Unpredictable

Chapter 27: Family

Some people know who their family is from the minute their born, and that's great and all, but that was never me. I had no memories of my mother, or my father. I didn't know who I looked like, or who I resembled. Looking in the mirror at the fancy Thanksgiving outfit I'd picked out last weekend with Evie, who had also picked out one for herself (for someone who had found out her boyfriend had cheated on her with her bitch of a best friend, she really didn't seem all that unhappy), I knew I had found my family.

"Are we late?" Dylan panted; one of the perks of my current living situation, the ground floor, was that I knew when anyone arrived. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but Aurora, she just did not want to get dressed..."

Aurora's eyes were still red-rimmed, and Dylan quickly set her on my lap, knowing I wanted the ever-growing dark-haired girl to. I rocked her soothingly, noticing she was dressed up like a little turkey, and grinned. Evie, passing by, took another one of her photos, muttering something about a "last-minute addition," and Dylan grinned.

Anyway, despite the wheelchair, Evie's fashion philosophy remained. She'd actually applied to study cosmetology as her major at several different colleges, her ideal one being NYU. She had dressed me up (with great difficulty) in a scarlet-red sweater and white jeans. Dylan was wearing a scarlet button-up with dark jeans, so now I suppose I knew why. Evie was dressed to match no one, wearing a glittery golden dress that flared out at the bottom. She looked beautiful.

Dylan wheeled me to the table, despite my protests. I had also wanted to help make Thanksgiving dinner, but considering my wheelchair didn't reach the kitchen counter, I hadn't been able to provide much of an argument. Edward and Doug were determined to keep me away from any manual labor. 

Ethan and I were finally getting back to relatively-normal terms, which was great. He looked slightly panicked. He'd forgotten all about dressing up for Thanksgiving dinner, and his old outfit from last year wasn't fitting, Doug's stuff was too big, and Edward's stuff was too...how do I say this...dramatic. I understood why he didn't want to wear it, but in the end, Ethan hadn't really had a choice.

So now Ethan was wearing a golden button-up shirt with a tie covered in turkeys. He had tried to take the turkey tie off, but Edward insisted that it "completed the outfit," whatever that meant, and also insisted (probably because he knew how much it was paining his son) that they took a photo of it. 

I was sure by now he'd posted the photo on his Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat pages-slash-stories. Edward was pretty hip, for a dad.

Kaia was dressed in a pastel-pink dress, because she was five years old and could basically do whatever the heck she wanted, and ran to get the doorbell before I, the official door-getter, could manage to get it. 

I huffed, frustrated. There weren't many things I could do, stuck in this wheelchair, and Kaia had just stolen one of them.

"Hi, Sophie," smiled Andi, and due to past incidents, panic instantly filled me. Did I have to go away again? To another group home? But then I frowned. Wait, why? And more to the point, why was Andi standing with two elderly people I didn't recognize?

"Grammy!" squealed Kaia, and my question was answered. "Poppy!"

"Gram," greeted Ethan, in what I was sure was his I'm-a-teenage-boy-and-I'm-cool voice. "Pops."

"Ethan," they both greeted him happily. "And Kaia, you've grown so much! And you must be Sophie, your social worker's been telling us all about you, Dylan needs a strong woman in his life, we've been telling him that for years..."

I glanced up at Dylan, raising my eyebrows.

"Gram and Pops were over so often when we were growing up, they were basically my grandparents, too," explained Dylan. "And I never met mine."

"Hello," I said uncertainly, glancing up at the two of them. "What would you like me to call you?"

"Well, Gram and Pops, of course!" exclaimed Gram, and I frowned. Wasn't that an endearment term, though? For family members only? Gram noticed my confusion. "Is there a problem, dear? I just thought, since - "

"Be quiet, Meg," sighed Pops. "They were going to ask you after dinner, Miss Sophie," he informed me, "but since Meg here has already spilled the beans, so to speak...Edward, would you like to do the honors?" He passed a large sheaf of papers to Edward.

"Sophie Smith," started Edward, and almost immediately tears began welling up in his eyes. "Oh, God, my mascara," he wailed, and I glanced at Dylan. I mean, I knew Edward was gay, but that gay?

"He's kidding," Dylan informed me. "He doesn't actually wear mascara."

Mascara or not, Doug took over, since tears were indeed spilling down Edward's cheeks. "Sophie Smith," Doug's deep voice rumbled, "would you do us all the pleasure of becoming Sophie Evans? Or you could keep your last name, it's fine, we'd just - we'd like to adopt you, and you don't have to call us anything special, you can just keep calling us Doug and Edward..."

Doug was rambling.

Doug, always the calm and composed one, was rambling.

It took me a minute to process this information, but Andi was beaming at me like she already knew my answer, and Ethan was looking like he was praying, and Evie was grinning at me with tears in her eyes, and I grinned at them all.

"I'd love to be Sophie Evans," I said happily. "I'd absolutely love to."

As we signed the official documents - I say we, it was mostly Edward, Doug, and Andi - Dylan looked at me with a smirk.

"So much for everybody always leaving, huh?" he asked me, grinning.

I tried to shove him, but failed, being in a wheelchair. "Shut up, jerk," I muttered.

"I'm going to come over every day, now," decided Dylan, "and remind you that I was right and you were wrong."

"Guess I'll be punching you every day, then," I finally succeeded in getting a hit in. Dylan rubbed the side of his stomach, acting hurt.

Evie only yawned. "Dyl, you say that as if you don't come over every day anyway. Honestly, if it weren't for us, you wouldn't eat."

Dylan pouted. "I could too eat. Babe, tell them I can cook."

I blinked at him. "Uh, you can cook?"

Ethan busted out laughing.

"I can too!" protested Dylan. "I can make...you know..."

"Pasta," I supplied.

"Yeah!"

"And cereal," I added.

"Uh-huh," Dylan said victoriously.

"And babies," I finished with a smirk, glancing at Aurora.

"That's right - hey!"

Friendly tip, if you ever find yourself in a wheelchair with your friends and family: don't insult your family members. You have nowhere to run. 

And then, just as Dylan grabbed the handles of my wheelchair, effectively stopping me, Aurora, from her highchair in the dining room, said loudly, "Fuck!"

Everyone looked at a bright-red Dylan.

"This is your fault," I declared.

"Fuck," groaned Dylan, and Aurora giggled, repeating the word, and I glared playfully at the two of them.

"Hey! Language!"

Aurora gave me doe-eyes, which worked with her, but when Dylan tried the same thing, I just glared at him. I had, after all, warned him.