never too late ✎ adopted by phan

16 *calm down

💋Brooklyn💋

Yeah, okay, I get it. I'm a dick. I'm an asshole. I'm a bitch. But I hate Emerald. I hate my sister.
I hate how she isn't like me in like, every way.

I hate how she's stollen my family off me. Taken all the love and affection and attention that Dan and Phil gave me. I wished that she'd just go off, back where she came from. Away from me and away from Dan and Phil. Forever.

🦁Phil🦁

Emerald is getting better.
It may be slowly, it may be gradually, but she is.

All the hospital visits are starting to pay off, apparently if she carries on being a healthy, steady weight like she is now, she'll be fine.

And that's what we love about her, she's staying strong.

"I can't do this!" Dan shouted at the maths website where we were 'teaching' Emerald fractions, but Emerald seemed to be teaching us more than we were teaching her. And Dan was just struggling anyway. "This is why I dropped out of University!" He cried.

"C'mon Dan, it's super easy." Emerald said smiling weakly, "it's just 8 over 10, but how can it be simplified or reduced?"

Dan looked at her as if she was speaking another language, I sighed and laughed a little.
"2 over 5?" He wondered.

"No, close though, it's 4 over 5, because we're reducing it from the two times table." She explained.

"Okay, okay, class dismissed." Dan laughed. "Lunch time, and you look pretty tired, so I'll make your sandwich and bring it to you." Dan smiled and we left Emeralds room.

I started to try and not laugh at Dan.
"What?" He asked.
"You're that bad at fractions?" I responded.
"Hey! I forgot how to... Refuse-" Dan started.
"Reduce." I corrected him.
"Yeah, whatever, and Emerald was helping me remember." He said, starting to grab some bread, ham, cheese and vegetables and started to make Em's lunch, once he was done, he walked into Em's room, then the phone rang.

"Hello?" I picked it up and asked.
"Am I speaking to Daniel or Phillip Lester?" A man asked.
"Phillip Lester." I replied.
"I am part of the child protection agency, you have a child called, Emily Elizabeth Mcoy?" He asked.
"Emerald Elizabeth Lester." I corrected, nervously, "Lester, it's Lester now. We legally adopted her."

"Well we hate to inform you but your daughters legal guardian would like to take her back." He said, I felt as if I'd just been punched in the stomach.
"No. Please, that's not fair, she's been through so much abuse back there, they've abused her. You can't be serious!" I explained.

"Mr Lester, please calm down. If that is the case, we'll look into it, on the 29th of this month, we'll be seeing you and Mr Mcoy in court. We'll send you more details in the documents that are being send in the mail." He explained. I was speechless and said nothing.

"Thank you and goodbye." He said, then hung up. After he had hung up, I still had the phone to my ear. After about 2 minutes, I slowly put down the phone.

"DAN!" I cried, Dan ran in, shushing me.
"Em's asleep- what's wrong?" He asked me, noticing that I had tears pouring down my face.

"E-Emerald's d-dad..." I stuttered as he pulled me into a hug and kissed me.
"What about him?" He asked, but sounded slightly nervous.

"W-we've got to go to court... Because he wants her back..." I said, Dan stared at me, wanting to say it wasn't real, but I'd never lie to him, so he knew it was real.

"W-what?!" He shouted.
"Dan, calm down, there is no way in hell he's going to have Emerald." I said calmly.
"Calm down?! You want me to calm down when our daughter could be taken away from us?!" He shouted, sobbing loudly, I looked into the hallway, wondering if Emerald could hear us. She must've been really tired.

"I told you, he's not going to get Emerald." I told him.
"And what if he does?!" Dan shouted, we both stood silent when we heard a small yawn down the hallway, in Emerald's room, we waited about 3 minutes but she must've gone back to sleep.

"When is it?" Dan asked, rubbing his tear stained eyes, his voice sounding hoarse.
"29th..." I replied.
"We have 9 days. A week and two days to get prepared for what we're gonna say." Dan said, putting his hand on his forehead.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me..." Dan mumbled, looking over at Emerald's door, to see a sleepy Emerald standing in the doorway.

"Is everything okay?" She asked quietly.

...
uh. oh.