katharsis

- second rule -

  Life is all about looking into things.

        All these movings and changes made me one year late academically. I was in France, and the French system may be quite confusing for outsiders.

Still, by the age of 12, I was entering 6th grade in the same school Swan was entering 9th grade. Him and I were already really close. He owned a few hand-held game consoles we would play together. We would watch animes and fight each other because we were boys. Even though his age introduced him to teenagers' culture, he never ceased to be goofy around me. His friends were my only friends. Shout out to Gregory, by the way.

I wasn't doing great at school, socially. I never wanted to make friends or anything. I never brought anyone home for that matter. I was alone but not lonely. At the end of the day, I had this family.

     I never caught myself calling them "my family" not because I was too shy of doing so even if they often assured me that I was part of it. No, it was not that deep.

Or maybe it was. I didn't want to call people family because this word didn't mean anything to me. Now, I'm not saying I don't believe in family love, I'm saying that I needed more to consider others as family. And as much as I love them, Swan's family will never be my family, mostly because later on, I found my true family even if I lost them.

But that's another part as to why I am writing this story.

   Him (Swan, obviously) and I were so close that when his baby sister was to be born, he battled for her to get my name. Of course, at first, it was a suggestion, but he became very serious about it when his mother was stuck in the hospital before labour. Even if she didn't get my name (or any variant that her brother found), I learned right after that this family was fond on me, because they would give her, as a second name, 'Livia'.

My name is Lyvaï, and Swan wanted to name her Livai.

I was too out of it to understand the meaning of all that, the meaning of giving my name to a human being that had nothing to do with me. As I grow up, it never seems to shake me less.

They had accepted me, my whole being, as a part of their existence, as an important part of their life.

Among us all, Swan was the most excited. He was lame and a dork. But he loved me, and I felt loved.

If I had looked into all these things, I would have figured that out better.