Stay This Little

Part Two: And That Was the First Day

(Unknown POV)

I wish we had more paper to draw on. Miss Sarah always gets mad when I draw on the wall, but then she makes me clean off my drawings, so I have to decorate them again. I don't know why she doesn't want them to be pretty to look at, and I don't have anything else to draw on.

You're in the car on the way to the movies
And you're mortified your mom's droppin' you off
At fourteen, there's just so much you can't do

There's a lot of stuff you can't do at seven, probably more than when you're fourteen. Hmm. Maybe not. All the older girls seem awfully mad sometimes, so maybe there's still lots of things they can't do either.

I wish I had a mom to take me and drop me off places. I'd never make her leave me around the corner. She'd be my favorite person ever, because I've never had a mommy before. I wonder if Taylor Swift's mommy is very nice? I bet she is. I bet Taylor would make a nice mommy.

Maybe I can draw on the back of the attic door, and Miss Sarah won't notice. I don't have anyone to play with anyway, so who would tell on me? Everyone else is downstairs making lots of noise, but I don't know why. Oh well, where are the coloring pencils?

(Taylor's POV)

I drummed my fingers on my lap excitedly as the building came into view. The Gilmore House for Girls. Greg parked my SUV in an open spot, and a similar vehicle pulled into the lot behind us.

"Thank you so much for making time to make this trip with me, Jackson."

I greeted my family practice lawyer, as we both got out of our vehicles. Greg stayed in the car to wait for me to be finished; he'd already deemed this place safe enough for me to go inside without him.

"Of course, it's my pleasure, Taylor." He smiled as we shook hands. "I'm so glad you've decided to move forward. I know what a huge difference it made in my life when I was adopted as a little boy, so I really commend you for wanting to do that for one of these girls."

I just smiled at him gratefully. He was the only person I'd told about this idea who'd been fully supportive every step of the way. Jackson and Greg were actually the only two people, aside from the other members of my security team, that knew this was happening today. I'd already resigned myself to the fact that no one in my organization or in my family were going to see my side of things or how this was affecting me, so I was moving forward without them.

The moment we entered the building, I was overwhelmed by the loud sounds of children playing. A large smile spread across my face, and I laughed when I heard them all talking over each other.

"Miss Swift." A slender woman several inches shorter than me, with ruffled hair and slight, dark circles under her eyes came from a room to the side to greet us. "It's a pleasure to see you in person after speaking with you so often in the past few weeks. I'm Sarah Richards, the manager of Gilmore House."

I reached out and happily shook her hand. She'd been our main point of contact in arranging the adoption over the past few weeks, and it was finally time. Due to the special circumstances regarding my situation, Jackson had worked with her to arrange for all of the necessary legal measures, checks, and documents to be completed and approved in advance. All that was left was to choose the little girl who would become my daughter.

"It's so wonderful to meet you. Thank you so much again for all of your assistance in these past weeks. I know we wouldn't have been able to expedite the process without all of your help," I said thankfully. "This is Jackson Shepherd, my attorney, who's been working through the whole process with us."

I got distracted from the two of them greeting each other by the sounds of the girls playing, and a sudden bout of nerves hit me. What if I chose someone and she didn't want me to be her mom? I swallowed.