worth it? Discontinued

Chapter 3

"What happens to us now? Are we going to foster care?", Layla asks after her cries have died down. I'm curious about this too, but is foster care going to be worse or better? "I tried to reach your father, Pat Halstead, but he passed away several years ago in a house fire. You do have some other relatives, your brothers, I'm going to make contact with them and see if they want to take you, girls, in." Ms Cappel explains to us. Brothers? Since when do we have brothers? Layla expresses the thoughts that are in my mind. "We don't have brothers, it was just us three."
"It seems that your mother was not your biological mother, but your stepmother. Both of you were very young when your biological mother passed away." Ms Cappel explains. This is a lot of information to take in. Our mother, stepmother, why didn't she tell us? Why didn't we know our brothers sooner? Why did our dad leave in the first place? There are many questions that cannot be answered.

I assume we're leaving now since Layla is standing up. Our principal extends his hand for us to shake. And says, "I'm truly sorry for your loss", to both of us. We left after shaking his hand and headed outside. "We are going to the 18th district and I will try to contact your brothers." Ms Cappel says while stepping into a car. Layla steps into the passenger seat, and I make myself comfortable in the backseat of the car.

The drive to the 18th district was brief. We made our way inside the building and an officer told us to sit in an office. The officer left and we were alone. "If our brothers take us into custody, don't mess it up. Do you hear me? Don't mess it up." Layla says stern to me like I'm a child. She is no longer crying, as she was when she was in the principal's office. She's just sitting there with a normal expression. I wonder if she was faking tears, and I soon find out. When Ms Cappel enters the little office, Layla starts crying again. When I look at her, I give her a look that says, 'what are you doing?'. She simply gives me a stern gaze in return. Ms Cappel gives both of us a cup of water and says, "I know this must be hard for you, losing your mother. I'll try to make contact with your brothers as soon as possible." She leaves again and Layla and I are both left with an uncomfortable silence. Until I break it, "I don't want anyone to know that mom abused me." Layla gives me an 'are you stupid look?' "No one can know, and definitely not our brothers, they will think you're nothing. You are nothing, but still, what will they think of me? And if you tell them, you're just an attention seeker. Are you an attention seeker?" Layla says to me. I quietly mumble a 'no'. "That's what I thought." Again, we're faced with an uncomfortable silence.

My painkillers are no longer effective after several hours. I leave for the bathroom with my backpack and realize that walking hurts more than sitting down. My eyes are filled with tears, threatening to spill. When I finally make it to the bathroom, I retreat to a stall and sit on the toilet. I grabbed my painkillers and took the last two. I need to get more. I'm going to remain seated on the toilet for a while so that the painkillers can work. After half an hour, I make my way back to the office where Layla is.

When Ms Cappel returned to the office, it was almost 11:30 pm. She said, "Good news, your brothers are willing to take you in. Both of them are coming this way to pick you up." I begin to pick at the skin on my hand. I can't describe how anxious I am. Are we just supposed to go with them? We don't know who they are. What if they aren't even interested in us, or what if they start abusing us. Me. Nobody intends to hurt Layla. "Oh, they are here", says Ms Cappel and snaps me out of my thoughts. I glance at my hands and notice that I have drawn blood from where I was picking at my skin. Ms Cappel walks out of the office and starts talking to two men, one with red hair and the other with brown. I think I look like them more than I do in Layla. They are just way taller than me, both of them are like 6'0 (1.83 m)feet. They could beat me to death if they wanted. The office door opens and Ms Cappel introduces us to each other, "This is Layla", she gestured at Layla, "and this is Amara". Our brothers look at us and the brown-haired one begins speaking. "Hey, I'm Jay and this is my brother Will," he says. He laughs about it. Considering our mother just passed away, I don't understand what's funny. However, Layla does think it's funny, she stands up and says, "Yeah, I think it's kind of crazy if you ask me. I didn't even know I had brothers." I'm still sitting, and I make eye contact with Will, the ginger. He gives me a small smile and I return it before quickly looking away. "I am done here, and I wish you, girls, the best of luck. Goodbye." Ms Cappel says while leaving. There is a brief silence before Will speaks up for the first time, "I think it's best if we leave too. You both must be tired after this rough day." The other one, Jay, nods his head. "Yeah, let's go", he adds. I rise to leave but am struck with a bout of dizziness from my ribs. Those two painkillers didn't do much. I'm glad that nobody has noticed.

Outside it's cold, and we walk to a truck. Layla and I get into the back of the car. I start picking at my hands again. "We are going to pick up your stuff at your house first if that's alright with you," Will said. "Yeah, that's fine", Layla replied. Layla, Will and Jay were talking about lots of different things. It turns out that Will is a doctor and Jay is a detective. Sometimes Jay or Will would ask me a question, but before I can answer, Layla would answer for me. It is annoying, I can answer questions myself. After five minutes in the car, I realized I was exhausted. I put in my earphones and rest my head against the car window. I'm not sure when, but eventually I fall asleep.

Here is chapter 3, hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a vote and comment if you want me to continue :)