“Can I just see your iPod?”
She hands it to me, and I give it to Ayden. “Here you go.” I slip off my sandals and kick my feet up on the console. “Impress me.”
I wait patiently as his eyes dance between me and the iPod in his hand. He starts sorting through the songs. I swear he just about grins again when he makes his selection and returns the device back to me. I pause as I take it from him, catching a glimpse of a row of thin scars that look like cat scratches on the top of his hand. Noticing the direction of my gaze, he quickly jerks his sleeve over his hand then rotates toward the window again.
I want to ask him about the scars. I want to ask him a lot of things. But I force my curious side to shut up and focus on the music. The song he chose causes me to laugh, because of all things it’s by Nirvana. I start singing along under my breath, quiet enough that no one can actually hear me, while Ayden thrums his fingers to the beat, gazing out the window at the houses and stores in the distance.
“Are you sure you’re not too hot?” Lila asks Ayden for the millionth time, making her seem way more doting toward him than she was with the other three.
“I’m good,” he responds, scratching at the scars on the back of his hand as he turns inward.
“You know what would be cool,” I say when the silence gets to me. “If Ayden could come to the concert with Dad and me.”
“Oh, he can’t.” Lila fretfully glances over her shoulder at Ayden, who doesn’t say a thing. “Ayden has to take it easy for the first few weeks while he’s here, getting adjusted to everything. I don’t want to over-excite him.”
So strange.
I sit back in the seat as we continue to drive through the city for the next hour before returning home. As we hop out of the car to go inside the house and watch a movie, I snag Ayden’s sleeve and draw him back to me. When Lila and my mom step inside, I release his shirt and face him.
“Okay, you passed the music test. Now we can be friends.” I would have been friends with him anyway, but it’s more entertaining this way.
He stares me down. “What if I don’t want to be friends with you?”
I’m unsure if he’s being serious or not, but I shrug him off, seeing this as more of a fun challenge than anything else.
“You do. I promise. Not only am I the most awesome person ever, but I can show you the ropes of your new life.” I stick out my hand. “So what do you say? Friends?”
He eyeballs my hand then his gaze glides up my body and lands on my face. “All right, we can be friends, Lyric.” He places his scarred hand in mine and we shake on it.
His fingers tremor as we pull away, and his smile never fully reaches his eyes.
I know the story. All of the children Lila and Ethan have adopted have been through something terrible. Usually, I leave it alone since it’s none of my business, but with Ayden, I’m curious. I have questions. Lots and lots of questions.
I make a vow to myself right then and there that one day, as his friend, I will get to know him and find out his story.
Then, I’ll make him smile for real.
Chapter 2
Ayden
Just breathe. Just breathe. Just Breathe.
The pressure will crack and shatter
if you just keep breathing.
Life will eventually get easier
if you keep your heart beating.
Just breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe.
I repeat the mantra of words over in my mind the entire drive to my new house, all during the tour, and during the ride with the woman who drives crazier than most teenagers. I chant it under my breath all night long when I don’t get an ounce of sleep.
The process is nothing new. This is the sixth time I’ve lay awake in a new room within the last year. Stability is what’s uncertain to me, even before I entered the system. And now, suddenly, they’re telling me I have it. That this home is the home. That I’m being adopted and will no longer be passed around from family to family.
I don’t understand it. Teenagers aren’t supposed to be adopted. No one wants them, especially ones that are as ruined as I am, that have been through the things I have. We’re stray dogs, scraggily, ratty, bad habits, untrainable. People want puppies. Cute, fixable puppies. Yet here I am, supposedly wanted by the Gregorys, despite my scars and issues.
The house is strangely quiet at night, and even during the brink of morning. Maybe I’m just too used to a lot of noise, but the soundlessness makes sleep impossible. I end up staring at the ceiling until the sun peeks over the city and heats up the room. Then I climb out of bed and start to get ready for school.
After I pull on a pair of faded black jeans and a matching shirt, I sit on the bed and stare at the few contents inside my bag. A single photo of me with my older brother and younger sister, a rusty pocketknife, and a watch are all that’s left of my original life—the one that I was born into. I don’t miss that life at all, but I miss my brother and sister, who I haven't seen since social services barged in on that God awful day and yanked us out of that shithole house.
I look down at the scars on the backs of my hands. Marks of my past, branded forever into my body and soul. I can remember clearly how some of them were put onto my body. Others I can’t. The freshest ones are the worst. They happened the day I was taken away, a day my mind has somehow blocked.
They’ll never go away.
Always own a fragment of my soul.
Own a part of me.
Never let me go.
Yet they won’t own the pieces
that live in the darkest parts.
There, but not quite breathing.
Please, please don’t let them break me apart.
I put the photo down and pick up the other object hidden beneath the small pile of clothes—a bottle of pills I stole from the last home. I don’t even know why I took it. Not to get high. I’m not into drugs. I just wanted to have them, just in case I can’t take this anymore, the pain and darkness and ugliness residing inside me. The loneliness. The unknown.
I wonder if I should take them now. All of them. Then I wouldn’t have to face another damn day feeling as though the ground is about to crack apart beneath me. Face the world being friendless again. Alone. Always alone. I hate it, but can’t admit it aloud.
“Ayden.”
Mrs. Gregory is standing in the doorway with her blonde hair pulled up, wearing a hesitant expression. She has on a red apron over jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. She looks like a typical mom, yet her warming, comforting demeanor is unfamiliar to me.
“I was coming to wake you up for school”—she tentatively steps foot into the room, glancing around at everything still neatly in place like it was yesterday. I haven’t dared touch anything except the bed—“but it looks like you’re already ready.”