All Those Words

Chapter 22

Asa

It surely was an eventful holiday season – from estranged moms to spending Christmas in a house full of people who loved each other to the moon and back. We opened presents early in the morning, we ate to our hearts content, we sang carols until our throats felt raw, we ate sugary sweets and baked goods until the younger ones were running around the house with sugar rushes and it was the first Christmas I spent in a place that felt like home.

Well, there was one other – the small house I used to live in before entering the system. I didn't remember much about what it was like when I lived there. I didn't remember much about my biological parents either. I just feel a strange tingle of excitement and warmth whenever I think about the place and so I assume I had some good memories there. My social worker – Mrs. Falkoff told me that I had parents that loved me but they had to go too soon. She refused to tell me anything else, saying that it wouldn't help me any if she told me more when I had to go live with another family. I never did understand her logic but I never question it. And after hearing about Calysta's biological parents and why she kept it a secret, I guess not everything has to have logic behind it.

"I don't like the thought of school ending," Calysta tells me late one night.

We're lying on the mattress of her attic room, staring at the ceiling while I trace patterns on her arms. I can feel the goosebumps rise all over her skin and she pulls away, her cheeks aflame.

"I thought you hated high school," I say, just to pull her leg. "Sometimes high school kids can be bitches."

"Stop quoting things I said months ago," she tells me and I can help but smile.

I turn onto my side and hold my head up with my hand. I watch her as she stares into nothingness. I start to dread the end of the school year, too, because it means that Calysta will move to Tallahassee, Florida which will put a lot of distance between us. And even though I have faith that our relationship will work long distance, it scares me to be apart from her.

"Are you scared that you'll be too far away from me?" I ask her and she stays quiet.

I know that she's upset that she'll be far away from her whole family in general but it hurts that she doesn't say yes right away. Not that I expect her to miss me in particular or more than her family. They have been with her longer than I have. But still, it upsets me a little. But I try not to show it because I know she's upset, too.

"I don't want to leave any of you," she says finally. "And yeah, I'll miss you a lot. Where are you going to college anyway?"

I feel my stomach drop despite her admitting that she'll miss me a lot. Mainly because I have no idea where to apply for college. I've kept my grades up but it'll take a miracle for me to get a scholarship and even if the money Mrs. Falkoff gave me puts me through college, there will still be over expenses. And the money I've earned through my part time jobs won't even put a dent in the bills that would pile up.

"I don't know yet," I tell her honestly. "Maybe I won't go to college," I joke and she gives me a hard look, making me laugh.

"You can go to college, Asa," she tells me. "Dad and mom will help-"

"You're finally calling them dad and mom, huh?" I ask and I can't help but feel a little better about everything that had happened to her during the Christmas break.

"Stop changing the subject," she says and lets out a long sigh. "You lectured me that I had to go to Florida State because it would be good for me. So why can't you do what's good for you?"

"I will," I tell her but only because I'm afraid she'll lecture me about it until I apply to a few places. "But when you go off to Florida, you better stay away from the guys there. They're flirty and you're pretty so they'll be all over you. If you even look in one of their directions, I'll have to poke your eyes out."

She laughs a proper heart felt laugh and I smile, pulling her close to me. She makes a half-assed attempt to wriggle out of my grasp, mumbling about someone walking in on us even though it seems like her siblings already know.

"But seriously, think about it," she tells me. "What're you interested in?"

"You," I say, grinning and she whacks my arm.

The laughter fades and a silence settles between us. I haven't told her enough about myself for her to know what my likes and dislikes are. I had been so caught up in trying to help her open up to people again and trying to make Sydney stop bullying her then we had those problems with Trixie and Lennon. And the next thing we knew, her biological mother was trying to weasel her way into her life without giving any answers and turned her life upside down instead. I had been so concentrated on all of that that I ended up not opening up to her like I asked her to do for me.

And I know that she's thinking about it, too. I can see it on her face. She really expects me to tell her but honestly, I never thought about it, not enough to figure out what I want to do. Not the way she knows she wants to help other kids find homes. I know that I like cooking but culinary school will probably be even more expensive than regular universities. I know I like helping people with their problems and giving advice but that didn't mean I could just become a psychologist, right? It was more than that. I had to be passionate enough about something to want to do it for the rest of my life.

"It's okay if you don't know what you want to do, Asa," she says after a while. "I'm sorry for pushing you. I just think that if you don't apply for college, it should be because you're not sure or you need the year off to think about what you really need to do. You shouldn't hold yourself back because you don't want mom and dad to pay for you. Because that's a really bad reason."

"It's not because of that," I tell her. At least it's not the only reason, I add silently. "I really don't know what I should study and I need time to think about it. And I promise you-" I take her hand in mine. "-that when I do know, I will go to college."

She smiles at me sadly and I know that she believes me. She's just upset because of the jokes I made about following her to Florida State and now I'm not sure if I'm even going to college at all.

"You're going so far away." I sigh and her fingers tighten around mine. "And just when this place started feeling like home."

"Home is not a place," she says so quietly, I almost miss it. "Home is people. This place only feels like home because of the people inside it."

Calysta's words stuck to me for a really long time – months to be exact. They'd pop into my head during class, during work and even when I entered the house. It made me think about all the foster houses that I had lived in. None of them ever left like home and not just because I didn't like the houses. They didn't feel like home because the people weren't nice either. But the one house I did think about when her words floated through my head several times was my first house. The house I lived in for many years of my childhood after I was born. I still didn't remember much about my mother and father but I remembered the house and it felt like home somehow.

But she was right about the house we live in now.

I don't feel much when I look up at the big house when I come back from a long day after school and my part time job. But I feel a swirl of emotions – excitement and happiness – when I think about the people inside the house, the way they greet me when I enter and ask me whether I want to rest first to eat first. Home really is a feeling – a feeling that the people inside the house give you and I feel it every time I look at Calysta.

And on that cool spring evening in the middle of March, five months after Calysta and I started dating, I realize that I more than just really like her. I love her.