Unpredictable

Chapter 17: Princess

On my second day, my first visitors were Evie, who surprisingly enough was driving Edward's minivan, and Kaia, who had accompanied her. I smiled at the sight of my siblings, and then smiled again at the thought of them being my siblings, not just my foster siblings. 

"What're you grinning about?" A very surly Nathan grumbled to me; he'd been denied breakfast because Nancy had found evidence of him being disobedient. Everyone was pretty sure she'd just found a Pride shirt or something in his bedroom. 

"My sisters are here," I grinned at him.

"And you're happy about it?"

"Yeah, they're the ones who want me to be there," I told him, and Nathan watched them warily.

Evie and Kaia signed in quickly (or rather, Evie signed them in quickly) and rushed to give me a hug, as Nancy watched them carefully.

I had spent the previous night doing something I'd rarely done: writing in my journal. Andi had gotten it for me years ago, her twelfth, maybe eleventh, birthday? But I knew better than that. If I wrote in my journal, the other foster kids would only use it against me. So I never had, much to Andi's disappointment. But it was still a gift, and so I still had it.

I never had many gifts.

Since Evie had her backpack with her, I subtly put the journal in Evie's backpack.

"You need to give this to Andi," I stated quietly. "Tell her to give it to whoever Nathan Redwood's social worker is." I made sure Nathan couldn't hear me as I said that; he'd never want me to be nice to him.

"Ugh, Andi?" frowned Evie, but sighed. "Yes, I can do that. I'm sorry, are all group homes this bad?"

Lina frowned at Evie. "'Scuse me, blondie?" We had moved up to my room, and all of my roommates were watching Evie and Kaia, who was playing with some of her Barbie dolls, carefully.

Evie blinked. "Well, I'm sorry, but these are, like, dorm room beds. And not even that good, for Christ's sake. They're hard, and don't you even get mattress softeners?"

"Is she for real?" Lina gestured to Evie; all of my roommates nodded in agreement.

"Evie, you know our lives are a little bit different. It's fine," I said. "The government just doesn't have enough money, or whatever bull they're feeding us nowadays."

A little African-American girl had showed up at our doorway, and Kaia beamed at the sight of her, ever the social butterfly.

"Hello!" she squealed, before I could stop her. "My name is Kaia, what's yours!"

"Luna," said the girl, looking taken aback by Kaia's attitude. "I like your Barbie dolls."

"Do you wanna play?" asked Kaia eagerly, and Luna nodded happily. Soon the two girls were sat on the floor, playing some nonsense game with their Barbie dolls.

"Anyway, Sophie, Dylan's evaluation is on your third day of being here," sighed Evie. "We're pushing for it to get moved, but we don't think it's going to happen."

"Dylan's going to do great," I said. "Why are you telling me this, anyway?"

"Because he wants you to be there - and yes, I have already told him you're not allowed to," Evie said, placing a hand up before I could speak. "That's honestly the only reason he's trying to get it moved. He wants you to be there, with him and Aurora. He misses you so much, Sophie."

"Tell him to FaceTime me," I told Evie; sure, I may not have been on best terms with Dylan, but Aurora was more important. "Just before the meeting - I still have my phone on me. Ten minutes before the meeting should be good enough. Tell him to FaceTime me."

"You honestly are a saint," Evie informed me. "I would've bitch-slapped him so hard by now..."

"Don't think I'm not still considering it," I said jokingly. "But Aurora's more important." I paused. "What about Ethan and Tanya?"

"Dads are disappointed in Ethan," sighed Evie, "and Ethan...he feels so furious with himself for making a mistake, he's trying to blame it on everyone other than himself. Or at least that's what his therapist says; he had his first session this morning, and he told me. He broke up with Tanya, who got expelled. Since we were all planning on missing the senior retreat," Evie added, "the principal decided to postpone it another week."

"Because of me?"

"Because of how many people care about you, dumbass," laughed Evie. "Of course there was me, Ethan, and Dylan, and then Ricky was going to protest, and of course once he told Maxton, who is actually a really awesome dude, we need to invite him over for more girls' nights - "

I frowned, unable to imagine Maxton at a girls' night. "I don't think he'd like that very much," I admitted.

"Yeah, you're right," nodded Evie. "And Ty, of course, and then all those fakers who never even met you and wanted to pretend they cared about you, except this time we could use it in our favor."

"I don't think I'm ready to talk about Dylan just yet," I sighed.

"Well, you need to talk to Dylan. You said you would," Evie glared. "Now, are we going shopping, or what?"

"Excuse me? I never agreed to go shopping with you."

"No, but we've got three hours to kill, we've got Halloween Fest coming up - "

"What's Halloween Fest?" Lina actually sounded interested, and I knew this couldn't be good - even if I had no idea what Halloween Fest was, either.

"Well, it's not as great as the Winter Formal, but it's certainly better than Cupid's Ball, and - " Evie began to explain, before her eyes widened. "And I haven't even told you yet! They asked Ty to hold it this year, at his mansion! You know, because he throws the best parties, like, ever! And Ty asked me to help plan Halloween Fest!" Evie preened at the praise, before looking horrified. 

"Oh, my God. We all need to get outfits for Ty's party! He throws one hell of a haunted house, so we need to look ah-may-zing!" She made sure to punctuate the last word clearly, as I rolled my eyes.

I frowned, remembering Ty's words at his last party. "Are you sure he wants to throw a party? And besides, Evie, you do realize that everybody here needs an escort, right?"

"I'll put Ty on it," Evie declared.

"All right," I sighed. "Wait, but how are we going to the mall?"

"Are you forgetting I brought Dad's ginormous minivan?" smirked Evie. "So. I'm gonna need photos and names of all of you, so say cheese." She snapped a photo of Lina. "Name?"

"Lina."

"Got it."

The red-haired girl with freckles was Georgia; and the lavender-haired girl was Violet, fittingly enough. And after all that was done, Evie sent the photos to Ty. When I looked at her with concern, she frowned at me.

"Don't worry, I'll get you a hot date, too."

"Evie, I'm not worried about you getting me a hot date - " I paused. "Wait, what?"

"Well, obviously you need to show everyone you're over Dylan, so...Just go with the flow, okay? And I'll make Ty promise to get everybody good guys."

"It's not Ty I don't trust," I sighed. "And I don't need to get over Dylan..."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure they're all good guys!" exclaimed Evie, looking like she hadn't been listening to anything I'd just said. "Come on, all the girls are okay with the plan!"

"Ugh, fine," I sighed, and we headed out to Edward's minivan, conveniently parked directly in front of the group home. Everyone crowded in joyfully, which was no surprise; I had a feeling that these girls hadn't been out anywhere in a long time.