Turning Sixteen

Chapter 12: Shocked

He stared in my eyes, as if I'd just told him that I was dead.

"Wh-What?"

"Nothing. Just a coincidence, maybe." I assured both of us.

Knowing that he wouldn't buy that.

"No, this can't be a coincidence." he huffed. "This just can't be."

"Why not?" I asked, wiping away my nose with the tissues he had handed me.

"It's somewhat how my foster parents got me too." he spoke running his hands through his hair and clasping tight.

I listened in silence, busy wiping my nose and eyes.

I comprehended what he said a minute later.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

"WHAT?!"

I freaked out.

What the heck?

"What'd you just say?"

"Yeah, I'm...I'm adopted." he confirmed, sighing.

"I'm.. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"You don't need to be." he said, his voice firm.

"I really shouldn't have bought this up. I saddened the mood. Fuck it." I sweared and I swear, it feels good to vent out and swear like that.

I went to the window and peeped through to see the afternoon to evening sun transiting. Karen was up with Jordan and Suzy at their home, and she was planning for a night stay and it was fine because I could see them through my window.

"Sit." Tyler commanded. And I sat.

"I was four when my parents told me, that I was adopted. And they didn't even intend to reveal this. But they had to because I somewhat asked." he stopped to check if I was listening. My habit.

"What'd you ask?" I enquired.

"I asked them, why I couldn't have a sibling like other Children. I cried for days, until they decided to give up and tell me. My mom couldn't give birth. Too many complications. Then is when they told me I was adopted. They said that they didn't want any kids from the orphanage, cause they hardly know about them. Dad had this friend of his, Fred, who worked in a hospital. When my dad told him his story about mom and all, he said he could get them a kid. But, illegally. He said he could kind of deal with them, a brief of dollars and I was theirs. His deal was that my parents don't change my name. He said I was named Tyler, by my biological mother, and if they wanted to they could chang the name, but my mother insisted to keep it that, as a thanks to my actual parents. And I had prolonged jaundice and perhaps I was stolen from my real parents. I was a week old."

He finished, his eyes fixed on his interlocked hands.

Stolen.

A week old.

Adopted.

Tyler.

"Ty-Tyler," I stammered. "Does that mean..?"

I couldn't speak. The words wouldn't just come out.

Damn it.

"Do you know which hospital was it?" I asked speaking with hiccuping sounds.

"I guess some, St.Pau-"

My eyes popped out.

"ST.PAUL'S CROSSLAY?"

I blurted, nearly spitting at him. I stood up.

"Ye-Yes.." he could hardly speak.

"Isn't that why you act so much like me? The way you sit, the way you speak, the way you react, the way you act so submissive... Everything's so like me. God Damn it, Tyler YOU'RE MY-"

He just hugged me. He didn't let me finish, he simply hugged me. I could feel my cardigan get wetter at my shoulders.

"Tyler, it's okay."

"Am, That means We're siblings. We got the same blood. But how could we meet? I mean you just hated me like hell, but I tell you, since the Beginning, I felt something strange about you. Your every action and your way of behaving, I started noticing it all in myself too. But then I decided to drop this idea, thinking how foolish it was of me to even think about that." he said, catching breath. "And I'm an year younger, still in the same class as yours. Good that my foster parents believed in being early, else we wouldn't have reunited." he spoke again, this time his eyes wet.

"Sometimes it's in our fates to reconcile. It has already been scribed down. When it's there that it will be happening, it has to happen and it will happen anyhow. It can't be stopped, nor initiated. Wish, longing or prayer, none can change it; for it has been drawn out nowhere else, but in our hands." I said as I turned again towards the window.

- - - -

~Tyler's POV~

"Sometimes it's in our fates to reconcile. It has already been scribed down. When it's there that it will be happening, it has to happen and it will happen anyhow. It can't be stopped, nor initiated. Wish, longing or prayer, none can change it; for it has been drawn out nowhere else, but in our hands." she said and she turned away to the window.

My sister, now I knew, who had always been my sister, Amelia, said these words of wisdom.

I didn't know what to say next. Her words struck a cord in me somewhere.

All I wanted now was to see my parents. My biological parents.
I collected all my guts, and finally asked her about them.

"Amelia.."

She turned to face me.

"Yes." she smiled. My sister smiled. She was beautiful. I never knew I had a pretty sister who was my classmate.

All these years, I never noticed, never probed into it.

"I want to meet.. Mom and Dad."

Her face purely emotionless.

Maybe I shouldn't have asked. Now, maybe I should shut my mouth and get back to home.

****