When the Day Met the Night

Give me rampant intellucalism as a coping mechanism.
Flash.
Give me sympathy.
Flash.
Give me brutal honesty.
Flash.
Give me attention. – Chuck Palahnuik, Invisible Monsters

-Elizabeth’s POV-

“Adopt what? A dog?” Alex asked.

“No, a human being. But I don’t want a baby. I want a teenager.” I said completely serious.

“But you’re practically a teenager yourself! You’re only 21!”

“Yes, but nobody adopts the older kids, and if they’re 16 they’ll be an adult soon, and I want to try to show them that they can be so much more. Life has been so good to me, I have money so I could support them, I minored in education so I can homeschool him/her whilst on the road.” The decision may have seemed irrational and spontaneous to Alex, but I had actually been mulling over the topic for the past month.

“But what would drive you to do such a thing?”

“Because, I almost gave it all up: music, writing, my life; when I was a teenager. But someone sent me a letter saying the kindest of words; I was so overwhelmed that I cried for days. I almost gave it all up, but someone believed in me. Most orphans don’t exactly have a support system, so I want to give the ones who are close to giving up, a chance to rise from the ashes.”

“Fuck you.”

I stared at him with wide eyes, my voice caught in my throat and I couldn’t speak. Sure we joked around before and pretended to be mean, but never were his words so menacing to me.

“Fuck you, you fucking saint. You come here to tell me that you’re already with Mr. Urine, then you fucking act like a saint. So screw you Miss. High and Mighty! Sorry I wasn’t good enough for you, so go fuck off and be with your new piece of shit boyfriend. I’m gonna laugh my ass off when you get fucking pregnant, and you never even let me get to second base. Fucking bitch.” Alex mumbled the last part but I understood it all perfectly.

Tears were streaming down my face as I made another confession, this time to Alex. “I’m almost infertile, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to birth a child.” My legs were wobbling as I walked out of the house. The second I shut his door I crumbled to the floor. When I was in the hospital, they had told me that it was highly improbably for me to ever become pregnant, I kept stoic at the moment, but all the emotions I wanted to release then just flowed out when Alex mentioned pregnancy.

“Alex you fucking asshole!” I heard the yelling come from the end of the driveway so I looked up to see Jack running up to me. “Elizabeth, are you okay? What did he do to you?”

I closed my eyes and remained silent. I could see some blood seeping at my knee. Darn rocks cutting through my jeans and into my skin.

“Shit. Elizabeth get in the car, I’ll drive you home after I deal with Alex.” Jack went inside before I could stop him. Instead of getting in the car, I walked away.

For a while I wandered aimlessly, my knee was hurting like hell, possibly infected but at that point I couldn’t care less. The stores and homes rushed by in a blur, I lost track of the time, but I could tell that it had been a couple of hours due to the fact that the sun was finally resting for the night. I felt tired myself. I had a sudden urge to walk to the beach that was only about a block away. Bad idea.

Even though it was cold outside, there was still a family hanging out at the beach. The mom had a two year old asleep in her arms; the 6 year old was running around throwing a paper airplane, and the father was holding on to the obedient golden retriever.

The classic ‘American Dream’ family.

How fucking dandy.

I could just imagine how I looked. Crazy hair, dirt and tears smeared across my face, blood staining the leg of my pants, kind of like a tribute in the hunger games. Of course I could only wish to be as witty and amazing as Katniss.

I heard a honk behind me, Brendon. This time I decided to get in the car, he bent over to the passenger side and gave me a crushing hug.

“I shouldn’t have let you face him alone.”

“I’m fine, just a little banged up. Can you take us home?” It sort of became an unspoken agreement that when we came back, Brendon would move back in. So many words seemed to go unspoken, only now where they finally rolling out.

“Sure thing.”

_______________________________________________________

“So you told him that you wanted to adopt and he freaked out?”

I nodded.

