The Way of Fate (Book 1)

32. Amy

Chapter 32: Amy

Allen

"Please be careful," I said, yet again, as Mika slid the straps of his backpack over his shoulders. "Call me if anything happens. I'll come pick you up."

He rolled his eyes at me. "You've said that fifty times in the last ten minutes. I'm not going to answer you again."

He was right, somewhat. I only said it two or three times, not fifty. And I did already know his response: it'll take an hour, two at the most, if I can't find him right away. I'll be fine. I lived this life for years. I know how to handle myself.

Just because he knew what he was doing didn't make me any less worried about him. I never wanted anything bad to ever happen to him, and him taking a gun into a bad area of town to give it to some sketchy guy to get rid of wasn't exactly my idea of safe.

No, I shouldn't jump to conclusions. I didn't know anything about this guy that Mika knows, so I shouldn't assume that he or the other people around him are sketchy. I trusted Mika, and that should be enough.

After he had gone, I didn't really know what to do. It was weird. I lived in the house by myself for months before Sam and Mika entered my life. Since then, there was always someone around - namely, Mika was always here. Sam, as much as I love him, doesn't do much as far as conversations. He still only knows a handful of words and he was currently sleeping, so I couldn't even use this time to teach him more.

Instead, I decided to use this time to clean the house up a bit. With yesterday having been Christmas, neither one of us really felt like cleaning all that much after the amazing dinner Mika cooked for us. Basically, we ended up going straight to bed, although neither one of us got much sleep, if I'm to be honest.

I was just about done washing the dishes when the doorbell rang. I froze, a bowl still in my hand right before I placed it back in the cabinet, listening to hear if the sound had woken Sammy. Thankfully, I didn't hear him, so I went to answer the door, praying it wasn't Sarah coming back again.

Luck seemed to be on my side today. On the front porch stood the small figure of Mika's little sister.

She smiled up at me, despite the fact that she looked cold in her thin sweater. "Hi. Does my brother still live here? Meeky? He's tall, but not as tall as you, and has brown hair-"

I had to hold back my laughter and quickly stopped her before she went any further describing Mika. "Of course. Come on in, Amy, you must be freezing."

"Oh right!" she exclaimed, her bright blue eyes full of excitement. "You're the guy Meeky does the naughty thing with, but not for money like the other guys. You're the one he loves. Sorry, I forgot about you."

"That's quite alright. My name is Allen," I said as we moved inside further, ignoring her comment on Mika's old activities that I didn't think she should have even known about. "Do you want some hot chocolate? Mika should be back soon." I checked the time. It had been about an hour since he left, so hopefully he'd be here any minute now.

She eagerly accepted the offer, so I led her to the kitchen to make her some. I watched as she carefully sat at the table, almost like she was afraid to touch the junk that was covering it (mostly some of Sam's toys, old mail, and some other random items that haven't found a permanent home yet) in case she broke anything. I thought it was a ridiculous notion, but then again, she didn't have the best foster home, and that could be where the fear was coming from. I didn't say anything about it, though, keeping myself occupied with getting two mugs of hot chocolate and setting them at the table before sitting across from Amy.

"Thank you," she said politely, wrapping her hands around the large mug. "Do you still have your baby?"

I smiled. "I do. He's sleeping right now, but maybe later, when he wakes up, you can hold him, if you'd like?"

Amy nodded her head quickly. "Okay!"

Neither of us said anything for a couple minutes, during which time I realized I had no idea how to talk to children. Not her age, at least.

Eventually, she broke the silence. "Do you remember what you asked me a while ago? You asked if I wanted to be part of your family. With you and Meeky and your baby. Is that not happening? 'Cause I really want it to happen."

I had wanted Mika here before we discussed this, especially because I didn't know how to tell her that it was going to be a much bigger process than she thinks it will be. There was also now the issue of Mika's school and us no longer living in this city permanently soon. But since she was asking now, I needed to give her some sort of answer. I decided to stop it there, not wanting to get into the moving part of everything yet. I felt like Mika and I needed to figure the details out first.

"We definitely want you in our family, Amy. It's going to take a lot of work, though, alright? We can't just have you move in here with us and have everything work out that way."

"Well, duh. Don't you gotta, like, talk to the foster people? And the people I live with now? I don't think they'll care that I'm gone, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. As long as things get approved by some people, right?"

She is so smart for her age, I keep forgetting that. "Yes, and we do need to get all the legal things settled. But we're going to work on it, okay?"

She nodded her head and silence fell between us again. We just sat, in a comfortable silence, drinking our hot chocolates, although she was drinking hers a lot quicker than I was.

Finally, the silence became too much for me to handle. "So, Amy," I started, making her look up at me, a strand of her blonde hair falling in front of her eyes. "You're in school, right? What grade are you in?" I figured if I was going to adopt her, I might as well get to know her, right?

That got us talking, and it turns out talking to a ten year old girl wasn't all that difficult after all. I learned that she was in fourth grade, although her age should have put her in fifth, but because she never went to school when she was younger, she had to be behind. She really enjoyed school, though, which was evident before she even told me herself. Her whole face lit up when she talked about her teacher and the friends she was making in her class. I just didn't know how she'd handle leaving them, if needed.

I was glad she was doing well. I almost felt like a proud father hearing about how well she was doing. She wasn't even my daughter, but it was the same feeling I got when Sammy learned a new word - one that's not a curse word - or when he finally learned to stand up by himself. It was the feeling of pure pride.

Speaking of Sammy, he woke up eventually, as expected. Amy was halfway through her second cup of hot chocolate and I was just about done with my first when he started to whine. So I excused myself from our conversation, which had moved onto our favorite animals, and went to go grab my son.

After changing his diaper, I brought him out to the kitchen with me. Amy's face lit up at the sight of him.

"Can I hold him?" she asked, excitement filling her voice.

I chuckled, sitting back down. "Of course."

Once I passed off my son, she asked, "So he's gonna be my little brother?"

"Yeah, I guess he will be."

Just then, the door opened and in walked Mika. He looked a bit worn out, but no worse than he did this morning when he left. He looked at me, then down at Amy, then back at me. "It's done," he said, matter-of-factly. Then he sat down in the chair next to Amy and pulled both her and Sammy into one big hug. I wanted to ask how everything went, but that was going to have to wait until later, if he even wanted to talk about it.