Game Over: Life's Over

Tired

Throughout the evening Soleil and I played Mario Kart. Will left not long after we started playing. Emily saw how tired he was and convinced him to go home and get some rest. I was glad at least Soleil could stay and hang out with me. I liked her company.

But she beat me in nearly every race we played and gloated about it. She wasn't going to let me forget that she was beating me. She made it look easy.

I wished I had the confidence and the talent she had. She was a good friend to me and anyone she was friends with. She helped me focus on the good parts of life and our disease and not the bad parts. I didn't want her to leave as the night winded down. But she was tired and she needed to go home, even if she didn't want to.

Carrie walked over to Soleil and patted her on the shoulder. "Come on, sweetheart. Let's go home and get you into bed."

"I don't wanna go home yet," Soleil whined.

"You'll see Jake next week."

"I don't want to."

"You're tired. You need to go home and get some sleep."

"Yeah, you can always come back another day," I said.

Soleil groaned again and it sounded like she was really unhappy with the both of us. I was hoping it was just the sleepiness that was making her angry.

She got up and let Carrie lead her to the door. Theo was standing beside the opened door as if it was his job.

"Thanks for inviting Soleil. She really likes spending time with Jake."

I felt my face flush. I wondered how much Carrie knew about how Soleil felt about me.

"It was nice having her here. She's always a lot of fun."

Carrie laughed. "Yes, she keeps things quite interesting."

"Can we go home? I wanna go home," Soleil said. It came out as more of a whine than anything.

"Alright. Bye. Thanks again." Carrie helped Soleil out of the house and down the steps to the sidewalk. She looked like she was already asleep from the way she was walking. She was definitely more tired than she let on.

Theo shut the door and looked at Mom. "Are you heading out too?"

Mom nodded. "Yeah, I should get going."

I frowned. I didn't want her to leave. I barely even got to visit with her. "You can't stay?"

Mom walked over to me and hugged me. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I have work I have to get done this weekend."

I sighed.

"I know. I'll try to make it back up to see you soon."

I hid my face in her shoulder as I hugged her.

"You need to get ready for bed, Jake. It's getting late," Theo said.

I rolled my eyes. "It's not that late. And I'm not even tired."

Mom pulled back so she could look down at me. "Theo's right, sweetie. You've had a long day."

I frowned. I was still on the high from my fun evening with Will and Soleil. I wasn't ready for bed.

Mom kissed the top of my head. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, sweetie."

I watched her gather her purse and keys and head for the door. She gave me one last goodbye before she walked out the door, leaving me with just Theo and Eric.

Eric opened the baby gate and flipped on the light to the stairwell. "Do you need help getting ready for bed?"

I shook my head.

"Are you sure?" Theo asked.

I looked between the two of them. "You guys are being clingy."

"We didn't get to spend much time with you this evening. I know we're just caregivers to you but we don't want you to think of us as just people who make decisions on your behalf. We want to be a family. We care about you, Jake," Theo said.

"You guys are still new to me. I don't know if I'm ready for that yet."

"We understand. We're more than willing to wait for you to decide what you want. We just want you to know how we feel."

Eric nodded in agreement.

"You guys can't, like, adopt me, can you?"

Theo shook his head. "No, it doesn't work like that. You're legally an adult. You're only in our care because your condition makes it hard for you to live alone."

I sighed. "Add that to the list of things I can't do."

"Don't think that way. You graduated from high school. That counts for something."

I walked past him and towards the steps. Eric was still standing by the baby gate. "I wish it were enough."

"Focus on the positives, Jake," Eric said.

I looked up at him. So many people were telling me to focus on the positives and not dwell on everything that was going wrong but it was hard to ignore all the bad stuff when it kept happening. There was no avoiding something that was always present in your life.

"Why don't we go out for lunch tomorrow and continue to celebrate? We can go somewhere nice." Theo walked up behind me and stood with Eric.

I nodded. That did sound nice. We didn't go out in the city nearly as much as I expected to when I first moved. I really hoped we could change that.

Theo patted my arm. "Go get ready for bed. Let me know when you're ready for me to change your diaper for you."

My face flushed and I quickly ran up the steps, desperate to get away from the conversation. The only thing more embarrassing than wearing diapers was talking about them.