Another Way | Adopted by Gerard Way (Book Three)

Prologue

Evelyn Way didn't want kids. At least, she thought she didn't want kids, until she and her wife, Emerald, had to babysit Emerald's sister's daughter while Ruby and her husband spent a weekend away on business.

Harley was a handful, but what could you expect from a four-year-old? Her dark hair that she got from her mother was always knotted and it fell into her eyes, but she would never let anyone touch it. She always had grass stains on her knees, and her favourite thing to do was to dump her bucket of Hot Wheels out on the living room carpet. Most of the time, she wouldn't even play with them and just wanted to look at the shiny paint jobs and count how many her collection had grown to.

It was 36, that weekend, but she always messed up her counting when she got to 20, so Evelyn had to help her out.

It was that Sunday night, as Harley began to fall asleep with her head against her Auntie Emmy's arm because she was too short to reach the shoulder as she sat, slightly slumped down on the couch, that Evelyn started to think that maybe she did want to be a mom someday. She knew Emerald wanted to be a mom. She wanted it badly, but never let on just how badly. She wanted to care for someone, she wanted to watch someone grow up, witness their milestones, get to proudly call them her own at PTA meetings, or recitals, or as she waited to pick them up from birthday parties. Evelyn, on the other hand, wanted those things too, but she was desperately afraid of messing it all up; she didn't want to turn out like her own mother and become neglectful and abusive because she didn't have a good example of a stable parent growing up for a long time. And no matter how much Emerald tried to convince her it would never happen, that she'd be a great mom and could never hurt a fly let alone her own child, she was still afraid she'd somehow take a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

As the credits on the Disney movie on TV began to roll, Emerald delicately picked up the little sleeping Harley off the couch and carried her to her bedroom with the blue race-car bed and hundreds of glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling. Evelyn thought she could get used to this. One day in the future, she could set aside her fears.

She just didn't know that day in the future would come so soon.