After my whole little crazy exploration thing that I did last night, I needed some time to just relax. I had been in the freezing cold all day so Wilder wouldn't leave me alone. He was by my side every second of the whole day.
He made sure that I was first warm. He gave me like three blankets and just bundled me up in them (of course I am exaggerating but you get). He got me hot cocoa with extra marshmallows and some whipped cream. I was rather impressed; I had never had something like that ever in my life. My dad either wouldn't let me get it or we didn't have the money.
He gave me his sweaters and sweatpants and literally pushed me into the bathroom to take a shower. The sweaters were rather very comfortable, they were light blue with buttons going up and down. The sweatpants were two sizes too big so they were dragging on the ground but they were comfortable nonetheless. He made sure to give me big fluffy socks that had a dog on it.
It just felt so weird for me. I have never had someone to watch over me because... well you know. My dad was never there and I didn't remember anything with my mom before she left. For some reason, it gave off this warm, fuzzy feeling inside of me. It made me want to give him a big smile every time he did something nice, which was a lot.
And I don't smile a lot so I just kept my face passive the whole time he babied me. He didn't seem to mind it at all. That was another thing about him. He somehow understood me even though I didn't totally show him. He seemed to have this sixth sense to that sort of things.
One really good thing I liked about him was that he didn't really care what people think. One example was that he was very silly, cocky, smart, even arrogant at time (which I know mostly from our past), crazy, and just overall weird. He didn't let what other people think of him get in the way of what he wanted to do. Like if he wanted to sit down on the rails by the stairs and slide down, he didn't seem to mind the odd and judgemental gazes from other people.
And that was not an example, he really did that on the walk to the school, going past the small gas station. Even if it was small, I was still super embarrassed. I tried to hide my face with my hoodie but still it didn't help much.
The shower that he made me took made me wake back up to reality. I spent a good 15 minutes in there just thinking about everything that has happened. Like how he tried and did kiss me and how I didn't mind it. Like how he cared enough about me to try and find me for 2 hours this morning. Like how he was going to take me out on a date tonight. And so on. In the end, I still didn't clear my mind totally. I guess I finally just decided to just go with the flow and if I didn't like something, I would just close myself off like I did in the very beginning.
For the rest of the day, we just sat down on the couch and chilled. We ate snacks (which was basically whatever we could find in the kitchen without actually having to do work to get it ready) and watched shows on Netflix. Yes, I got to watch some of my shows but then I had to watch his and let's just say I was bored the whole time. His shows were not nearly as great as mine.
I was starting to fall asleep to one of his boring shows (I think it was called Scorpion but I didn't care too much to memorize the name) when Wilder gave me a nudge on the shoulder. I grumbled and snuggled more into the pillow, trying to ignore him.
It was about mid afternoon now and with his shows making me yawn, I couldn't resist the feeling of tiredness. We were both on the couch, sitting rather close to each other (not that I minded) but I had my head laying down on the left arm of the couch. He had the whole rest of the couch and he decided to sit right next to me. He chuckled and nudged me again but this time also poking me with his finger.
I shrugged his shoulder off of mine and planted my whole face into the pillow, squished cheeks and all. He kept on bugging me; he poked, nudged, tapped, flicked, elbow, and whatever else you could think of.
"God what?" I said into the pillow but instead it came out as, "Ga watt," instead. His reply was another nudge.
"Zander, wake up dude," he said then proceeded to saying my name over and over again, changing his voice to different pitches and sounds to make it even more irritating.
I shoved his as hard as I could but he rebounded right back. I groaned and lifted my head from my pillow with an exaggerated sigh and said, "What on Earth of so freaking important?"
He grinned at me, probably pleased that he had gotten his way annoying me. I gave him this look to tell me why I had to wake up.
"What?!" I said, raising my voice because I was annoyed and because I had to get over the sound of the TV. It was still playing some boring show about how the world was going to end and these scientists had to save it just in time. It sounded so cheesy.
"Aww... I'm offended," he said and raised a hand to his chest in fake humiliation. I rolled my eyes.
"What could you possibly be offended by?" I asked, trying to think of anything that I may have missed. Nothing came to mind.
"Oh my god. That really hurts. We made the plans this morning and you've already forgotten them. Dude, that really stings," he said again.
"Okay. You get that I'm not following along, can you please just tell me now so we don't keep playing this game," I said with a long yawn. My eyes started to droop from tiredness so my vision got all blurry. If I had opened them I would have seen him give me a tender smile and seen him brush some hair out of my eyes but I was too lost in dreamland to see it.
I didn't get to stay in dreamland for long though because of course Wilder had to start poking me again and again to get me to wake up. It just wouldn't leave me alone today but what was I kidding? I liked that he was slightly clingy.
"Zander if you look at me in the eyes I will tell you what you forgot," Wilder said while not stop poking me.
"What if I don't want to remember?" I muttered out actually surprised that he had heard me.
"Dude that hurts so much," he said. I didn't have to look up at him to know that he was rolling his eyes.
Finally after another couple of minutes of him annoying me, I broke and looked up at him. I gave him a look that clearly said to get on with it. "Seriously? You still don't remember?"
"Just spit it out already!"
"Fine. You've forgotten about our special one-of-a-kind night out!"
At first I didn't hear him but once it finally recorded in my brain I froze. I forgot about our dat- no our night out! How could I have possibly forgot that! I felt my heart beat faster when I heard that he said our 'special' night. Immediately, my face turned red as a tomato. He gave me a grin when I lit up.
"Oh right," I said, trying to play it cool and smooth, "what were we going to do again? I thought we were just going out to eat or something?"
He gave a dramatic sigh. "Zander, Zander, Zander, wow. You don't care do you?" he said and he lowered his eyes down to the ground in fake anger. I rolled my eyes. I feel like that is the thing that I've been doing the most. Rolling my eyes. He was such a drama queen.
