Leave The City (Book 8 of Adopted by the Josephs)

5. Brendon

Tyler and Jenna had called shortly after Samantha had been brought home from her ordeal in Nebraska. With everything she'd been through, they wondered if we'd be willing to take Samantha for her Senior year of high school. They said she needed a break from Ohio. The kid who'd assaulted her was out of jail and even though he'd been expelled from her school, and there was a protection order in place to keep him off school grounds, it didn't stop him from hanging with his friends. Tyler told us he was still bragging apparently about what he'd done.

We agreed immediately. Samantha was one of our favourite people. She was so easy to love. I couldn't believe her birth... sigh... father... hadn't seen what an amazing young woman she would become.

"Will you be okay?" I asked Sarah as we started setting up Jess's old room for Sam to use. Some of Jess's clothes were still in her closet. I don't know why we never got rid of any of it. But over the next week, we packed all the clothes into boxes. Sarah put them in the attic. She wasn't ready to let go of Jess. Neither was I. But Samantha would be a welcome distraction from the emptiness Jess's passing had left behind.

"I'll be okay. It'll be nice to have Samantha here. But you can't spoil her. She still has to go to school," she said.

"I know, I know," I said, already planning to take her out of school one day just to hang out. Maybe.

"Should we paint the room? Let Samantha decorate it?" Sarah asked me.

"Tyler said she was adamant that we not change anything. She respects that even though it's a spare room, it was Jess's. She doesn't want it changed."

I nodded. Samantha was amazing that way. She'd never had the opportunity to meet our daughter before Jess passed. But she asked about her and knew what had happened.

We'd adopted Jess from the LA Children's Home about nine years ago. She lived with us for four years before she died. Jessica had AIDS from blood transfusions when she was young. She'd been in a car accident with her birth parents and had been the sole survivor. She had been living in the Home since she had been released from the hospital. She had been there five years when we met her. She was very sweet and quiet.

We'd given her four wonderful years before her illness caught up with her.  She had given us a lifetime of love.

Tyler and Jenna had adopted Samantha the November after Jess had passed. We had gone out to Columbus to celebrate their new family when Josh had set up a get together for a bunch of us to meet Tyler's new kid. I'd fallen in love with her immediately.

She was so skittish and scared back then. Patrick had scared her when he said he was a friend of her dad's and she thought he meant her birth father.

I remembered the poor kid had a black eye and broken ribs from a kid kicking the shit out of her for some dumb reason. It had brought up memories of when Jess had been assaulted at school. She'd been in a coma for a few days and sustained some pretty gnarly injuries. We'd sued the family, the kid had been charged and his younger brother, who had been in Jess's class, had been pulled from the school. We'd met him after Jess's funeral and he'd explained that he'd liked Jess and was sorry about everything. His parents hadn't wanted him associating with Jess, so they'd moved him to a different school.

"Bren?" Sarah got my attention.

"Sorry, what?" I said.

"Are you going to be okay?" She asked, her arms cross across her chest.

"Yes. I definitely am. I was just thinking about Jess," I said.

Sarah came over and wrapped her arms around me.