I don’t think we’ve really thought this through. At least not all the way, if anything it was merely a passing conversation, I thought it was, figured he would forget about it like all our other wide ideas. A wannabe bucket list, ideas floating through space never to be solid. I see now how wrong I was, or else we wouldn’t be here.

​

          I shift, crunching my back to soothe the pinching pain lodged deep in my spine. I glance at Oliver, quickly swiping his dark auburn waves from his olive toned face, it never stays put and he refuses to cut it always saying he’d look silly. He was brimming with excitement, as if he was a small child bouncing in their seat, I can’t help but to smile.

​

          “Excited?” he asked trying to contain his giddiness, clenching and unclenching the arms of the sticky grey leather chairs. “You haven’t spoken all morning.”

​

           “That’s new?” raising an eyebrow to his question, he had known me long enough by now, both learning to read each other’s body, to him I was an open book. He gives me the look and I shrug taking back my hand. “Course I am,” though it was a lie.

​

           He rolls his eyes before the social worker -Heather I think- steps into the bleak office, arms full of paperwork organized in bright colored folders.

​

           “Thank you for meeting me,” she broke the eerie silence that flooded the small dim light room. Shuffling back behind her desk, shifting the papers around, she’s bating around the bush. “First we would just like to know which one of you would be the child’s legal guardian.”

​

            “Both of us,” Oliver answers, his voice as sturdy as the look on his face. He was always so determined, one of his better features I must admit.

​

            She nods nervously, pretending to look through our files. “Well our main problem is, you are not married or even engaged really,” her voice was that of a mouse’s.

​

          “It is not illegal for us to adopt a child together, we’re in a committed relationship, have been for almost six years now,” he interrupted sitting straight in the chair, his legs neatly crossed, hands folded in his lap. He was still dressed in his light green scrubs; they had little flowers on them well if you could get past the honey stain on the hem of his shirt. I’ve told him I’m not getting the stains out anymore. “We have all right to adopt so please let’s move on before I think it’s more than the status of our relationship that’s the problem.”

​

         I shift in my seat again, glancing at him. It’s my fault, he won’t admit if you ask but I know it is. We’d be married if it wasn’t for me, we’d do a lot of things if it weren’t for me. I love him, but I know he could do better, so if we married and then he found that someone, it would only cause a lot of trouble so the way I see it, not married no divorce just a break up. He’s asked before, two years ago, our fourth anniversary. I’m surprised he’s stayed; I’ve broken his heart too many times to count.

​

        “Can we see him?” I interrupt their bickering. “Go meet him, let him know what’s going on at least, don’t want to traumatize him and just show up one day and say hey we’re taking you.”

​

         She clears her throat, swiping some early-grey hair out of her face. “Yes, of course, as mandatory in adoptions,” she nodded standing from her chair. “Just follow me.” Oliver stood first; I was last in the line out the door heading down the hall to the door that lead to the orphanage section of the large building.

​

          They say June is the best month to adopt the older children since it’s in-between school years and because it’s plenty of time to adjust to being a new family so by the time the child’s summer ends it will all be legal. To be honest I’m happy adoption isn’t a one day thing, or I never would have agreed to be here. I don’t really want to be a father, to be responsible for another’s life just a chance to screw it up. I never had the want to be a father, I was always afraid I would just end up like my own father, a guilty man with a hunger for money and fame, never caring who has to die to get there.

​

          Oliver clenches my hand as we walk into another room; I'm assuming the one they use for these sorts of meetings. Heather left us alone while she went to grab Alexander. Oliver’s hands are cold and clammy; all of that heated stubbornness had passed leaving an anxious twenty-nine year old bouncing like a child.

​

         “Relax love,” he spoke, catching me off guard. I raise an eyebrow at him. “You’re nervous worse than I am,” his pale green eyes seemed to look right through to my soul, whatever was left of it. “True you are always quiet but you twitch, you’re not twitching nearly as much, and you keep staring off, if you keep dwelling the stress is going to build up and we still have to get your back fixed.”

