As The Numbers Fall

8

8

    The amount of days until the ceremony.
       The amount of poems I had attempted to write.
           The amount of poems I had given up on.

When I said I was different from my friends, I meant it in several ways. I meant it in the way that I was quieter, in the way I appeared smaller even though I towered over most of them, and lastly, in the way I was the most creative. I hated to say it because of how arrogant it sounded, but it was, in many ways, true. I drew, I painted, I wrote stories, I wrote poems, I could play the violin and the piano, I could not sing but I was okay with that. Singing exposed a part of me that I couldn't share with others.
My writing usually calms me. Today, it unnerved me to the point of tears. I sat on my bed, one that normally felt too small for my lanky body, but in this moment felt like an ocean folding around my body.
I forced myself to get up and put myself together.
When you go into highschool, you get moved out of a community home with several kids and the people who were chosen to be caretakers, into your own apartment. We leave our parents at age two. I don't even remember mine. But that was the point, they wanted us to develop as our own people to join our given family, in our sectors, rather than our birth family.
I never hated that rule as much as I did when I was crying. I needed a mom to hold me and lie and tell me it'll be alright. The closest thing I had to that was Dylan so I called him.
He answered on the second ring.
"Hey Forrest, what's wrong?"
"How did you know anything was wrong?"
"Please. Don't question it. Now speak or I'm hanging up."
"Nothing I guess. I was thinking about family and how horrible it is that those people get to take not only one, but two of our families."
He paused, "They take our families but they give us the chance to have several. I know you don't like the way that sounds but let me finish. Do you really think any of us would have met if we lived in a different world where we go to live with our parents? We could be on different sides of the world. I don't want to think of a world where I didn't met you, or the triplets, or Lynn, or.." I cut him off.
"Actually, I do. I think that a world where our lives are ours would be better. No, I know it would be better. Dylan, I could have siblings out somewhere in the world. I might have a sister in some sector or in a group home. I hate not knowing who is who or how. For all I know Lynn is my cousin and you're my older brother. I hate it. I hate how I'll never know because of how this stupid society is. Of course I would hate it without any of you guys but I believe that we'd find each other. Call me stupid, call me crazy but I believe in that destiny crap. I know that I love all of you and I think that all of you are the reason I am who I am and I know that I couldn't be Forrest without you. All of you." I didn't realize but at some point, tears had started falling on my face again.
Dylan didn't say anything else. We sat on the phone just listening for almost fifteen minutes.
"Me too."