Then they met me, a grumpy five-year-old who’d just lost his world and wanted to take it out on everyone else. I needed care, not to be told to just accept it the way they wanted me to.
That was never going to happen.
Because family isn’t what you’re born into, it’s what you choose. And they never chose me. At the time, I thought that meant that I was the problem. It wasn’t until I met Arthur, my dad, that I realized that I was worthy of being chosen.
It seemed like a dream come true when he brought me home for the first time. The foster kid who gets to live in a legit mansion with a butler and a private school? It felt like something from a movie.
It took a while for me to realize that itwasa dream come true, just not in the way I had first thought. Because the house stuck and he stuck around. Because he looked at a kid who wasn’t his and decided… mine.
It wasn’t instant, nothing ever really is. It took a while for him to break me down and get through the shell I’d formed around myself after repeated foster home failures. I didn’t trust him, expecting him to cast me away just like all the rest had.
By that point, I was eight years old and still just as grumpy at the world as I had been when my parents died.
But he kept trying. He didn’t push; he just kept consistent with it, letting me know he was trying, and most importantly of all, that he wanted to try.
He stayed and let me stay. That’s what made it real. There was no blood connection and sure as hell no obligation. For him, it was a choice.Iwas a choice. And he chose me.
Liv didn’t get that, not really. She got survival and self-sufficiency. Arthur adopted me when I was twelve years old. But when Liv was twelve, she was making herself boxed mac and cheese in an empty foster home.
I’m just about to kick up my kickstand when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
My mind jumps straight to Liv until I see the contact lighting up the screen.
Mason. Of course. Guess I’m not going to Dad’s after all.
I pull my helmet back off with a huff, hang it from the handlebars, and stick my phone to my ear. “Yes?” I ask more gruffly than I meant to.
“Still breathing?” he quips.
“Unfortunately.”
“Dang, I had high hopes.”
“What is it, Mason?”
“You done for the night?”
I glance back at her building once more right as she turns off her lights. Heading to bed, I guess.
“Yeah.”
“Perfect,” he says brightly. “I missed your sparkling personality.”
“You saw me three hours ago.”
“And it wasn’t enough.”
“Seek help.”
He laughs under his breath. “Already did. They said exposure therapy might work. Figured I’d start with you.”
“Bad plan.”
“Too late.”
I hop on my bike, ready to go but don’t turn it on yet.
“You talk to her?” he asks after a second.
