I was afraid I’d be lost without him when he moved out of the house someday. Of course, in my head I was moving past Bruce. Never past Pixie, but every day that moved over me made me a different person. The whole family would show up for my basketball games, and Teddi’s cheerleader friends called themselves my groupies and would do private cheers just for me. The team gave me hell about it, and I was sure it made me blush, but it was all in good fun. I saw that Teddi was still a kid and slept with a teddy bear still, so I assumed her friends were probably the same way. I was interested in playing ball mostly. And Mike was an amazing private coach. He gave me tips and techniques that really told me how good he was at the game. The pride in his eyes when I hit three pointers one after another was addictive.
Austin’s graduation party was a huge deal. The house was decorated with the year and his picture blown up huge on the front lawn. We lost track of how many people came to his party, but it felt like the whole damn school. That summer we all were picking out a vacation spot. A vacation! Some wanted Disney; others wanted a beach house stay. It was cool to see all the options laid out in brochures on the table. But soon after it was presented, the next day even, Ronna tucked all the pamphlets away. She and Mike were whispering under their breath a lot. I knew it was me. Something was happening.
Chapter 34
Gaze
Two years later . . .
I STRETCHED AS I woke up. Every muscle ached. Mike and I had been practicing out in the yard yesterday for the whole damn day. Saturdays were training days. To say we were close was an understatement. He was the best coach I’d ever had. He had basically unlimited energy once he put a knee brace on. He pushed, he praised, and we joked. Ronna was outside working on her furniture restoration business. She had a shed that was made over into an outbuilding where she kept her tools and projects, but on nice days she liked to get some sun. She wore a mask and stripped and painted wood in the distance.
Also outside was a rotating group of my foster siblings and their friends, who in some places were also mine. Teddi’s friends were the worst because they were all giggly and tried to be outside to watch me play basketball as much as possible. They’d splash in the pool in bathing suits and blast their pop music.
I took it for granted sometimes, that this new normal was extremely, just that normal.
As Mike and I ran drills, we watched a car pull into the driveway full of Milt’s gamer friends. A new game had come out that they were all crazy about. When they got out, we saw that they had costumes on and some fake weapons. They were hilarious and super entertaining to watch when they did tournaments in the den.
Austin was doing his second year at the community college, wanting to transfer to a fashion school soon. I wouldn’t complain about him being home—he’d turned into my favorite brother. Never best friend, because Pixie would always be that, until her betrayal, of course.
I was taller than Mike now, and Austin and I had been lifting in the garage for two years. We learned how to sculpt muscles through trial and error and still cracked up about our “only arms” period where we both had doughy stomachs and giant biceps.
Now, we both had lean strength and a deep love for each other. When we went to Princeville High School, I was anticipating some bullying, with Austin wearing a skirt and eyeliner on the first day of school. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Walking in as his new brother was like getting a crown on my head or something.
Speaking of crowns, Austin was nominated awesome with a giant crown at prom. There were a king and a queen and then Austin. He told me later that he hooked up with the entire royal court.
And that was Austin. It sucked going to school without him, but for two summers straight I grew like it was my only job, topping out at six-five.
Ronna loved to “complain” that I was growing and that she had to keep buying me new pants, but she also measured me on the family wall as well, scribbling my name and date in with theirs in Sharpie any time she felt I grew.
The pictures I’d admired when I first got to this house were now threaded in with pictures of me. This family didn’t falter for a moment, determined to make a place for me here.
And part of me felt guilty for revealing in it. Letting their determination mold me into happiness.
I knew this path was not mine originally, but they were so good about it, it felt like fate now.
This was my last year of high school, and I was team captain on varsity. The practices were long and hard and early, but Mike volunteered all the time and was considered an unoffical assistant coach. There was talk of scouts and scholarships. It was an exciting time.
Austin pulled behind the gamer car and got out with an eye roll. “I quit life. I quit everything.”
I smiled at him and Mike tossed him the ball. Austin caught it and took a shot, easily sinking it, but his skirt got tangled up in the ball when he tried to dribble so he lightly kicked it up to me. I caught it and sank it, and there were some audible swoons from the pool.
Austin darted his attention their way. “Oh, we have the paparazzi in the house. I’m going to gossip.”
Austin went to the edge of the pool and sat crisscrossed. The girls swam to him in a circle, thrilled he was talking to them.
Mike and I wrapped up our one-on-one and headed inside for showers. “Hey, can you come up for a discussion once you’re done?”
I nodded once. I knew the tone. It was about Bruce.
After I showered and put on fresh shorts and a t-shirt with the basketball team logo on it, I trotted upstairs with my phone in my hand.
Ronna was in from her shed and Mike’s hair was wet like mine. She was pouring lemonade into three glasses.
“Do you think this is okay? I mean, private enough?” She put the pitcher back into the fridge and seemed to be too worked up to sit.
“It’s fine,” I offered, even though I didn’t know if it was the truth.
She took a deep breath and sat at the kitchen table.
Mike took over. “Gaze, we wanted to ask you something we’re considering, and it’s one hundred percent okay if you have any reservations. Nothing will change here, we promise.”
I felt my stomach drop to my feet. We’d had updates from the prison a few times.Two letters from my dad that I ripped up without reading. I still didn’t remember anything from that night, but I didn’t need to. All I had to do was copy/paste from my other beatings to know how it went down. Of course, with the addition of Pixie somehow. I pushed away the concerns.
“We’d like to ask you to be a member of our family. We’d like to…” Ronna looked to Mike to finish her sentence.
“Petition to adopt you. That would require your father to agree to revoking his parental rights. And that process takes a bit. And we don’t know what he’ll say, but…”
The silence filled the room while they waited. I had to switch gears in my head. I was almost eighteen, so there was no need for them to adopt me other than...
“You know we’re crazy about you. We love you and think of you as our boy.” Ronna teared up and reached out her hand.
She’d told me four months in that she loved me. Lumped me right in there with her kids all the time. So I knew. But now I really knew.
I tried my voice once, and then again, managing to only make a squeak then a grumble. I wanted to say yes. I felt the yes already. Pixie flooded my memory, and I felt like I was betraying her, leaving her. It had been years, but still she was my family in my head. I wished she were here. Wished I could have her.