Adopted by Phan

Chapter 12

Dan's P.O.V.

The food arrived within half an hour but Jay just picked at it, staring out the window. We tried to make conversation but it faded out after a while so we left her.

We did find out some stuff out about her, some things which I found rather interesting. She was 14, which was about where I guessed and her birthday was in a few weeks so we'd have to plan for that. Her favourite colour was black or purple and she loved art, drawing something she'd just always done.

Phil took that to heart because he went and found an old drawing pad he'd never used and gave it to her along with a pencil. I think that was one of my favourite moments, she lit up like a lightbulb when Phil handed it to her and immediately started drawing it.

If that was all it took to make her happy I thought it would be okay. She started to warm up to us a little bit, occasionally asking questions about ourselves and listening to our answers intently. She was very interested in our YouTube careers, finding it funny that someone could make a living from making videos.

At about 9 o'clock she started yawning so I suggested heading up to bed and she nodded. She didn't have any clothes apart from the ones she was wearing so I gave her one of my t-shirts to sleep and put her clothes in the wash so she would have something clean to wear the following morning.

Phil was still downstairs clearing up all of our plates when I went down, well at least that's what I thought he was doing. When I stepped back into the living room I saw Phil with the open drawing pad sitting in his lap. I could almost feel the shock pulsating through the room.

"Dan. Come and look at this." I was hesitant, it was Jay's work and I didn't think intruding was the best thing to do.

The first thing I saw was the sheer number of drawings there were. It had only been a few hours since Phil had given her the pad but at least half of the 50 page were covered in drawings. And the other thing was they were amazing. There was several different types of drawings, although most of them were just sketches and those types included landscapes, animals objects and few people.

Phil pointed to one of the pages closer to the front and I saw a picture of an older boy about 16, laughing. There wasn't any colour so we couldn't make out much about him but one thing that stood out to me was the fact his left arm was missing. He appeared to be up in some sort of tree and the drawing was from a person's point of view, probably Jay's.

Phil continued to flick through the pages and I saw several other outstanding drawings, most of landscapes. The landscapes all seemed to be of the same area, a city, but from quite a high point of view which ment she had either been on top of a building or up a very high tree.

He stopping on the last drawing and I startled because it was of people I recognised very well. It was of me and Phil just before Jay had gone up to bed, myself on my laptop and Phil holding the remote up to the television. It had only captured a split second of time but I was amazed at how well she had managed to capture us as actual people.

She had managed to draw us to how we actually were in real life, from my curly hair to Phil's glasses. I had been smiling in the drawing and she had even added my dimples, something I was getting to the point of 'strongly disliking.'

"How did she do this?" I shook my head, slightly stunned.

"I don't know."

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We left the notebook on the table for Jay to use the next morning when we went up to bed, around 10:30. I was still a little skeptical about whether we did the right thing but Phil had been quick to reassure me when I voiced my opinions to him.

Just before we headed into our separate rooms Phil looked towards the guest room, with it's door pulled shut and then went to open it. He beckoned me towards it and I smiled when I saw Jay curled up in the middle of the bed, swaddled by the duvet and sheets. He closed the door quietly, but left it open just a crack and then wrapped his arms around me, and I did the same.

I wasn't sure how long we stood there but when I let go, Phil squeezed my hand before heading back to his room. I saw his door shut before I moved and went into my room, the cold air making me shiver. The bed was very inviting and before I knew it, I was asleep.

Jay's P.O.V.

When I woke up it had just gone 6, so not to bad considering I would normally get up at 5 or sometime around there. I had seen Dan and Phil come into my room last night, I had just pretended to be asleep to avoid a bit of awkwardness.

It was a bit confusing, I couldn't tell if they were together or not. I had seen them holding hands and hugging but they hadn't mentioned it to me and to be honest I wasn't even sure if they knew they were together or not.

I tip-toed down the stairs and back into the living room to see the drawing pad Phil had given me still sitting on the table. I had a sneaking suspicion they had seen my drawings but I didn't mind much, I had left it there on purpose.

The house was quiet so I assumed that both Dan and Phil were still asleep. I opened the book again and holding the pencil I went back to drawing. It had been something I had just always done, something I could do to express my feeling because I couldn't exactly talk to anyone. It was like a diary, except, well, visual.

I liked drawing landscapes and people the most because I had an almost photograph memory, I could capture certain moments like ones I found special and then draw it on paper, but I could never remember things that people said or stuff like writing. My memory was made up of simple, single moments.

And I had a photograph of something I couldn't quite place.