Family is Everything - Linstead Fanfic

Chapter 20 - We Love You So Much

"My earliest, most life-altering memory is not a fun one. It's rather painful to think about so excuse me if this paper is awful. My memory is that of my mother stabbing my father to death right before my own eyes, then sending me away with an abusive man.
My life up until I was 8 was rather unusual; my mother abused me, my father was never around, and I was pretty much allowed to do anything I wanted. For instance, I recall getting a 4-wheeler for my 3rd  birthday and being allowed to ride it all by myself as my mother drank herself into darkness. Or when I was only 6 and was told to go buy some groceries so my mother could sit at home and get drunk. Or when I was 7 and she had a huge party at home and her friends got me drunk.
But one day when I was 8, my father returned home from Vegas and my mother's eyes flashed with anger. I was just a kid, eating cereal at the table before school, trying not to make eye contact with either of them. But I watched as my mother pulled out a knife from the drawer in the kitchen and stab him, over and over and over again.
Following that, a big guy came in and my mother sent me off with him. I was held captive by him for a week, until 2 Intelligence detectives came in and saved me. Jay ended up getting shot twice and myself once, but we were all okay in the end.
Those detectives ended up being the greatest people in the world and are now my adopted parents. But they feel like biological parents to me, not adopted. "

"Andy, open the door please." Erin called to Andrew through the door. It was 9:45 pm; he'd been writing his paper for over 3 hours and nobody had seen him during that time.

"What?" Andrew called, having been focused on doing something else.

"Open the door." Erin requested again.

Andrew opened the door and Erin's eyes went wide in disbelief. His entire room was a mess; papers everywhere, everything from the back of his closet pulled out, his dresser drawers a mess.

"What on earth are you doing?" Erin finally asked. "This doesn't look like writing a paper to me."

"The paper's been done for an hour, it's on my desk. I'm searching for something."

"And what's that something?"

Andrew didn't answer, he just kept searching. Erin watched for a few minutes and as she was about to walk out, Andrew yelled. "Yes! I found it!"

"What did you find?" Erin asked, still confused.

Andrew held up a small box that appeared to be an old shoebox.

"What the hell Andrew? Please explain yourself." Erin said, sitting on his bed.

Andrew joined her, setting the box between them.

"I had this hidden since I moved in with you guys. It's my old memory box. I've got my old baby blanket that I used to sleep with when I was scared." Andrew said, holding it up out of the box. "Let's see what else. My old White Sox hat that my real dad gave me for my 5th birthday, a couple toy cars, and a bouncy ball that my real mother gave me for Christmas one year. This ball was my only Christmas gift that year. Here it is!" Andrew said, holding up a flash drive.

"A flash drive?" Erin questioned.

"All of our 'family' photos are on it. Can we look through them on your laptop?"

"Of course."

The pair went downstairs and pulled the files up on the computer. They looked through them and Andrew smiled a little.

"What's up with you, smiley?" Jay asked, having been watching the two for a couple minutes.

"Well, I was just thinking about a few memories when I saw these pictures. Not all my memories with them were bad. My real dad took me camping once and we actually had fun. But it's too bad that most of the memories are bad."

"I know, baby, I read your paper upstairs. And I'm sorry you had to experience any of that, but we love you so much." Erin told him, hugging him close to her.