He slowly started to move closer to me, until he was close enough to wrap an arm around my shoulder.
"How about you change clothes so we can go out to eat and maybe the movies if we have time," he said, his voice was tight by my ear which made my heart give another little flutter.
I looked down to what I was wearing and I saw that I was in huge pajama pants that went down way past my ankles. And I was wearing a huge red shirt that had blue candy canes on them for the holidays. The candy canes were all fluffy and stuck out. I blushed once again.
"I guess I could use a change of clothes," I said. He smirked at me.
"I told you so," he said. "You should go upstairs and pick out something to wear. There has to be something up there that's sort of nice that fits you. If not you can wear something of my mom's There has to be something up there that will fit you." He gave me a lopsided grin.
I glared at him but he just stared with this weird grin. I pushed his arm off of my shoulders and made my way upstairs. I could feel his eyes on me the whole time as I was going up.
I knew exactly where his closet was. I've been over there so many times to find some clothes for school. It's become a habit now. I searched and searched until I could find some clothes that would actually fit me.
While I was looking I found a tiny shoebook with Wilder's name on it. I felt this certain impulse to open it and see that was inside. I felt like it was almost calling me to open it. It was right in front of me, hidden slightly under a pair of shoes. It could just be shoes that his parents were going to give him on his birthday but it seemed highly unlikely. It had started to collect dust and the shoebook itself was a brand that I've never heard of before. It sounded like Zathura or something; I couldn't pronounce the name correctly.
I looked quickly behind my shoulders to see if he was there or not. Then as quickly as I could, I snatched the box up. It was slightly smaller than it looked under all the shoes and was light as a feather too. It confirmed that it wasn't no pair of shoes for his birthday.
I switched the light on and closed the door. I thought silently for a minute before locking it. I took the top off the box slowly still afraid and anxious because I knew that I was going through people's private collections.
Inside were two pieces of paper both with two very different dates. One was about 15 years ago and the other was from only a couple of months ago. I checked one last time over my shoulders before starting to read.
Dear Wilder,
October, 21, 1998
I hope that is the name that we pick for you since I'm using pen and it's rather hard to erase when using pen. I know, I know, I wasn't prepared but I had to write this now or else I'll never bring myself to write it ever again. And since I know, I'll never have the guts to ever say it to your face, I had to write it.
Right now, your father is stuck in a whirl of paperwork. We've been at it for days, arguing back and forth and finally, I made it out on top. Yay me. I've already done all of my paperwork before we even finished our little feud. I knew I could make he say yes. I've been asking for years but this is the first time that I actually made an argument out of it.
Wilder, I have no idea how to explain without just blurting it outright but that just seems too blunt and unconcerned. I guess that I'll just start off slow and slowly build it up.
When I met you, you were two months old. You're still practically a baby. You still have the baby fatness, the chubby cheeks, the smooth behind. All you knew then was to cry when you were hungry and to sleep when you were tired. You could hardly even open your eyes for longer than a half an hour.
When your father finally saw you, he crumbled. We set up a meeting two days ago to finally get to see you so we didn't have to look at the boring pictures on the internet. I mean there's nothing wrong with the internet but it was so much better to actually see you face to face in person. Plus, it helped my dad finally see what I've been talking about.
Did you finally see it Wilder? I've been dropping hints left and right but i was never good in English class so I wasn't sure if I was explaining it enough for you to follow.
I've always wanted a baby to call mine but I never could. Everytime we tried to a baby, it didn't work. And we tried a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. But it was impossible so we finally decided to do something about it. We even went to the doctor to see if we could make a baby that way. Never worked and we tried there to. Many times.
Finally we decided to go to an orphanage after we looked online of course. It was two states away to get you but the distance didn't matter much. We just wanted to get you once and for all.
Wilder, you should know by now that you were adopted. I hoped I made that quite clear enough. But it doesn't matter that you were adopted or not. It doesn't matter if we were the same flesh and blood or not. It just matters that we love you and that's it. You are apart of our family and you always will be.
Love,
Your Mother
I froze, not sure what to think or do. I just learned something very personal that was meant for Wilder. It was not for me to read but I read it because I wanted to and now I felt so guilty. I couldn't tell Wilder this because it wasn't my place but I knew it would eat me up inside until I finally confessed.
I gulped. What was I supposed to do now? I sat for a minute with my mind in a flurry of thoughts; some thoughts good and others scary and nerve racking. What if Wilder finds out that I did that? Would he be mad? What am I thinking, of course he would be mad! It was personally information that I should have never gotten my hands on.
BANG! I screamed like a little girl, jumping sky high, accidently hitting my head on one of the many shelfs in the tiny closet. A soft chuckle came from the other side of the door.
"Dude, are you almost done? You do know that the movie does have a starting time and I can't wait for you're skinny arse the whole time right?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'll be out in a minute Wilder," I yelled, still feeling my heart race a million miles per hour from fear and anxiety.
He lets out a laugh. "When I told you to pick something out, I didn't think that it would take half an hour." I've been here for a half an hour? Dude I must have been doing some serious thinking. It's kinda scary how fast time seems to go when you're not thinking about it.
"Ha ha," I said sarcastically. "I'll be out in a minute."
Wilder banged on the door a couple more times probably to make his point known. "Yeah you better be. If not, I'm barging in there. OK? I don't even care if you're in the middle of changing."
"Yeah," I repeated one last time, feeling my face give out a deep shade of red. I quickly looked around, trying to find some good and nice clothes to wear tonight as quick as I could so Wilder didn't come slamming in here.
I tried to push all of my other thoughts about him being adopted out of my mind. I just wanted a calm and relaxing night tonight with.... A friend.