A Place in This World - A Taylor Swift Adoption Story

Hear all the rumors lately

April 17, 2023

~~

A day passed, and all of a sudden, the entire group home had known about the visitor. Ellie and Danielle had gone to help the kids get ready or their summer camp, and Rose was cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast. Right as she put up the wet towel, a smaller kid she recognized came up to her. "Hey, Miles! How's my mini-Spiderman doing?"

"Rose, I'm not a mini-Spiderman," Miles complained, like he did every day. "I'm a big Spiderman."

"Oh, you're right, bud. Sorry. What can I do for you, big Spiderman?" Rose asked, crouching to get to his level.

"Can you help me get my cards? The other boys put them where I couldn't reach them." Rose sighed. Miles was always getting teased, and no matter how many times she scolded the bullies, they always teased him afterward.

"Yeah. Come on, kiddo." They made their way to his room, and Rose brought them down, handing it to him. "Try not to get them taken again, okay?" Miles nodded and ran out to join the other kids. Rose made her way down to reception to my little chair next to Juliette.

"Morning, Rose! How's the rumor mill?" she asked, and Rose sighed.

"So far, I've heard that she's adopting because 1. she ran out of exes to write about, 2. she misses company, 3. she's planning a singer army, or 4. she wants a catsitter. If Josh visits the infirmary with a busted lip, I will not know anything," Rose stated, defending Taylor.

"Ew. Well, I can tell you it doesn't seem like any of those," Juliette said, scrolling through the application and making sure she filled it out correctly. "Seems like she's just ready to be a mom."

"Oh, that's sweet. You think she'll come back here?" Rose asked. After all, from what she noticed, Taylor hadn't seem to plan stopping in the group home.

"I don't know. This home is fairly close to the residence she listed here. How about this, if her application goes through and she comes back, I will let you know personally," Juliette assured Rose. She grinned, and nodded. "Good. Now, here. File these please!" Rose grabbed a pile and made her way to the storage room to put the papers away.

~~

After filing, Rose started her sweeping. Before she went into another one of the teen girl rooms, Rose was about to knock when she heard girls inside. "Girl, did you hear about the whole Taylor Swift and Rose thing? So weird right?" Rose faltered.

"Fucking yes dude. Like okay, I get it, a lot of girls really like her music, including me," another voice chimed in, "but singing to her? With her? Either way, that's giving pick me." A chorus of agreements piled in. Rose decided to start in another room, wiping tears from her eyes. She popped her headphones in and shuffled her playlist. When it landed on "Mean", Rose couldn't help but laugh at the irony. Seemed like the universe was on her side.

Rose swept under beds and pulled trash together, and picked out big trash, like bottles of water and paper, humming along to whatever song was playing. She found some other items as well, like vapes, but it wasn't Rose's business. Instead she hit one, decided it hadn't improved since the last time she tried, wiped it off, and put it back where it belonged, hidden under the owner's mattress. She finished sweeping the big items and moved on to mopping. Then, she went back to the room where the girls were gossiping. Rumors loved to fly around here after all.