When I was in the fifth grade, my parents gave my twin brother, Gus, and I “the talk”. They sat us down and, after an incredibly long science lesson of the wonders of genetics, and how two parents with blue eyes couldn’t give birth to children with brown eyes, etcetera, etcetera; they told us we were adopted.

I wish I could say that I took this news well – that I calmly accepted this and didn’t question it further. But no; that was Gus’ job. Mine was to sit in shocked silence for a good ten minutes before declaring that I didn’t believe them and locking myself in my room until it was time to get ready for school the next morning.

To put it quite simply, I still didn’t have a good grasp on reality at that point in my life. I still believed in Santa Claus; I believed in “love at first sight”; I believed all the bullshit Gus would tell me whenever his friends came over – like when they tricked me into believing that our dog had laid an egg (to my dismay, he didn’t; but at the time I didn’t quite understand that it was physically impossible in more ways than one). In other words, I just couldn’t come to terms with it. Jim and Rhonda were the only parents I had ever known, and to find out that they weren’t really my parents was hard to understand.

Adding to that, I also didn’t quite understand why we had been adopted. There was certainly more than one occasion I’d sit in my bedroom, stare up at the ceiling, and wonder why. Why didn’t our birth parents want us? Were we not good enough? Were we too ugly? (Keep in mind that I was ten at the time and these were the only two excuses I could come up with at the time.)

As time went on, I soon began to understand more and more how the world works, and even though I had never actually asked anyone why, I had come up with a pretty acceptable reason that soon became the truth, at least to me – our father had been a one-night stand; our mother didn’t remember him; she gave birth; she died; we were put in an orphanage. It was as simple as that.

The only time Gus and I ever really talked about it was a week before our eighth grade year was over. I had asked him how he envisioned our birth parents.

“I dunno,” he shrugged, not tearing his eyes from the oh-so-entertaining tampon commercial currently flashing across the TV screen. “I guess maybe they died.”

At least now I had the comfort of knowing I wasn’t the only one out of the two of us that thought that our parents were dead.

But oh, how wrong we were.

Not two weeks later, we were sat down again for another little talk. I could tell it was serious from the way Rhonda – my mother’s – confidence was at a blatant all time low. She sat, clearly nervous, in the blue armchair in the corner of the sitting room, picking at the hem of her violet-purple blouse, refusing to meet eyes with anyone. Jim – my father – paced the floor in front of Gus and me, stroking the stubble on his chin that he was planning on growing into a full beard. Every few moments he would stop for a minute, open his mouth to speak, think better of it, and then continue pacing.

I watch Gus from across the couch. I had always been slightly jealous of the way he was able to just sit so patiently and politely. I don’t know how it happened, but no matter how often Jim and Rhonda would teach us to be polite, it seemed that it rubbed off way more on Gus than me. While he sat up straight, hands folded in his lap, staring politely and expectantly up at Jim, I remained curled up in the corner of the couch, hugging my knees to my chest, and most likely getting footprints all over the cream leather couch, since I always refused to take my shoes off, unless I was showering or going to bed. While Gus remained like a statue, I was constantly fidgeting with something; tucking a strand of auburn hair behind my ear; readjusting one of the rings on my fingers; tugging at the browning shoelace on my Converse.

I was slowly growing more and more impatient with each second of silence and anticipation. At least fifteen minutes had to have passed – whatever it is they had to tell us must have been pretty damn important to make us sit on the edge of our seats like this.

“What?” I finally snapped. Jim stops pacing and locks his bright blue eyes with my hazel ones. His gaze is intimidating and I feel myself shrink in place. “What is it?” I all but whisper. He lets out a long, over-dramatic sigh before sitting himself on the coffee table in front of us.

“We got a call from your father,” he finally says. He pauses, giving us both a minute to process this information. After nearly three years of thinking our birth parents were dead, we were now being told that they – or at least our father – was alive. But before I can say anything, he continues. “He and his wife – your mother.” Longer pause. “Well, they want to see you.”

“…What?” I look over at Gus, slightly surprised. And by the looks on Rhonda’s and Jim’s faces, I can tell they are just as surprised as I am; no one had expected him to speak first.

“It was part of the agreement we had when we signed your adoption papers,” Rhonda interjects, her gaze flicking between both Gus and I. “We agreed for them to have the right to be a part of your life by the time you graduated the eighth grade.”

“And you didn’t bother telling us this?” I question, although it comes out sounding high-pitched and rather funny. Gus snickers, but Jim ignores this.

“We understand that this might make you upset –”

“Might.” He narrows his eyes at me.

“Like I said, we completely understand. We should’ve told you sooner, but somehow it never came up; we let it slip our minds, until two days ago, when we got the phone call.”

“And you just expect us to be okay with this?” Jim sighs.

“Honey, I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. But we can’t change that fact that what happened, happened, and you and your brother will be spending your summer in California –”

“Wait,” Gus interrupts, causing Jim to turn his attention towards him. “Who said anything about California?”
“That’s where your birth parents live,” he replies simply.

“I thought they lived here? In Washington?” Jim blinks before hitting himself in the head. Rhonda sighs.

“No, no they live in California. We adopted you from an orphanage in California,” she explains slowly.

“I can’t believe we never told you this,” Jim mutters, before turning around to face his wife. “How come we never told them this?” She just shrugs and shakes her head.

“Anything else you forgot to mention?” Gus challenges. Jim pauses for a moment.

“Well, what do you want to know?” he finally asks.

“Why didn’t they want us?” I immediately ask, causing him to inhale sharply.

“Honey, it wasn’t that they didn’t want you,” Rhonda tells me gently. “Your parents were, well, rather young when they had you. They couldn’t handle having a child, much less two.”

“How old were they?”

“…Fifteen.” My jaw drops.

“Fifteen?” Gus exclaims, massaging his temples. “They’re only twice our age!” I roll my eyes. You don’t fucking say.

Jim pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look,” he begins. “I know this is a lot to take in, but you have time to process it.”

“When are we leaving?” I ask him.

“Three days.” I throw up my hands.
“That is not enough time to process anything.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Gus give me one of his ‘stop talking’ looks, which I do my best to ignore. “Do we even have a choice?” Jim’s gaze hardens.

“No. No you do not have a choice. You’re leaving, whether you like it or not.”

“Try looking on the bright side, honey,” Rhonda pipes up, forcing a soft smile. “You’ll be spending your summer in California. Where it’s warm. And you can swim in a real ocean. You love the ocean.” I don’t say anything. “Please. Don’t be so upset. You’ll be back in time for you to start high school; I promise.”

Suddenly, Jim claps his hands loudly, causing everyone to jump. “Right. Well, on that note, who’s hungry?”

Notes

A/N: I decided to start writing this after I found the rough draft for this part buried in the depths of my backpack when I was cleaning it out. Already I know exactly what I want to happen, and I'm really excited to have Austin in it (I'm almost always looking for an excuse to put him in one of my stories).

Hope you enjoyed c:

~WOLFY~