Adopted by Phan

Chapter 21

The next morning I awoke to Dan and Phil on my bed again. They didn't want to leave me alone and to be honest I didn't mind, I had spent a lot if time alone during the afternoon.

Phil was already awake, his eyes fixed on Dan, who was curled up on his side and fast asleep. When he saw I was looking he smiled sleepily at me and ran his hand through my hair, which felt a little weird because of how short it was.

"You okay?" I nodded, yawning and attempting to roll over onto my back.

"Little tired but I'm all good."

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The day passed quickly, we spent all day at home, I mean at least I did. Phil went out to the supermarket just after noon leaving me with Dan to smash me in Mario Cart.

It was a bit of a learning curve considering I had basically never touched a remote before, let alone used one but it worked. Rainbow road was probably my favourite, not because it was easy, no it was terrible, but because Dan raged the entire time, falling off the track more than a few times.

When Phil came back I handed the remote over to him, letting him race Dan and watching, utterly enthralled. They were very good at it, and even more competitive, yelling and screaming at each other and attempting to sabotage each other by knocking the remote out of the others hands.

I was on the couch, curled up underneath the blanket that I had used the night before and my phone tucked in my hand. Dan and Phil had both added their contacts to it and I had spent a while working out how to text or call someone, using Dan as a practise.

While Phil was out at the supermarket he had bought me a case for my phone, it was white with little sketches of stars and planets on the back, which I really liked. Phil had a bright purple case, which I thought was pretty cool and Dan had a black and white one with zig-zag stripes, which was a little boring, but I liked it anyway.

I jumped, Phil's phone had suddenly started ringing loudly, echoing around the room. Dan paused the game and Phil ran to answer it, as his phone was resting on the mantelpiece above the fireplace, on the other side of the room.

"It's mum!" He mouthed at Dan, although I could see what he was saying.

"Hi mum, why are you calling?" There was laughter from the other end of the phone and the buzz of speech before Phil walked back over to Dan, motioning for me to join them.

"Yeah he's here. I'll put it on speaker phone now." The laughter was now audible and I could hear a woman's voice speaking to someone in the background.

"I just wanted to check up on you guys, I haven't spoken to you in a while. You might be old Phil but I'm still your mother!" Phil blushed painstakingly red and Dan burst into laughter, pulling me into his lap so my head was able to rest on his shoulder when I leaned back.

I did so, my hands grasping at his for a little comfort and as I sat there, listening to their conversation.

It was mostly about what they were doing at home, how they were doing and so on. I felt a bit intrusive but Dan didn't seem to want me to leave, so I stayed, wriggling a little bit to get more comfy. Dan grinned at me, resting his chin on top of my head and continuing to talk, rocking side to side every now and again.

After at least ten minutes of talking Phil stopped suddenly and looked at Dan, nodding his head. I knew they were going to talk about me and I bit my lip nervously, wondering how she would take it.

"Mum, we've got something important to tell you, ummm.." Phil paused, looking across at me and Dan.

"Yes? It's not bad is it?"

"No it's not bad, it's really good actually." There was an 'ohhhhh' noise.

"Good, then what is it?"

"Um... We've adopted."

There was a scream of excitement from the other end of the phone and what sounded like her jumping up and down were heard and I looked over at Phil, trying to understand if it was okay. He smiled back at me, rolling his eyes fondly at his mothers behaviour.

"I have a grandchild! Wait. How old, and girl or boy." Phil looked at me pointedly and I knew he wanted me to talk myself, but I simply shook my head, knowing he'd probably do better.

"She doesn't want to talk right now, but her name is Jay and.." He turned to me. "You're almost 15 aren't you?"

"I am 15, I turned 15 in the middle of March." I whispered, looking at the phone as if it would bite.

"Oh wow! I know you said you were adopting, but I thought you would go for a younger one." I felt Dan's whole body tense at that sentence and his grip tightened around my waist, pulling me in even closer. When Phil spoke again his voice was hard, clear-cut and angry.

"She just needed a good home." There was silence.

"Oh, sorry I didn't mean it like that. I just thought that was what you would go for." Dan continued to hug me and I kept my head resting on his shoulder, staring pretty blankly at the phone as I listened.

"We should probably go now, we've got stuff to do. Bye!" He hung up the phone suddenly and threw it onto the couch, sighing.

"Sorry about that Jay, I don't think she really knew what she was saying."

"It's okay, I'm used to it." Dan looked at me curiously.

"What?"

"Comments. People saying mean things, yelling at me and stuff like that." I sighed, thinking back to all the times people had yelled at me, and even on occasions, physically assaulted me.

There had been a few times when I might have been getting in the way, or had probably been loitering a bit long and someone had come out and shoved me away. I did stand my ground on occasion, but that normally ended in them hitting me, leaving visible bruises.

I ran my hand over my elbow, where I knew a scar remained from the one time a man hit me, and my arm had landed on a sharp piece of glass, cutting it open.

"I'm kinda used to it."