The Evans

Chapter One: A Family

I walked into the door of the house, and breathed a sigh of relief. I was finally in a home, and I knew it was with my family. It wasn't a house of someone that beat me. It wasn't the house of somebody that I thought would only be my family for a few months. And it wasn't the house of a mother who was doing drugs after her divorce, getting me taken out of her house. It was a house where I was with my family. A family that has adopted me. A family I knew I loved.

The small kitten I found a few months previous to this moment was now much larger, and we had figured out was a male. We named him Nemo after my favorite movie. I picked him up and hugged him. He purred, and I felt happy.

I slowly walked over to the couch, and I fell back on it. This was the couch in my house with my family. A couch where I could sit and know that it wasn't one that I had to fear sitting on. As I continued to sit and be thankful, Josh and Colleen walked in.

"Hey there, Mr. Mike Evans," Colleen said.

"I think son sounds better," Josh said.

I smiled at this. I was just called son. This time, it was official and true. It wasn't foster son. These were my parents. They weren't ones- I think you've gotten the point.

We all sat down on the couch, and we decided to watch some YouTube because that's what we do.

"We're gonna have to make a video to announce this to our subscribers," Josh said.

"We should," Colleen began. "I'll make one on my account, and you can make one on yours."

"Okay, I like this idea," I said in reply to both of them. "Can we go shopping tomorrow to get some cool stuff? I wanna wear some legit shirt in the video. Maybe I'll also just wear a Joshleen shirt." I took a short pause. "I want you guys to know something: I don't want to be like all up in your channels. I know some of your subscribers don't like me too much, and I'd like to stray away from stuff like that. I can make my own channel, and that sounds like fun."

Colleen and Josh both looked at each other. "If that's what you would like," Josh began. "We will do that. I'm just happy that we can all be a happy family."

"Yea. That makes me happy. Can I call my... woman who birthed me tomorrow? Just to say like 'Thanks for signing away the rights, but this is all I really wanna say right now so..." I think I had made my point by now, and I had already felt weird asking that.

"Of course you can do that," Colleen said. "Why tomorrow? It's only 6:00 p.m. Go do it now. We'll be here. We have to discuss something with you, anyway."

I nodded in thanks. I got up and walked over to my room, where I sat on my bed and took out my phone. I dialed her number. My shoulders rose as I took a very deep breath in, then out. I clicked call.

Ringing. Ringing. Ringing.

Her: Hello?

Me: Hey, I just wanted to thank you for signing the rights away.

Her: You're welcome. And hey, I really need to speak to you. It's super important.

Me: Look. Today I finally got accepted into a family. I don't need you to ruin it right now. I can meet with you soon. I just wanted to call and say thank you for the rights.

Her: Meet tomorrow? Same bakery as last time? 1:00?

Me: I guess. You're lucky I'm in a good mood.

I hung up immediately. I didn't want anything to do with her, but she sounded desperate. This also gave me the chance to say to her in person that I was done with her crap, and I could finally tell her.

As I walked back to the living room, I could hear their voices, and they sounded unhappy. This conversation wasn't going to go well, and this was obvious now.

"Okay, Mike. We gotta talk," Josh said. "We just got together as a family, and we decided it was time to celebrate. We'll be going to Disneyland this Friday."

I gasped with delight. My smile went from ear to ear.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I was shouting now, and was full of excitement. "Then why was your conversation so serious?"

"We just saw you coming and figured it'd be fun to pull a little prank," Colleen replied.

Walking over to sit by them on the couch was one of the best feelings in the world. We were a family.