A New Family (A Ghost Bird Story)

Breakfast

The air and words are stuck in my chest. North called me baby. Does that mean anything?

Suddenly I am scooped up and pulled from the room, followed by lots of swearing. "She's in a god damn towel North, you fucker!"

North veers from the left back into Nathan's bedroom and sets me gently on his bed. He spins to the closet and comes right back with a t-shirt. It is just like the other one I had been wearing, huge and black, but with a Nike logo on the chest. He puts his hands in the arms and grabs my hands, sliding the shirt over my arms like he's dressing an infant. Then he gently pops it over my head. It blooms around my waist over the bed. It would be mid-thigh when I stood. He pulls me to a standing position, smooths the shirt down and then scoops me back up into his arms and walks out to the living room.

Everyone looks at North carrying me. Silas remarks, "Damn, I want to save Aggele mou next time!" A laugh goes through the room and everyone goes back to what they were doing.

They are talking all around me, discussing options. Everyone breaks up and it becomes a whirlwind of chatter. I don't think I have ever been around so many people at once. Well, school of course, but people don't usually talk all at the same time unless you are in the lunch room and I have always tried to avoid the cafeteria because of the huge crowds.

Now here I am, in a room with nine boys, talking about my future with them. North sat down with me on his lap and now has his arms loosely around my waist. My head is tucked into his shoulder as he talks over me to Silas. I look around the room at everyone else.

Gabriel and Nathan have just come back into the room. Gabriel and I blew a circuit when he was blow-drying my hair. I am just waiting for him to pull me back into the bathroom to finish his masterpiece, but he is distracted by something Nathan says.

Sean and Mr. Blackbourne are standing in front of the television having a slightly loud and heated conversation about having my mother removed if the plan to transfer custody doesn't work. I don't know what they mean by 'removed' and they are talking in terms I don't know, mentioning favors and teams again.

I can hear Kota and Luke moving in and out of the dining room behind me and back into the kitchen laying out breakfast.

Victor is sitting next to North and I. He is on his laptop trying to do something Mr. Blackbourne asked him to do: get some kind of records on my mother. But he is having trouble with the Wi-Fi going down every time he gets on.

I look around at them all and think about how they have saved me. From running away last night, and how they are planning on saving me from her for forever now. It scares me a little to have this hope.

'I never knew hope was fatal until I looked it in the eye.' That is from a song I had heard once. I never really understood it until now. I am not sure these boys are real. What if the promises that they have a plan turn out to be smoke, or worse, they disappear from my life. I think this hope will be fatal, literally.

I have been gone too long from home. Mother will have noticed and I have no excuse.

***

Sang POV

Eventually Gabriel came over and dragged me off of North and back into the bedroom. He helps me get the black shirt that he altered earlier to button up over my bandages. I don't think I have much in the way of curves with my chest being compressed, but the way he took in the waist made it appear that I do, more so than the t-shirt I was wearing at least.

Gabriel hands me my jeans from my bag and half turns to leave, but I am a little unsteady. I had been walking – or being carried – around in a t shirt for most of the morning and he's seen me in a towel anyway. I ask him to stay and help me.