Chasing White [Draft 1]

Chapter 24: Genetic Family Tree

Hollywood. November 11, 2017.

Rachel nudges my rib cage causing me to pull my gaze away from a celebrating Tori. I tilt my head to the side, waiting for a response.

"You okay?"

I nod, looking back at Tori. "Just... thinking."

"'Bout?"

"What do you think about her?"

"Jazz? I think she's good for Tori. She-"

"No. I don't care about Jazz. I want to know what you think about Tori." The young girl seems to hear her name and looks over at me, giving me a small smile. I smile back, unsure of what else to do.

"What do you mean?"

"As a person? Do you see her as a friend... family?"

"Family? Yeah I see her as family, why? Are we getting in trouble for something? Did the government find out about what we're doing?" Rachel sits up, lowering her voice.

I snort, shaking my head. "Nothing like that I just..." Biting my lip, I try to figure out how to word my sentence properly. "What do you think of her?"

"Well, she kinda stays at my house. I think I'm obligated to like her. Unless I can kick her out. Can I do that?"

"Rach, I'm serious."

She laughs, looking over at Tori who has started to eat the ice cream that Jason bought the girls in celebration for Tori's first win. "I like her. She's basically family. Don't really know how that happened but it did and I'm not to upset about it."

"How do you feel about me adopting her?" I whisper. Tori looks over at me like she knows that I'm talking about her. I smile and she smiles back, quickly turning back to her mint chocolate chip cone.

"Adopting her? Like, legally making her your child?"

"Yeah." I nod, a smile growing on my face when I see how happy Tori is.

"But she kinda already has a legal family. What the hell are we supposed to do about that? I don't think that we can exactly adopt her."

"Yes, we can. We just have to prove that Meredith is a terrible mother."

"Because that's going to be so hard." Rachel scoffs.

"So you're going to do it with me? You're going to help me get Tori out of that house?"

"Well, we kinda already have her out of that house but yeah. I'm going to help you get her out of that house."

I lean back into Rachel's chest, watching everyone laugh and giggle,

"Did you get any good photos for yearbook?" I ask Jazz.

Jazz nods, biting into her ice cream. She then licks around the mound, creating a little mountain of ice cream. "I got a few. Maybe we can go over them later and see which ones you want. I think Zoë got a few pictures that should come out well too."

"Maybe they won't all be of Tori." Sam muses, examining his ice cream.

Anika giggles, the chocolate ice cream already covering her lower face. Jazz blushes, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear.

"They weren't all of Tori. Some of them had the other girls." She licks her ice cream, taking a step away from Tori. "None of them are of Tori. I didn't take any pictures. No pictures at all. None whatsoever. I shouldn't even be in yearbook I'm so terrible at the whole taking of the photos. I don't-"

"Honey, stop talking." Rachel commands.

"Thank you." Jazz whispers, sitting down at a respectable distance from Tori.