understand why she was kicked out of her AP Physics class for putting a cookie in her mouth afterher teacher told her to get rid of it. She was only doing what he asked.

It's easy to say she was a very misunderstood kind of child. From the time she was in her early teens all the way up into more recent years, Cambrie caught a lot of flack for the things she's done. More than once she was caught stealing food and toiletries from a local convenience store or CVS, and when asked what she had planned on doing with those items, she answered truthfully by telling the cops or store managers that she planned on giving them to her less fortunate friends. Her heart was always in the right place, but it was often hard for Cambrie to learn what was right and what was wrong. She had a bit of a Robin Hood complex and would steal from the stores in order to bring needed supplies and sustenance to people she befriended in shelters and on the street. Her heart was truly with them and she wanted to see that they were comfortable and taken care of, even if she couldn't do more about it.

One of her favorite past times growing up in the city was studying people. Even in high school, Cambrie had found herself enamored by the idea of psychology and the study of human behavior. For years, she would sit back and study people she saw on the streets, remaining quiet and still but learning all about their movements and the ways they used their bodies to talk. This would eventually fuel her desire to go on to college and study psychology, realizing that her gift in reading people could actually get her into a position of helping them if she had the right kind of education backing her up. Unfortunately, the silent killer of her dreams that she had fought for years during primary schooling, would inevitably be her downfall. After a full year of college, Cambrie took the fall semester of her second year off after struggling with her extreme dyslexia. Although she had fought with it during middle and high school, and of course during her younger years, without the help of her current foster parents or tutors, she felt as if she didn't fit in. Her disability, although minor on the grand scale, made her feel tainted and as if she didn't belong. There was a level of anxiety she developed over it, even leading herself to believe that people would know and judge her for her problem. This prompted her break from college, though she has yet to go back.

Due to a strain between her and her foster parents, Cambrie had moved out of their house and stayed with friends as often as she could. It was easier when she was in college, because even when she didn't have places to stay, she found herself able to crash in the student commons and freshen up before class the following morning. Once she had taken a break from school, she didn't have quite the same luck and became a notorious couch surfer and was more familiar with shelters now than she was before. It wasn't until a friend of the family she had been adopted by let them know that they had seen Cambrie in this distressful position that things began to look up.

Despite not being close with her family, she appreciated them welcoming her back home. She feared going back home with the news that she was taking a break from college to sort things out and sort of find herself would anger them, but they were able to work through it. Cambrie did get some help, though she's still taking a break from college and trying to find herself all over again. She'd moved in with forever best friend Maddie and together they rent an apartment that's more or less a Pinterest DIY nightmare, though it feels more like home than anything else could be.