Hayden

Chapter 18.

Grace finished collecting her blood, and the last thing she did was put a band aid on her. I smiled, I can't believe we actually got the sample from Hope. I pulled out my phone, and went under Braxton's name. I wonder if he was as successful as we were.

Hey, we got it. How's it going on your end? We'll meet up at the postal office after this. We need to send these in as soon as possible.

"Okay, thank you Hope," Grace said to her.

I stood up from the bed, to follow my sister out of Hope's room. Hope didn't say anything else to us, she just kind of immediately closed the door behind us. Grace and I walked back to her room.

"I can't believe we did this, I'm surprised she let me do this to her," Grace said exited.

"Yeah, I know. It's a good thing though, now we have her blood sample," I said to her.

"Have you heard from Braxton?" Grace asked me.

I looked down at my phone, and noticed I got a message from him.

I got it, and I'm on my way to the postal office then.

"Yeah he said he got it," I said as I walked forward.

I bumped into Grace, and I quickly looked up. I wasn't looking at where I was going.

"Sorry, I didn't see you. I was reading the message from Braxton," I apologized.

Grace just stood there. She had her hands in her hair. I walked around her, to look at her. She had this expression on her face, I couldn't really read it. She looked worried, and maybe even annoyed.

"You idiot, Hayden!" Grace exclaimed.

"What? I said I was sorry. I didn't bump into you that hard," I said to her.

Grace got on her knees, and she quickly picked up the tubes of blood. One was containing my blood, and the other Hope's.

"You know which one is which, right?" I asked her.

Grace stood up from the ground, holding both tubes. She looked horrified. With that expression on her face, I had my answer to the question I asked.

"No, I have no idea which is which. I was switching them to put Hope's in the box, then you bumped into me. I dropped both of them, they got mixed up," Grace explained.

I felt terrible. There was no way we could get another sample of Hope's blood. Braxton used both tests, one to practice and the other on his Dad. We also used both tests, one had my blood in it. I thought about what we could do, but nothing came to mind. There was no way to know whose was whose, just by looking at them.

Grace started to look through the box. Something we didn't notice was the labels they provided. I'm assuming we have to label each tube, that way the people who or what they're testing on. Another thing Grace pulled out was a form.

"Okay, I think I have an idea," Grace said. "We can just label these as Blood A and Blood B. We'll send both of them in to get tested with Uncle Isiah's blood."

I thought about it, and it seemed like a good plan. I mean we won't know whose blood is whose, but we'll find out if she's related to him either way. If both tests come back negative, than Mom didn't cheat on him and the conversation I over heard was about something else. If one comes back positive, it'll be Hope's blood. That's how we'll know if this theory is actually real.

"Alright, that's good. Let me label them, and you fill out the paper. I'm scared I'll mess that up to," I said to her. In reality, I just didn't want to do paper work.

Grace rolled her eyes, but she got the paper either way. While Grace filled out the paper work, I labeled the blood tubes. We packed up everything, once we were done with all the requirements. Grace let Hope know we would be back soon, and we left afterwards. Braxton was probably already waiting at the postal office for us.

As soon as we got there, we saw Braxton on the side walk waiting. He had his back pack, which I assumed had the blood sample. As soon as we parked, Braxton walked up to the car and got in.

"Did you get it?" Grace asked him immediately.

Braxton pulled out the box from the back pack. He handed the full box to Grace. I grabbed the box we had, which was by Grace's feet, and opened it.

"I labeled the tube, but I left the paperwork untouched. I wasn't sure what to do with it," Braxton explained.

Grace took out the tube, which I assumed was Uncle Isiah's blood sample. She moved it to the box we had, and she took the box from me.

"It's fine, we filled everything out," Grace assured him.

"Why is there three tubes?" Braxton asked.

I looked over him, and tried to look innocently at him. I know it was fault that we were sending in three, and not two tubes.

"I kind of bumped into Grace and she mixed the tubes up. One of them is Hope's, but the other is mine," I said to him.

"Yeah, I mixed them," Grace said sarcastically.

Grace closed the box, and grabbed the packaging tape we brought. She taped the box shut, and taped the label on top of it.

"I'll go drop it off," Grace said.

Grace got out of the car, and Braxton and I watched as she went inside. It didn't take long for Grace to drop off the package. She came back in the car, and sat down in the passenger's seat.

"Well... there's no going back now," she said.