Mother's Wish

Part 13

That night I sat there lying in bed trying to think about the proposition that was offered to me a couple of weeks ago. The minutes just crept by slowly my stomach began to become unsettled. Permanently stopping me from aging, just the sentence playing over and over in my mind was baffling. By the time I knew it Julia was coming into my room to let me out. She locked me in my room afraid that I was gonna make a run for it. I didn't know what I wanted. 

Julia picked me up out of bed and began asking me about my decision. 

"So... Did you decide? On what age you are going to pick." Julia began while she sat me on my bed to begin dressing me.

"Well, Juli.."I began. She shot me a stern look. "Well mama, I don't really know yet. It's only been two weeks and I don't one hundred percent know yet." I finished. She just stood there looking at me, she picked out my outfit and helped me go to the bathroom. She then put me in the car buckling me in the booster seat. I felt so infantile. I depended on her for everything. 

"What about breakfast?" I asked.

"You can have breakfast once we get to the lab, they have a dining area." she said once she entered the car. Just then Steven had gotten in driver's seat to take us to the lab. It was about a forty-minute drive so of course, my little toddler body decided to clock out on the ride. I woke up to Julia taking me out of my booster seat and being carried into the building. I could smell the great breakfast that was being served in the dining hall and by the smell growing stronger and stronger, I knew that we were headed in my direction.  

Steven went and signed us in for the apparent appointment. Julia found us an empty table and grabbed a high chair for me to sit in while the caterer took our order. She ordered pancake for herself and Steven, she knew I hated them and got me french toast. The caterer was very fast and took no time. They brought the food out to us within mere minutes.

"Can you not cut my french toast? I like them the regular way." I said to Julia.

"Even though you are a big girl in your mind, your body is little and if I don't do this you can choke and get hurt." She answered.

At this point, I didn't care anymore and was just focused on the idea of putting food in my starving baby belly. While we were just about done Dr.Owens had come and called for both Julia and Steven to go into this weird room. They sat me in the nursery with all the other kids who were just like me. I heard some of them talking about how they actually liked the fact that they had no worries. I walked up to this one girl she looked to be about five.

"Hi, I'm Colli...Averi!!" I said trying to sound nice. 

The girl stopped playing with her blocks and looked to her right where I was standing. 

"Hi there I'm Lilly." she replied back with a smile plastered on her face. 

"What are you here for?" I asked 

"My parents are actually here to halt their aging. What about you?" she asked

"Well the people I'm with are here for the same thing. I overhear you talking to some boy and I heard you say that you liked the way things are going for you." I said to her.

"Well yeah. Before I met my parents I was a teenage runaway who was being pimped out on the streets of Chicago. But when Michelle and Harold found me I felt safe. Once they told me with this place was I practically begged to be their child. It's better than what I once had. What was your life like?" she told me.

I told her how I was a foster kid who ran away from her home and all the other events of my lie leading up to now. It was crazy, she sat there and listened. She told me how I should just adjust and accept the situation that I was in. I wasn't gonna sit there and let them control every aspect of my life, but the way Lilly out it made me look at it from another perspective. 

"You are practically trying to run away from parents who love you and want you, to go and be a foster care kid again." She said harshly. Trust I'm in your position but I would handle it totally different than you. Hours had passed with us talking and in the midst, a woman with dirty blonde hair walked up right to me and Lilly.

"Lilly baby, time to go home. Mommy and Daddy are done here." she said taking Lilly by her hand. The woman looked at me and then at Lilly.

"Omg, I see you two became friends while we were getting our check-ups. What your name little girl?" she said while bending over to look into my face. 

"Collins." I told her. 

"My my my. That is a pretty name for a pretty girl. I'll make sure to get your mommy and daddy's information from the staff. Maybe you and Lilly can have a playdate." She said as she got up to leave. I was sad to see Lilly go, now I had no one to talk to white Julia and Steve where doing whatever they were doing. 

Speaking of them it must have been a bit two hours since they left, I became irritated at how animated the nursery givers were behaving so I decided that I would sneak out of this wing and do a little snooping. I left off of a cart that someone brought the snacks in, the people never noticed the small three-year-old at the bottom. When the cart stopped I got off of it and hid behind some bins that were on a trolly that read cryotreatment. I knew what that meant so I sat there and waited or someone to push this cart to where ever destination it belonged. 

When I arrived at the department I was so shocked to see capsules of people just sitting there. It was like they were in freezers. Once capsule contained a little girl, she looked to be about six or seven and she had white frost covering her entire face. The time above it read 45 minutes left. I was shocked at what I was witnessing. They wanted me to go through this. A man was being pulled out of a capsule while another was being inserted inside. 

"Hey!!! Is that a baby he trolly." Someone shouted. Just as I heard that I was quick to play sleep. Someone came and picked me up off of the bins and told everyone else that they were gonna take me back downstairs. "This is the missing Toddler from downstairs. Must've fallen asleep on the bins and no one noticed her." Within about ten minutes I was back in the nursery wing where Julia ran up to the man holding me and thanked him for bringing me back. 

"Little bugger fell asleep on some of the bins and I guess no one noticed she was there." he said.

Julia, Steven and I were escorted out of the lab building and to our car. I was still playing sleep as they buckled me in the booster seat. They began talking about how they didn't even notice how there was no consciousness of time while they were in the cryo-chambers. I just casually listed as they talked making a loud little snoring noise every so often so my cover wasn't completely blown.

"Steve?" I heard Julia say. He replied back with the usual "yeah babe.

"Do you think, Collins, can actually love us again, even after all of this?" she said with some sadness in her voice.

"Baby if I'm being honest. I don't know. Maybe she'll learn to love us over time. Maybe she needs a little more time to think. Just look at how peaceful she looks." he replied back to her.

"Yeah your right, she does look peaceful." she replied. Just then I faked as if I was waking up, you know the yawn, stretch, rubbing the eyes situation. I caught them both looking back at me with these weird looks. 

"Did you make a decision about when you want to have the procedure done?" she asked.

I looked at her, in the eyes. I don't know why but for some reason they held sorrow and sadness. I felt like I owed her my life. Yes, it sounds crazy but Lilly was right in a way. She took me from everything that I was trying to escape and outrun. I hated the pregnancy part but the last three years as Collins Everett were filled with more love than I had ever felt in my as Averi Dawson. 

"Um, yeah!!" I said. Her eyes brightened and she began clapping her hands holding them up to her chest. 

"Really, tell us?" She screeched.

"Umm, I guess I choose seven." I said.

Felt a little inspired so I wrote this part. I tried to make it a little longer. I hope you guys are enjoying so far. 

-Vanillabean18