𝘼𝙁𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙒𝙀 𝘾𝙍𝘼𝙎𝙃𝙀𝘿 ↣ 𝙊𝙉𝙀 𝘿𝙄𝙍𝙀𝘾𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉

32. FROM THE DINING TABLE

[TWO WEEKS LATER]

There isn't a lot you can do for a teenager that wishes they were dead. You can offer them comfort, pay for their parents + younger brothers funeral, be kind; none of those things would make them want to be alive.

Mariam was very distant. She was back at school, on her own terms. She worked most nights after school, and then would go to a friends house after.

That was fine with Louis and I. Whatever she needed to do to keep breathing was fine.

It was difficult to watch her, though. It was hard to watch her stand alone between three caskets because that's what she wanted. It was hard to stand back when she fell on her knees in the fresh dirt of a cemetery and screamed.

Mariam didn't want to be held. She didn't want to be comforted. She wanted to not be the only remaining member of her family.

In a way, Keenan, Karter, Louis and I were her worst nightmare. We were who she got instead of her family.

So she was gone a lot. She would show up at our house to touch base, do laundry, eat if she hadn't already eaten somewhere else. If she was staying here she would reside in her room and be gone the next morning before we woke up.

Hiding from us made it less real.

"Hey." I looked up from a stack of paper work, surprised to hear someone talking. Keenan and Karter were standing beside the couch.

They were holding their foster care files.

"Hey," I said. I looked between their faces and the brown folders they were holding. "Everything okay?"

"We feel like we should talk about it," Karter said. "You haven't given us any reason to not think that was a good idea."

"You want to?" I asked.

"We should," Keenan said.

"Do you want to?" I asked again.

"Yeah," she said. Karter nodded his head a few times, rather slowly, to agree. They sat down opposite the couch I was on. Tri-Pod's dog tag jangled from somewhere upstairs.

I texted Louis, then. He appeared in the living room moments later, sliding in and dropping next to me on the couch. He was only relaxed for a second, before he sat up and looked between the kids, their files, and me.

"Everything okay?" he asked. None of the three of us thought it was important to mention that he said the exact same thing I did.

"We think we're ready to talk about everything," Karter said. He dropped his file onto the table in front of him. Keenan followed, resting her's beside his.

I wasn't exactly sure what to do. I'd never been on the receiving end of opening up about trauma.

"Then we'll listen," Louis said. He sat up and grabbed my hand, looking at the kids. I sat up as well, leaning in a little bit closer out of anticipation.

Keenan and Karter looked at each other. Karter nodded his head first, and then Keenan copied him.

"We should probably start with when mom died?" she asked him quietly. There was a flash of pain in his eyes, a split second expression of grief over his face.