Adopted by Phan

Chapter 14

Dan's P.O.V.

At home, Jay was quiet. Phil had put all of her new clothes through the wash before she could wear them so she was still wearing the stuff the hospital gave her, a little big.

She had curled up on one of the sofas and Phil was calling Louise and Cat, who we had invited over after talking to Jay and letting her know who they were. I turned the television back on and I stared at it, not taking in whatever program was showing on screen.

I was thinking back to our last few days with Jay. Our progress with her was slow but she was slowly warming up to us, learning about us and us learning about her. It turned out she was generally a very shy girl, especially around large crowds and older men, something I had never really thought of a reason for until it had hit me.

Did she know? Did she remember what her father did? Did she remember almost dying later that night? Was that the reason behind her fear?

After Phil was off the phone I took him into a next room and voiced my fears to him and he did look back into the living room for a second before shaking his head.

She would have been to counselling when she was in a home and they would have know, he had said to me but I still doubted it. She was good at disguising herself and there was no doubt that if she didn't want to tell someone something, they would never know.

Cat and Louise had agreed to come around in about an hour, to meet Jay and catch up because we hadn't seen them in about a month and a lot of stuff had happened since then.

In the time we had to pass before the two girls got there Phil went upstairs to edit the gaming video, a Sims one we had recorded a few days ago but in the mess we never had time to edit it.

We were ment to be recording a baking video the day we met Jay, hence the reason we had gone out to get more marshmallows because someone had eaten them all! Although if Phil hadn't done that we would have never met Jay, so that was a win-win situation.

Jay was staring at the television but I don't think she was actually taking anything in because her eyes were glazed over and when I walked in front of her, she didn't move.

I approached her cautiously and when I was barely a metre away from her she startled and looked up at me.

"You hungry?" She shrugged and then shook her head but I hesitated, I wasn't sure whether it was because she wasn't actually hungry or she was just being shy.

"You sure? You haven't had anything to eat since breakfast." It was well after 3 by that point and she had flat out refused to eat anything while we were out so I had gone to get Phil and myself a coffee to stay awake but we hadn't eaten anything either.

"I'm not used to having a lot of food. Sometimes we were lucky to get a full meal a day and my stomach can't really handle more than that." I sucked in a sharp breath but pretended I hadn't heard it considering I was already out the door and heading towards the kitchen.

I sat on the breakfast bar and thought for a few minutes. I knew there was a lot of homeless out there, but I had never really understood how little they had, including food. I had never taken enough interest to know.

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Cat and Louise arrived sooner than we thought they would, Louise in just under half an hour and Cat a few minutes after that. When I answered the door for Louise she was looking very excited and I had to quickly tell her not to be too loud around Jay.

Phil came down too when he heard the doorbell and quickly greeted Louise before going to talk to Jay so she knew who they were.

Louise almost turned into a different person when she was talking to Jay, her voice was slightly softer than it normally was when she talked to us and she kept constant eye contact with Jay even though she was just introducing herself.

Jay took to her quickly and even though she didn't talk much, it was clear that she liked Louise. It was good for us, as in Phil and I because we had no idea how she would take to them and it was nice to know she didn't lash out or anything like that.

Almost as soon as Louise finished her introduction Cat arrived, the doorbell scaring Jay more than anything so far. Louise went to answer the door with Phil and Jay gave me a faint smile before speaking.

"Louise is nice. I like her." I grinned back but in my head I was breathing huge sighs of relief. There was a pause.

"She reminds me of my friend." There was another pause and when I looked back up Jay was looking out of the window again. I knew that friend wasn't alive anymore, there had been so much loss in her life she didn't know what to do anymore.

Her drawing book was sitting on the table, open to one of the few blank pages left. She flipped through it and opened it onto a page with a small group of people displayed on the page. She handed it to me and as I looked closer I could see tiny details that made the drawing pop.

I could see Jay and the one armed boy in the drawing along with 4 others, one of which drew a very strong resemblance to Louise. I could see where she was coming from. The girl in the picture had the same bleach blond hair, fuller lips and slightly fuller cheeks with a little flush of colour.

Her name was scrawled across the bottom of the page and was revealed to be Autumn, matching her bright smile. Both Jay's and the one armed boy's names were there too, Jay and Jax(en). They were standing with two others, unnamed in terms of the drawing.

The other two were a man and a woman, both in their mid-thirties and standing in the background shoulder to shoulder. It honestly looked like your regular family portrait in drawing form but the thing that stood out was the numbers carefully printed underneath the names.

Autumn, 26 March 2000- 8 September 2017

Mr and Mrs Carsh 19 October 1984 and 13 December 1982- 8 September 2017

There was no number under the one armed boy, Jaxen I assumed was his full name so he must have still been alive when Jay last saw him. I knew I would never know how many of Jay's friends had died, there was probably too many to count but I knew one thing.

This girl has suffered enough. She needs a home.