The Mistakes We Make

Chapter 13

  I couldn't help but feel like the last few days were just hazed. School starts in just over a week and I still have a lot to worry about for deciding what to do once I start showing to much and have to leave. I'm officially fourteen weeks and would be showing in no time. Hiding it was more work than my actual job trying to stay cool on the summer heat and hide my belly. " Hey Aiden," I said as I walked in. I saw him playing with Vivi the poodle. She was white and beautiful. Bella ran up to me and smelled me more specifically my belly. She did it every time she saw me. I got enough sniffing from Koda and Sitka. They got more protective too.

"Hey. We're going for a walk. Wanna come?" he asked.

"Sure. Let me just put my stuff away. Besides, I have to find you a girlfriend and it will be today." He smiled and I walked to the back. I put my stuff in the office and went back to the playroom. We got about ten of them on leashes. We'd half to make about three trips to get all of them walked. At least I would get my exercise in for the day.

"Okay how about that one," I said pointing out a cute brunet who had a small dog on a pink leash.

"Hell no. No small dogs. I need a girl who likes big dogs." I understood why the few small dogs we have on a regular basis were really annoying, their owners more so.

"Picky," I said. He looked over at me with a smile.

"No. Reasonable. I will not live with a small dog. They bark like crazy and are kind of hard to train. I put up with the ones at the center."

"Okay okay." I tried to think of some way to find his perfect girl. Then it hit me."I've got it."

"What?" he asked.

"Not telling. You'll find out eventually." 

Of course, there was no luck. I sat down in a booth Aiden sat across from me. We had finished walking the dogs and I talked him into going out to lunch. And there I saw her the cute, blond-haired and blue-eyed waitress, who loves the color blue apparently and has eyes for Aiden. I saw as she smiled walking over to our table."Hi I'm Noel I'll be your waitress can I start you off with anything to drink?" she asked.

"Yes, I'll have a strawberry smoothie to go please,"I said. She wrote it down and then looked at Aiden with a smile.

"I'll just have water." He said.

"Okay, I'll be right back with those." She walked away and I smiled at Aiden.

"What?" he asked.

"That's your girl," I said.

"Really?" He looked back in her direction for a minute then back at me."CJ.."

"Here's your drinks." She set down the cups. I set down 5 dollars for my drink and got up.

"Thank you so much. Um, Adien wanna ask her that thing." I walked off before he could say anything. Walking out I looked across the street. I saw my mom's work. It made me remember the days I actually wanted to go visit her. A girl maybe my age walked up to me. Her resemblance to my mother was nerve-racking. It was like looking at an old photo only thing is she had eyes like mind. Like the father who left me and my brother."Oh my god." I said.

"Oh my god," she said. I walked up closer to her. She didn't step back or move. If anything it was as if she was searching the familiarity in me just as I was with her. It was a little freaky staring at the teenage version of my mother I no longer see.

"I'm sorry... Do I know you?" I asked.

"That depends are you, Casey? Maria's daughter?" she asked. My eyebrows shot up. How had this girl know my name? I'm good with faces and this is a face I surely would have remembered.

"How do you know that? How do you know me?" I asked. There was silence between us.I couldn't help talking. My hands nearly on the verge of shaking.

"I'm your sister. I'm Tory."

I brought Tory back to Dylan's after work. She sat around with me playing with the dogs while we talked. Tory had run away because her foster family was abusing her and nobody believed her. It sounded a little familiar. So she found a way to find her birth mom..well my mom. She was only a year and a half younger than me. But she looked like the younger version of my mother and very much like me. She was allergic to latex like me. There was practically no reason to not believe her.

Bringing her to Dylan's house where Dylan and Gina were preparing for the start of school next week put them in a state of shock. I leaned on the kitchen counter as they all sat at the table. My nausea was kicking in again. The good news was is lessened every day. But the return of a long lost sister might have kicked it back up again. Had I been lied to by my family now? How many people in my life had lied to me?

"Holy shit she looks like your mom," Dylan said as he looked at her. More like inspected. He was obviously a little bit to close for Tory's comfort making her back up and look at him funny. "A lot like you too but with light brown hair instead of red and green eyes instead of blue. She's also tanner." I rolled my eyes. It was obvious from the moment I saw her but that's what made her look like my mother. The same picture I looked at as a child asking what happened to my mother was now sitting in my best friend's kitchen.

"I get it." I said taking deep breaths."Look she just...needs a home."

"And at this point were taking puppies off the street." As if on cue Sitka and Koda ran in."See."

"You all live here?" Tory asked.

"Yeah. I got knocked up and couldn't live with mom. Gina's home life was a wreck. Dylan here is the only normal one of us all. Oh and the dogs are from my work. The owner just left them and we took them in." I said. "We're cool though I swear.

"Oh..Your having a baby?"

"Yep. And no, the father isn't around. It's a long story I'll tell you tomorrow."I needed to process the fact I have a sister and my life has done another flip into a new world I no longer know.

"Thankyou CJ." I walked over to the table and sat down next to her.

"For what?"I asked.

"For everything. Since I was a kid I've been wanting to know who I was if I had siblings. Now that I've met you it's kind of crazy. You don't know me and you're helping me. Why?"

"All of us are screwed up trust me. What's one more to the family?" I smiled and so did she. I wrapped my arms around her and then I felt more arms around me meaning it was Dylan and Gina.