Adopted by Phan

Chapter 8

Several hours passed and Dan and Phil were still reading through the documents, signing them every now and again, other times just reading them. Officer Briny had given me his phone to play with and I had spent the time figuring it out, never having interacted with technology much before.

It was interesting for me, living on the streets had almost stolen a part of life from me but I never regretted it. It could have been so much worse in a care home and I wasn't willing to risk it.

"Jay?" I looked up, Phil was talking to me so I put the phone down and ambled over to the table, immediately noticing that the paper had been sorted into a few distinct piles.

"We're done." Dan had his face on the table, his arms over his head. Phil grinned at him, poking his head with his fingers and housing his hair, trying to make me smile.

"My hand's cramping..." Dan groaned, his complaints muffled by the table and arms. My face slowly crept into a smile and Phil grinned at me, also slightly amused by Dan's antics.

Officer Briny placed his hand on my shoulder and I jumped, pulling away from him and he winced a little.

"Sorry Jay, but we just needed you to sign a couple of things. You also need to confirm that we've got the details right, like your birthday." I nodded and sat in the only remaining seat at the desk, which had been dragged in for Officer Briny.

I pulled the pen from Dan's grasp, smiling when his head jerked up in surprise. The documents were laid out in front of me and I scanned them, wincing when my full named showed up in several of them.

Most of the stuff was correct, but my grandmothers name seemed to have been missed off some of them, which I assumed because she was dead. Even though I was separate from most of the world, that news had came to me through Briny three years ago.

I didn't actually care, I had meet her once and she had been a pretty horrible person and one who happen to still believe that left-handed people were possessed by the devil and unfortunately I was one of them. She had hit me on several occasions too and sometimes I wished that I had hit back, but I had only been 9 so when she had a stroke I was eager to get out.

I signed several documents before making it to that last one, one which had been signed by Dan, Phil and Officer Briny, making it the last one I needed to sign before everything was official.

I hesitated, I was basically signing my life away. Dan looked at me, he could see my hesitation and nervousness.

"You okay?" I froze, wanting to nod but I couldn't, he knew I was lying. My hands were shaking slightly and I dropped the pen, my hair was falling in my face. He wrapped his arms around me into a hug and I fell forward, comfort the one thing I needed.

When I was upset Jax would do the same thing for me, wrap me in a hug and hold me, sometimes for hours if that's how long it took me to fall asleep. Dan was almost doing the same thing and it was so comforting, I was almost home.

When he pulled back I looked down, my hair in my eyes so I couldn't see him. He pushed my hair back and I took a deep breath.

"Hey, hey, you know you don't have to do this right?" I nodded, my breathing returning to normal.

"I know, but th-this might be my only chance at getting a normal life. If I stay on the str-streets it's a dead end." I was slightly stunned at my stutter, I had never stuttered before!

I turned back to the paper, my hand shaking as I picked up the pen again and carefully signed my name at the bottom of the paper, not as Holly as I had been the whole time, but as Jay, who I truly was.

Phil reached around and hugged me too as soon as I put the pen down and I leaned into his chest, now exhausted.

"Jay?" I blinked up at Officer Briny, his face now close to mine. He smiled.

"You tired?" I nodded, basically dropping off right there and then. I didn't know why, but occasionally I would have episodes of utter exhaustion, from even simple activities such as running but this was worse.

My eyes started to slide shut again and all of a sudden I was moving, lifted up by strong arms of who I assumed to be Officer Briny. I was placed back in the bed and the covers were pulled over me and then I heard talking.

"I think she may have anemia, possibly caused by a lack of iron when she was on the streets. Something tells me she wasn't eating much meat or anything with a lot of iron so there may have to be some tests done before she goes."

There was silence and then my brain shut down, sending me into a deep sleep.

Dan's P.O.V.

As soon as Jay started to drop off I knew something was slightly off, before she seemed pretty awake, if not a little upset. Officer Briny was quick to reassure us that she was fine, just a suspected iron deficiency.

Briny placed her back into the bed and shooed us out of the room, bringing the pile of paper with him. He led us into a small waiting room and said,

"Just wait here, I'm just going to put this into the computer and send it off and when Jay's had a bit of a sleep we'll wake her up and you can go home."

I smiled at Phil and we sat down on the chairs and pulled out our phones, immediately opening social media to check on them.

For the next couple of hours that's all we did, occasionally showing each other a video or something funny, Officer Briny coming in and out every now and again to show us something and we stayed there until Jay woke up.

She came into the room and waved shyly at us, her hair a complete mess and clothes crinkled. She yawned and sat down next to us, watching what we were doing until Officer Briny showed up.

With some rather interesting news.