"Listen, I know I said that I'd get the bed at our next sleepover, but I'm not sure if I trust the both of you to sleep together on the floor," Maelle said, raising her eyebrows at Max and Theo, who had set up to sleep side by side on the floor.
Max laughed loudly, but Theo only blushed. Maelle wasn't sure if Theo was just shy in general, or if it was because of her.
She smiled at the sight of Max, her closest friend, with his head resting on Theo's shoulder. She loved the thought of him being happy and she was even happier that such a nice boy made him happy. Max was getting exactly what he deserved.
"You don't have to worry about us, Mae," Max said, shaking his head and chuckling slightly, "that would be way too awkward to be worth it,"
Maelle shivered in disgust. She loved the fact that Max was happy and that he found Theo, but she also loved him like a brother. Therefore, she certainly did not want to hear about my brother's sexual escapades.
Yet, before she could give Max a smack, Theo did it for me. Both she and Tbeo laughed, but Max was left pouting, arms crossed.
At one point, when Theo had left to go get dinner, Max approached her and sat on the bed.
"Listen," Max began hesitantly, "Theo just lost his mother really recently. He's kind of pretending it didn't happen and not acknowledging it. I think he's trying to repress it, but I need to be there for him when he does," He confessed to her, shutting his eyes. It was clear that he cared intensely for Theo, he wanted the best for him.
"I know what that feels like," Maelle said reassuringly, calming the brewing storm inside of Max's mind, "I wouldn't upon anybody, but I will be here in his moment distress in case he needs a shoulder to cry on,"
Max nodded, relieved to have found somebody on his side. He knew that Theo would need as big of a support system as he could get as soon as he came to terms with that fact.
For now, all Theo needed was a distraction. He needed something else to stress about, like dinner with Max's foster parents, for him to forget that he was all alone in the world.
When Theo came back with their food, all previous tension had been lifted from the air. They engaged in lighthearted banter and jokes.
They finished the takeout, but, after a couple minutes, decided they should go get ice cream from the ice cream shop on campus. They left the dorm room, laughing as they walked and made their way to the shop.
Maelle felt bad knowing that Theo's mother had passed away. It was as if she was in on a personal secret that he obviously didn't want her to know, or else he would have told her.
Part of her wished that Max had just kept this to himself, since she wasn't exactly sure what to do with the information. Should she talk to him about it? Should she keep it to herself? If he told her, would she pretend she hadn't known?
She wondered and stressed over all the possible scenarios, but in the end, the only thing that really mattered was that Theo had gone through so much tragedy. Maelle knew tragedy. She had gone through tragedy, she still was. It was a shame that Maelle wasn't allowed to speak to him about the subject, since she truly believed that reassurance would come better from somebody who had gone through the same thing and made it out the other side. At least, Maelle hoped that she was on the other side.
But, Maelle decided to keep her mouth shut and, instead, switch the subject onto something a little more lighthearted while they ate their ice cream.
"So I'm assuming that you guys met through your classes, but, come on, I need details!" Maelle exclaimed excitedly, the happiness between the two boys somehow wearing off on her.
Theo leaned towards Max and cleared his throat, "So, we're both taking Architectural Engineering, right?" Theo began, to which Maelle nodded, "So I go into the classroom on the first day, but I can't see any empty seats. By this point, I'm just standing there like and idiot, looking for a place to sit," Theo said, looking at Max every couple seconds to confirm.
"When I saw him wandering all over the place, I got up and waved him over, after laughing at him for a minute, of course," Max said jokingly, which earned him a soft elbowing to the ribs from his boyfriend, "so then we were talking through the whole class, of course. I mean, how could you sit through a class without trying to make a move on someone that hot," Max said with a wink. From the corner of her eye, she could see Theo blushing slightly.
"From there, we kind of just hit it off. We sat together every class, so it was easy to get to know each other," Theo concluded, leaning his head gently on Max's shoulder.
Maelle smiled warmly, "So, what made you take architectural engineering? It seems to he the trend these days," She asked Theo quizzically.
Theo cleared his throat, "Well, my mother kind of raised me alone. It was always just her and I. I would always ask her questions about my father, and she would answer them as well as she could. Truthfully, I don't think she knew him very well," Theo said, clearing his throat, "one of the things that stuck was his job. He was an architectural engineer. After I found out about that, I couldn't help but pursue it. Of course, I didn't want to be like him, I jut wanted to understand an element of his life," Theo finished, smiling.
"What's your father's name? My father was an architectural engineer too, so I might've heard of yours," Maelle said, smiling.
Theo smiled, happy to have a question concerning his father that he had the answer to, "Pascal Vaillancourt,"
And, just then, Maelle's jaw, as well as her ice cream, dropped.
+
"It's not possible," Maelle said, once she had come to her senses and the group had returned to the dorm, "that's my father. You're messing with me. You're trying to screw with me. You're lying," Maelle spat at him, pacing back and forth in the room.
"Unless my mother was lying, I'm not lying," Theo told her, oddly calm.
Max, unsure of how to handle the situation, had been wordless for a long time. He seemed to be taking everything in, which was probably the best thing to do. Unfortunately for Maelle, she was incapable of doing so, so Max would have to do it for her.
"Are you trying to tell me that we're siblings?" Maelle spat, looking Theo in the eye. They were her father's eyes, the ones she inherited from him. They always made her feel special, because people would tell her she had her father's eyes. She had never had to share it with anyone. But, now, she knew she would.
"Half-siblings," Theo muttered under his breath, playing with his fingers.
Maelle sighed. It wasn't fair to take out the horrors of her father's infidelity on him, "Tell me everything you know," She told him.
Theo sucked in a deep breath, "As far as I know, when my mother, Danyka Perrault, met my - sorry, our - father, she didn't know he was married. He promised her a life, but all she got was a baby she couldn't support. She was working as a waitress back then, so she decided that if she was going to be a single parent, she wanted a more reliable job. She wasn't insured or anything, and she was qualified for more. She got a job as a secretary and, soon after, gave birth to me," He told me, gesturing to himself, "that's all I know. Other than his job and his name, there was nothing else I needed to know,"
"Your mother, Danyka, she sounds brave," Maelle told him so quietly he had to strain to hear her.
"She was," Theo replied, just as lowly as his newfound half-sister, "she sure was,"
+
a/n: fun!!! more major plot events!!!
ps: i'm 150% better than adele
-danz
YOU ARE READING
Adopted by Stromae
Fanfiction-this story is written in english- Maëlle Vaillancourt, left parentless by an accident that claimed the life of her mother and a drug addiction that claimed the liberty of her father, had no other options. In hands and under the protection of social...
