Fighting Family

7

Callum's POV

"It's been a while since you've wanted to have a session," Andrew pointed out as I sat in front of him in his office. It was so different from his office back at camp and I was honestly happy about it. I couldn't be reminded of that place now that I had two constance reminders why I got sent there. "What's been going on?"

"Axel and Weylyn came to my house when we moved in," I said with a sigh. Andrew's eyes went wide as he frowned and picked up his pen. "I took guardianship over them because Lily left them and mom walked out. They've been living with me for four days and I can already feel myself reverting back to early days of camp and I hate myself for it. I did the work, I put in the effort to be a better person and to control my anger and then Axel walks back into my life and suddenly I'm three comments away from screaming at him."

"Have you screamed at him yet?"

"Not yet. I got close yesterday. I was telling him that he was going to spend the day with Liam while the rest of us went to work and he tried fighting me on it. I get why he did, like he didn't want to be with a stranger but I don't want them to depend on me solely. They need to get used to my husbands. And it feels weird to make them come and sit in a book store all day. They deserve to be comfortable without people watching or them being around people all the time."

"How did you keep from loosing it on him?" I couldn't help but frown, knowing I was either about to be lectured for leaving them in an unknown place or praised for following out tactics.

"I left."

"You left?"

"I walked right out the door and when I came back that night, he wouldn't talk to me." Andrew frowned. I was getting lectured.

"So you took in two kids that have been left by every parental figure they've ever had."

"Yes."

"You told them you would take care and provide for them."

"Accurate."

"And then at the first sign of strain, you abandon them."

"I'm not proud of it," I defended weakly. He didn't seem to care. "I was doing our tactics. I was getting mad so I left so I wouldn't end up harming them. That's what we said I should do."

"That was back when we were talking about partners who were mature and understood trauma responses. These are children who probably don't even realize they have trauma let alone thought about the possibility of you having your own problems."

"So I should just force myself to stay even though I could have lost my shit on them?"

"No but there should have been better communication. There is one tactic where you sit down to calmly have a conversation and the second someone get defensive or angry you stop, set a five minute timer, and go to different rooms for a while to let everyone calm down. If after the five minutes you're still angry you go back, tell the person you need more time, and you start a new timer."

"We didn't have time. We had to leave for work."

"Then you need to time these conversation out to where you'll have enough time or you be late for work. I'm sure springing it on them randomly didn't help either." I sighed knowing he was right like usual but I didn't like it.

Andrew and I had developed a system when it came to therapy. Basically he didn't sugar coat things for me and I didn't keep secrets from him. We had started it back at camp when I was angry at everything all the time and it worked well for us so we just never gave up on it. It was good to know that the person helping wasn't trying to spare your feelings. If I messed up Andrew was going to be sure I knew but he was also going to find ways to help me out of the hole I dug myself.

"I don't know what I'm doing," I admit. "I mean I won't even try to pretend that I knew what I was doing before camp; I was just trying to make sure they had food and did their homework but now I'm an actual adult and they are literal children and it's my job to help them and I don't know how to do that."

"Being a parent is hard," Andrew started but I cut him off.

"I'm not a parent. I told them I wasn't going to be that for them. I'm just their brother trying to help them not end up in camp or jail." Andrew frowned.

"Have you considered that might be a reason he's acting out? He's never had a real parental figure. Just his brother and sister doing their best even though they were also children. Maybe he needs the authority now; acting out in hopes someone will finally step up and be the parent he's craving."