I was six when I was removed from that shit excuse for a ‘home.’ Some kids stayed until they aged out. I guess I was ‘one of the lucky ones’ if I wanted to see the silver lining.
When I found these guys, I knew they were it for me. It was the way they put me at ease, despite my trauma. Fifteen years later, and that still hasn’t changed.
“Come on,” Hale says, a twinkle in his eyes and a lightness in his voice that has me looking up with curiosity. “You know you would never lose us. What’s our saying?”
Maybe he can tell we’ve reached my quota for serious conversations. Bless him.
I laugh softly at the absurd line we came up with as preteens before answering with a chuckle, “Friends are like condoms. They protect you when things get hard.”
We’d just started learning about sex ed and ‘protection’ when we decided on that. We may not have fully understood the use of condoms back then but, in hindsight, we really nailed that analogy.
“Well, then?” Hale asks. “We’ve stuck together for this long. I don’t picture that changing. Do you?”
You’re just full of questions tonight, huh?
There’s a war going on inside between my head and heart. I know they care about me. I don’t remember much about my biological family but I remember feeling safe, happy, loved. These guys are all of that and more. Meeting them was one of the best things to happen in my life. I know these men will never hurt me.
But, if I open myself up to them about everything I'm hiding, what if everything changes? I don't want their pity. All that aside, they don't know how I feel about them. What if they don't feel the same way?
The fear of rejection is real, it’s what holds me back—that and the fact there's no way in hell I could choose just one of them.
Legally, I’m an adult now. If I lose them, that doesn’t mean I lose my home. But if I lose them, I lose my family, which would be worse.
The guys and Beth are truly all I have. In their own ways, each of them has helped me heal from the trauma of my past. Each time I felt consumed with flashbacks and grief, Beth let me cry on her shoulder, soothing me and comforting me, healing a small crack in my heart every time. And the guys, they helped in so many ways by just existing.
I can’t screw this up but I also can’t live my life in fear anymore.
My past can’t define me any longer. I need to push past it. I want to progress. Perfection isn’t possible, but I can at least try to be better, even just a little each day.
I need to decide if I can handle the fallout of them not reciprocating my feelings. It’s a tough pill to swallow but this wishy-washy, back-and-forth tug of war is slowly pushing me to the edge of my sanity.
The sincerity in his words is evident, but I need some time. I can’t just let down the wall I’ve spent countless years reinforcing, even for them. Not yet.
So, in pure Lana-style, I ignore his question. Loudly enough for the others to hear, I say, “Can I please have another beer? I promise I won't challenge you guys to another belching contest. You’re all sore losers anyway!”
“Opinions are like assholes, Lana. Everyone has one.” Leo shoots back, breaking the tension that descends on the group during my interaction with Hale.
Cheeky bastard.
“Exactly!” Luke adds. “Just because you think your burps are better doesn’t mean it’s the truth, sweetheart. Dream on!”
Their playful personalities are infectious, drawing a smile from my lips every time they banter. They’re quick with their words and creative with their pranks but it all stems from a dark time in their childhood and their egg donor.
With the twins, the moment may get serious, but it never stays that way for long, no matter what the topic or who’s involved.
On a particularly hot, summer day, their mother loaded the twins into the car, pulled up to the closest foster group home, dragged them to the front of the building and zip tied their wrists to the stairs leading up to the building. She walked away without another glance as they sobbed for their mother, not understanding why she was leaving them or that it was forever.
Ever since then, they’ve locked down their more serious emotions. Long periods of low moods take them back to those memories and sets them into depressive episodes. It took years for them to reveal even that much to me.
Growing up, Hale and Zedd were my anchors when I needed to feel grounded, Luke and Leo were my life rafts when I was pulled down into the dark waters of my mind, whereas Ash was the asshole lifeguard who refused to let me drown.
Holding my hand over my heart in mock dismay, I push myself up off the ground. As Hale follows me to a standing position, I lean into him, wiping my tingling, half-asleep ass to get off the dirt and debris. I whisper conspiratorially, “I think they’re scared of getting their ass whooped in another contest. That’s why they’re hoarding the beers like dragons with treasure.”
He slings his arm around me with a chuckle, graciously dropping the earlier conversation, and steers me over to the rest of the group.
“So now that that’s out of the way, what would you like to do for your birthday, Sugar Britches?” Luke asks, testing out his nickname of the day.
I will never grow old of hearing the ridiculous, surprisingly creative combinations that he always comes up with—or the guys’ exasperated groans at each new attempt to draw a laugh from me.
Scoffing at the ‘name of the day,’ I goad him. “Seriously? Sugar Britches? That’s the best you could do? Well’s running a little dry there on creativity, huh?”
His mouth drops open at my rejection of the name, mock outrage painted on his face. As he has his drama queen moment, I soak up the love that I feel for these men. They helped mold me into the person that I am today and I can’t bear the thought of having to part with any of them.
They all fill a different piece of my soul. Pieces to the puzzle that is my heart, which would be incomplete without them.
It may seem impossible but I love them all equally. Which just makes it all the more difficult to take the leap from platonic into romantic.
Imagine if I could have them all.
But there’s no way they would ever be cool with sharing one woman. Especially me. And if they just see me as a foster sister?
I suppress the full-body cringe that threatens at the thought.
Nope.
I’d rather pledge myself to ignoring the near-constant ache between my thighs and the sexual fantasies that plague my dreams at night.
At least a girl can dream. Those, at least, are safe.
There has to be a man out there that will swoop in and distract me from these guys. Right?
Zedd’s voice startles me out of my thoughts. “It’s getting late. Beth will be expecting us home soon. Let’s not worry her any more than she already does.”
Ever the thoughtful one, Zedd clings to Beth almost as much as I do. When he placed the desire for a parental figure onto Beth, she took him by the hand and gave that love right back to him.
Unlike the rest of the guys who feel resentment towards their biological ‘families,’ Zedd doesn’t, despite having every reason to. He was just a child when his parents up and left one day without warning. Leaving him behind while taking his sister with them. Instead of the hatred that they deserve, he blames himself for not being good enough to keep and suffers from major abandonment issues. With Beth, he’s always helping her around the house, and asking her if she needs anything. He thinks I don’t see it, but I know he’s trying to prove he’s worth keeping around this time.