Extended Family - A G/t Shorty

Ch.3 Shut up and listen

"Mia?! Hi sweetie!"

I winced at the deep, excited tone, as it completely caught me off guard. This couldn't be the same austere voice Sheriff Rusty was conversing with minutes ago. This person sounded completely pleasant and friendly.

"I'm so happy to hear your voice, you sound so grown!"

Okay, so I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to respond back with something...

"Uh, ah, um, er..."

I clamped my lips together, surprised at what gibberish happened to fly out from my dried-out throat.

What the hell was wrong with me? Mr. Taylor is gonna think I'm stupid!

Starting a simple phone conversation should not have stirred a turbulent discomfort in my core strong enough to wrack the bones inside the rest of my body. The strength alone must've disrupted my poor brain's signals, forcing it to shut down, and leaving my mouth to just regurgitate anything that passes off as a simple sentence.

Damn it, I just couldn't find anything to say back!

Imagine if we had actually met in person! Just going through this situation affirmed my suspicions that I've had circulating my thoughts on occasion:

I was never prepared for this moment.

I never gave it much thought as to what my first words would be to express to my new parents, or how I would convey my feelings about being part of their family and how it affected me and my brother. I wanted to say that we will be the best children they've ever known, and uphold the standards they expect of us, just so that they know they made the right choice from the start! I wanted to scream how much we wanted to love them unconditionally and that we would excel in everything as best we could. There was so much I wanted to say right then, at that very moment, like I was on the verge of screaming; I had to proclaim this as loud as my biology would allow so that they knew how genuine we were.

But I just couldn't.

Similar to the barren Sahara on the hottest day of the year, my mouth remained dry, practically devoid of breath to utter a single word.

Maybe it was the long pause or my mumble vomit from earlier that evoked Mr. Taylor as I heard him emit a sigh through the receiver, but I wasn't sure if it was out of pity or concern.

"It's okay, it's okay! Your mom and I only got worried about you and your brother when we hadn't heard anything from Nate. Is everything okay?"

Ah yes, Nate, our awesome case worker that just abandoned us in a house we know next to nothing about. What a great guy (note my sarcasm). While I wanted to answer just that, I wasn't sure how much information Mr. Taylor knew about us or was even aware of our predicament. I would imagine he'd be pretty pissed off about it, which made sense after noticing the scared looks the Sherriff had from the conversation earlier.

So, then what does he want to speak to me about? Let's try this again...

"Uhh, erm, y-yeah...uhhh...it's good."

Seriously, Mia, more stuttering? Make better words—sentences for fuck's sake! Christ, why am I having the hardest time replying to a simple question I've been asked for most of my life? Man, I'm so frustrated! I swear if I had to grade myself after this, I'd give myself an F plus, plus and repeat the same grade!

"Don't force yourself, sweetie." Mr. Taylor calmly responded, "I-I can understand how scared you'd feel right now. It's not easy being around—"

"Hold on!" I blurted out, cutting him off, "Mr. Taylor, I'm not scared, really...I'm just happy to hear you too...I-I thought for a second..." Oh great, I can feel the tears coming on. Here I thought I could have a pleasant conversation and remain level-headed about it.