Family Is Forever ~ A One Chicago Story

Chapter 26 - Don't really have a choice

Over the next few days Laim and I spent most of our time in my room curled up together only moving to go to the toilet of for meals.

Neither of us had been attending lessons and we had been receiving cross emails from teachers asking where we were.

On Sunday afternoon I managed to persuade Liam to go to his apartment. We were only there a couple hours, he went through his dad's stuff and chose things he wanted to keep (photos,books army and police medals etc) and put them in a box. We also gathered all of his own possessions and then loaded everything into his dads car (which he had claimed as his own and headed home.

Laim had then called his uncle to let him know he could have what he wanted from the apartment and then to get rid of the rest as he would not be returning.

"There's too many memories there for me" he told me that evening when I was sat at my desk painting.

It was late on Monday evening and we had moved from my bed to the sofa as my mum thought it best we have a change of scenery even if it was just for a couple hours.

We could hear dad talking crossly to whoever was on the phone, they'd rang him about an hour ago and obviously whatever they had to say was important.

"Who do you reckon hes talking to?" Laim says as I mute the TV to try and hear whats going on a bit better.

"I don't know,but I reckon it's something to do with us" I tell him stretching.

"Yeah me too" he agrees

Just then the conversation ends and dad comes back into the lounge followed by mum and Ellie.

"Everything ok?" Liam asks them as they sit down in the armchairs on either side of the sofa which we occupy.

"I'm just going to come out with it and say that you need to go to school tomorrow" dad says bluntly

"What!" I say confused "but you said"

"We know what we said Jess but school insist that you come in as you've missed lots of work already." Mum explains.

"What exactly do the school know about the situation?" Laim asks

"Voight told them that Gabby and I had taken you in as an emergency Foster placement" dad says

"They don't know anything else?" Laim presses desperate to know what he may have to deal with at school.

"No it won't look suspicious as We're registered foster parents anyway and it's not unusual for us to have emergency placements" mum says reassuringly.

It was true we did occasionally have other teenagers on placement for reasons I wasn't allowed to know.

I sigh

"I don't think we really have a choice do we" I say

"No I don't think we do" Laim replies "or the school might start asking questions I don't really want to answer."

"Oh.... and Liam there's one more thing." Mum says Before we can leave

"Yeah?" He responds

"Voight is going to meet you after school,and take you to meet your mum"

"He got hold of her?"

"Yeah, he practically raised her so it wasn't too difficult" mum explains.

"I don't know how I feel about  going on my own, I might say something I regret" Laim says apprehensively

"It'll be ok and remember if it doesn't work out with you mum I'm sure your uncle would be more than  happy to take custody of you" I say trying to reasure him

Liam nods but doesn't say anything. I know he's a bit apprehensive about meeting the woman who walked out on him and his dad when he was just a few years old.

Maybe meeting her would give him the answers he'd wanted for so long, but first we had to tackle school.......