“Well he has no say in it; it’s all about what you want not him.” Brendon held my gaze and I wanted to tell him what I had told Alex.

“Well we leave for Europe in three months; I should probably get a crack on it.” I gave him a small smile.

______________________________________________________

I could tell the social worker was hesitant.

“So you’ve decided to adopt? You seem so young; don’t you want to enjoy your time?”

“Of course I’d like to enjoy my time, but at the same time, I want someone else to finally feel like they’re worth something, I want them to enjoy their time.”

“Okay than, do you have any idea about an orphan you want to adopt?”

“I don’t really care for their ethnicity, preferably around 16.”

The social worker wrote it down then looked up at me. “Well since your back ground checks out, follow me so you can interview a couple of teens. Not that there are many, a lot of them are in juvie.” She seemed hell-bent on getting me to revoke my decision. “Many of these kids tend to hate their adoptive parents, and it takes a lot out of the adoptive parents too.”

“And I want to try and show that they don’t have to act out for recognition.” I entered the room and there was a girl who looked around 16, but she still seemed so small and fragile.

“Miss. Starr, meet Alice. She has been with us since she was just a baby, dropped off on our steps. She is in her junior year of school, G.P.A. of 2.8, has gone to juvie for stealing, our psychiatrist deemed her mentally stable, but she is very anti-social.”

Without giving a second thought after looking at the sadness in the girl’s eyes, I agreed to adopt her. “I’ll adopt her.”

The social worker nodded, she told the girl to pack, which I’m sure was probably very meager belongings, and she lead me to her office to sign forms.

As I was writing my last signature, Alice walked in; her new last name ‘Starr’. I noticed that her knapsack was barely half full, my heart lurched and I just wanted to give the small girl everything she could ever need or want.

“Hi Alice.” I smiled at her and she replied with a small smile of her own.

__________________________________________

Back at home I showed her to her room which used to be Brendon’s room, but of course he moved into my room. Once I showed her around the house Brendon came walking through the door and acted like he was back in the 50’s.

“Honey, I’m home!” I couldn’t help but giggle as I led Alice to Brendon.

“Brendon, this is Alice, my daughter.” It felt kind of strange calling her my daughter, but I already felt a protective love for the girl.

Brendon’s smile grew wide as he hugged the girl. “Welcome to the family Alice, I’m sure the second the rest of our group gets wind of your arrival they’ll come on over.”

“Is he your husband?” Alice asked sweetly.

“No, just my boyfriend, we’re in the same band.” Brendon’s hand found mine and he tickled my palm as I tried not to laugh.

“Oh, are you guys famous?”

“Sort of I guess, maybe you’ve heard, ‘Oh, well imagine as I’m pacing the pews in a church corridor and I can’t help but to hear, no I can’t help but to hear the exchanging of words.’” I sang, and Brendon joined me.

“You’re that band? That was such an awesome song/music video!”

“Well what’s your favorite band?” Brendon asked.

“Probably All Time Low, although I’m not really up to date with them, you don’t really get to be up to date in an orphanage.” She stared at the floor as if it was suddenly so interesting.

“Well would you like to meet them? They’re actually kind of our best friends.” The way Alice’s face lit up, it made me ecstatic.

Brendon already texted everybody to head on over, my one concern was Alex, but Alice would probably want to meet him. About five minutes later, the group arrived and I introduced them all, amongst them was Alex, he had a purple cheek and I instantly felt bad, I didn’t want Jack to punch him. Alice didn’t seem to notice, she was too star-struck.

“Well now that you’ve all met Alice, I’ll tell you that her favorite band just so happens to be All Time Low.” That gained woots and hugs from the guys. “Now, to celebrate today, I want to take Alice on a shopping spree so she can buy almost anything she wants, who’s in?” Of course everyone raised their hand, and even Alex seemed to melt his cold demeanor a bit after meeting Alice, she was actually pretty chill. So the 9 of us went in Rian’s new truck, and headed to the mall.