Finding Home || bxb

16

A week later college closed for Christmas and New Year's. I didn't really see Roman after that. He was always busy with visiting family and doing whatever it is he does during Christmas and I kind of just chilled with the Colloways as they also visited some family. I met Charlie and Emily's grandparents on both sides, and they were surprisingly very friendly. I also met various cousins and aunts and uncles.

Despite not having seen each other, Roman and I still talked a lot. Mostly at night from whenever we managed to get into bed after seeing whoever we'd had to meet that day. We'd spend hours talking to each other well into the early hours of the morning and when I woke up exhausted from a lack of sleep and having to get ready to meet some other odd family member, I didn't regret it one bit.

Talking to Roman just felt so natural and it was fun. We'd been flirting a lot, but we always reeled it back in when we could sense it going too far. It was nice though. I felt... desired? I liked it.

It was also nice to just rant about our days. Roman kept telling me silly stories about how crazy his family were. Apparently last year his grandma had accidentally gotten one of his cousins a hoodie that said 'hentai' on it thinking it was just some kind of anime, or 'one of those cartoon shows' as she supposedly liked to call it. I mean it definitely was some kind of anime I suppose...

I was nervous as fuck about today. I'd told him all about it last night and gotten all my fears and worries off my chest. He'd tried to help me calm down a little bit but there wasn't much he could do. He had no idea what it felt like to be in my situation, and I couldn't fault him for that.

Carrie and Mike had fostered a lot of children in the past 15 years. All teenagers. And apparently every year, if they were free, they would come here on the 23rd of December to see the family again. Some of them had been fostered together and some mainly just came for the Colloways but apparently ended up becoming close with others over their shared experiences. Today was the 23rd, and they would all be here come noon. I was terrified because I had no idea what to expect and a weird part of me was almost worried that they wouldn't accept me as one of their own, but I didn't really know why that mattered to me so much.

"Hi honey," Carried said when I finally appeared downstairs. "Are you excited to meet everyone?"

"Umm, yeah I suppose," I replied. I probably could have faked my excitement a little better though.

"Don't worry," Mike said patting me on the back. "They'll love you."

Emily came storming down the stairs when Carrie had me help her wipe down the kitchen counters in a last minute clean up session. In my foster sister's hand was the book they got me to write my name in when I first came to live here.

"Is that the book?" I asked curious.

"Oh yeah. They like having a look through sometimes. Find their pages, you know?" she replied. I nodded and asked if I could have a look at it again.

When I opened it, I found my name and my birthday. I hadn't really written much in here but back then I didn't exactly think I would be here that long and yet here Christmas was with me at the Colloways. I grabbed a pen and added more to my page figuring it couldn't hurt to do so. It didn't seem so unlikely that I would be here next year on the 23 to come visit the family who had given me a home and actually made me want to stay. All I did was add some of the things I liked to the book like my favourite songs and my aspirations for the future. Maybe ten years from now I would look down at the book and think of how I wanted to go to Britsol university and do a history course when maybe that's not what I end up doing at all.

"You applied for history?" Charlie asked looking at what I'd written over my shoulder.

"Yeah, what's wrong with that?" I questioned.