Seeing in Color

Twenty-six

Will

I wasn't mad at either of them, just myself.

Why was I so stupid?

I slammed the front door shut, knowing Nico would be close behind. I didn't care if it shut in face. I was too pissed to care about anything, really.

I heard the front door open as I made my way up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. I was around the corner of the hallway by the time Nico called out for the fourth time since we stopped running.

Before he could come up the stairs, I ran into our room and grabbed a change of clothes, hurrying to the bathroom down the hall. It was locked, the sound of K-pop flooding from the cracks in the door.

"Kayla, open up!"

"I'm doing my makeup, hold on!"

A few seconds later, the door clicked, and I slipped inside. Kayla sat on her velvet stool, her hair up in a towel and a robe wrapped around her body. She glanced up from her mirror, a mascara wand in her hand, and frowned.

"Ew, you're sweaty!" Kayla scrunched up her nose.

"That's why I'm taking a shower!" I squeezed past her and entered the shower room. The best thing about this foster home, other than the amazing foster father and all my incredible foster siblings, the bathrooms were sharable. If someone was taking an hour to do their makeup and you needed to shower? No problem. The shower had its own room. So did the toilet. I closed the door behind me and leaned over to turn the shower handle, ducking out quickly so not to get drenched by cold water. Stripping off my sweaty clothes, I climbed in and sighed as the warm water hit my back and streamed down my exhausted body.

I could hear Kayla's music through the door, but it was suddenly turned off.

"What's up?" I heard her ask someone.

"I need relationship advice," I was surprised to recognize Katie's voice.

She and Travis were sort of an item now. Emphasis on sort of.

They didn't label themselves as anything, but they walked to school together and sat beside each other during class and lunch. Every now and then, I could see Travis holding her hand under the cafeteria tables while our group was chatting.

I tried not to listen in on the conversation but turns out these walls were thinner than I had thought, and the sound of the water pounding against the tile floor wasn't loud enough to drown out any noise.

"I don't know how to tell Travis anything," Katie said. "I mean, I answer his questions, but I can never start the conversation. I don't even know if I can tell him about my past."

"He has one, too, you know. Worse than you'd think," Kayla said.

I knew bits of the Stoll brothers' pasts, but not the whole story. Apparently, they weren't from around here. Their mother left their dad a few years ago and moved in next door when the boys were in their very early tweens. They never talked about their dad. Ever. They also had an older half-brother I knew had died, around the same time they moved. I didn't know much about him, including his name, but he was a sore subject for the brothers.

"The subject has never come up, but what if he asks? About me being in foster care? What happened to my dad?"

I heard Kayla sigh. "Tell him the truth, even if it hurts you. He'll understand everything. Trust me."

"I don't want to lose anyone else, Kayla!" I heard crying, and my heart sunk.

I knew that feeling.