Just for This Year

Chapter Thirty-Five

I've had part of this chapter written since I started this book. I live for drama chapters.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Friday
November 15th

15 Days After

Lila could feel Nate glancing at her every few seconds. She kept her eyes locked on the road, unsure of what to feel. She felt guilty for asking him to come get her, but she was pretty sure he was the only one who could understand what she was feeling right now. Not about Sam and Charlie, but she had been ignoring the real thing weighing her down— her birth parents. She hadn't talked to anyone about it yet. But it was killing her inside to not know why.

It felt like she had opened Pandora's Box. She hadn't meant to, but she should never have looked at those stupid papers. Something deep inside her had been screaming at her to not look, but she did anyway. And it changed everything for her. It changed everything for all of them.

"Thank you for coming to get me," Lila said quietly, her gaze falling to her lap.

"I meant it when I said I'd be here if you ever needed anything," Nate swore in a firm voice. "But what happened? Did you and Sam have a fight?"

"You could say that," she scoffed out, gritting her teeth. "I just... it's all too much lately, you know?"

He looked unsure of his next words, and Lila knew almost exactly what they would be. "You mean finding out your adopted?"

She plastered a smile on her face. "If you're about to give me a speech about your family, please, spare me."

To her surprise, Nate let out a laugh. "Please, you think I was the perfect kid after finding out I was adopted? I didn't go off the rails or anything, but I felt this... compulsion, I guess, to prove that I was gonna be worth it."

"I doubt your dads adopted you because they wanted something from you," Lila assured with a lifted eyebrow.

"Of course they didn't," Nate agreed in a tone that implied she was helping him get to his point. "They did it because they wanted to give me a good life. Because they want to help people."

And god, was that true. Nate's parents were two of the best people she had ever met in her life. They were everything good about people. They genuinely cared more than anyone she had ever met. His brother was a bit rough around the edges sometimes, but even he was raised well. Their family were some of the best she had ever come across. It didn't surprise her that Nate was as good of a person as he was.

"Doesn't it bother you though? Not knowing anything about your parents?" she asked meekly, turning to him and raising an eyebrow.

"It did for a while," he admitted in a thick voice. "It still does sometimes, honestly. But I can tell you from experience that it doesn't hurt so much eventually. It bothers me to not know why I was given up. But I also know how I can't imagine my life being any different. I love my dads and my brother. I wouldn't want life to be any other way. It sucks to not know, yeah. But I've found ways to cope, you know? I put it into my writing now, and it can help me heal."

Lila nodded slowly. "But how can it not piss you off?"

"It does sometimes. But they also told me growing up I was adopted, they didn't hide it from me," Nate went on sympathetically as he continued to drive with no destination in mind yet.

"That's the thing, I don't get why Lorena didn't tell me," Lila said, thinking out loud. "I don't think any differently of family's with adopted kids or anything. But do you think Lorena does? And that's why she didn't tell me?"