Take My Picture

Chapter twenty one

Demi's POV

"I don't care how long it's going to take. My name has to be good for something in this," I ran my free hand through my hair, getting increasingly frustrated that everyone was giving me that same vague no to my questions. I could see something move in my peripheral vision and quickly turned to find Madison and Brinley had arrived for the afternoon. "Look, just talk to Mike and Phil and make it happen. I've got to go. Bye." I hung up and slipped my phone in my back pocket.

I pulled both girls into a hug as I did when they got to the hospital every day this week. "How was school," I asked them as we pulled away. Madison went and sat cross-legged on the end of Harriet's bed and Brinley pulled up the chair and sat with her feet up on the other side of the bed. I picked up my notebook and laptop, shifting them to one side of the small couch and sitting down on the other.

"It was okay, actually my social studies teacher brought up a bunch of celebrities in class today to prove a point we've been arguing for a few days. It was so funny because he brought up you but he had no clue what he was actually talking about. I nearly got sent to the principal cause I couldn't stop laughing," Madison explained animatedly, laughing at the memory.

"Does he know you guys are related?" Brinley asked a smile growing on her face.

"Well, he does now. Jayde had to explain it to him though cause I just kept laughing." Brinley let out a small laugh. I couldn't suppress the smile that had planted itself on my face either. I am so glad these two have stayed relatively positive over this whole thing. I cast a quick glance to Madison's right at Harriet's small body still lying completely still on the bed, her face framed by her long dark hair. She is going to be super glad that they didn't shave her whole head for the surgery, her hair will cover the scar on the right side of her head.

There was a silence that began to settle in the room when the girls noticed where my eyes were trained. I didn't want them to feel the weight of this situation, they're too young, so I quickly picked up the conversation again. "I hope none of you're teachers decided to take a whack at me today," I directed at Brinley.

"No, they didn't unfortunately." Madison turned her body slightly and held out her hand for Brinley to hi-five her, a small smirk planted on her lips as she looked towards me.

"Ouch," I released in a gasp, faking hurt by her words. "You guys should be nicer to me, I could make you walk home." I threatened half-heartedly, knowing full well that I could never actually do that. They knew it too and pulled me up on it immediately.

"Well, did you have a good day regardless of no one making fun of me in your classes?"

"Yeah it was fine, school is kinda boring without Harriet though." Brinley glanced over to Harriet before quickly looking back over to Demi. "Actually, in English, we were talking about social media and how its changed journalism and whether it's for the better or worse. But that's not the point, the point is that something my teacher brushed past was crowdfunding. It got me thinking and I messaged Mad about it. Do you think we could do that for Elise, so she doesn't have to put all the girls back in the system?" Brinley looked over to Madison and the two of them looked at me expectantly.

Elise has been on the phone a lot trying to work out how she is going to pay for Harriet's medical care and the longer she stays in the hospital, the higher the bill gets. It's so frustrating to watch her struggle with this so much, but she's still adamant about me not paying for Harriet's medical care. We've tried to keep Madison and Brinley out of these problems, so to say I was shocked to hear Brinley asking me about this, is an understatement. And apparently, it showed. "Come on Dems, you guys didn't really think we couldn't hear the conversations or notice the tension. We just want to help, we want Harriet to stay here. If she goes back into the system we might never get to see her." I looked back between Madison and Brinley before my eyes landed on Harriet's small body lying in the hospital bed, tubes and wires everywhere. Doing what Madison and Brinley want is going against Harriet's and Elise's wishes, they don't want me to pay for her medical care. But if I get technical, they said nothing about crowdfunding, it's not me paying for it then. I can't do nothing, Harriet needs to be able to go back to her home when she wakes up, not some new foster family.