​

          I let out a small chuckle, more so when he pouted. “My back will never be straight again, neither of us will be,” I muse earning a grin. I smile. “But I know hun, I’ve made an appointment, cuz I gotta visit mum and Quin so kill three birds one stone.”

​

          “Two-birds,” he corrects before Heather returned.

​

          This is my first time meeting the boy, Oliver had found out about him through work, a patient of his I assume, he never gave me the details about it. He wasn’t terribly tall, and wasn’t terribly thin or thick, he appeared about as pale as I was, but his face was scattered with freckles. His jet black hair straight as pin and shaggy but well kept, he held his face in a scowl with his sharp ice blue eyes glaring daggers. Oliver squeezed my hand, I was mimicking the scowl. Alexander appeared well dressed, black jeans and a white shirt with a sweater pulled over. I knew he probably wasn’t excited as Oliver was, we were told he was orphaned after his parents died in an airplane accident two years ago when he was fourteen and his family disowned him, giving him to the government.

​

         “Hello, I’m Oliver and this is Lewis,” Oliver spoke with a smile holding out a hand to the boy. “We’re really excited to meet you.”

​

          “You can call me Alex,” he replied shaking Oliver’s hand though he looked at me. A stoic face hard to read though his eyes looked to swim with questions.  “Heather told me why you’re here,” he spoke though by his tone he didn’t sound really all that happy about it. “Why not get a baby?”

​

          “We thought about it,” I answer honestly; it was Oliver’s first choice. “But there are plenty of homes for babies, everyone wants babies, in the end we didn’t.” I figured if they’re already partly grown it’s less I have to worry about. “Plenty of older children who need homes too,” I shrug my shoulders lightly.

​

           “Why me?” he asked his hands in his pants pockets.

​

           I shrug in response. “Dunno yet, fate, things happen for a reason or something like that,” I add though I don’t believe in it. I really didn’t know why Oliver wanted to adopt him; I didn’t know why Oliver wanted to be a father so bad. “But we do hope you can at least give us a try, we aren’t going to force you, and we will try to provide you with the best s you can have a good home with us, and in the end if you want to stay fine and if you don’t that’s fine too, it will be your choice.”

​

            Oliver looks at me surprised by my words, we never agreed to such terms but I thought it was the best. I could never know how Alexander feels but I know the pain of a broken house and absent parents, no one would listen so I wouldn’t force him. I shrug at Oliver, he shook it off.

​

            “Fine,” Alexander replied shrugging his shoulders.

​

           We ended up spending a couple hours there, one talking with him to get to know him and the other finishing up paperwork before we left on our long trip home. We lived up in the boonies of Maine, in the mountains only about an hour away from Canada, and old Victorian mansion I was inherited to look after, it was my childhood home. It was about three hours away from the orphanage we were adopted Alexander from.

​

         “So why did you pick him?” I ask it had been nagging at me since we left.

​

                “He was someone I thought you could connect with, he reminded me of you,” he answered shrugging lightly as we reached a red light. “He didn’t have much of a father, so I thought you could connect over that, and a little bird told me he admires your work.”

​

         “Stop by the hospital,” I ask feeling my phone vibrate, reading the message quickly. “He seems like a nice kid, but you know how I feel.”

​

          “You’re not your father Lewis,” he sighs glancing at me, his face sunk with worry. “And you will be a good father.”

​

        “Scientifically it’s improbable for me not to turn out like him,” I interrupt unable to look him in the face. “But I guess it’s a good thing I went with art and not science.”

​

          “So stop saying things like that,” he scolded lightly as we turned into the hospital parking lot. “You’re a successful man Lewis, who has worked hard to get where you are today, so please don’t think otherwise.”

​

         I shrug as we get out of the car before following him to the employee entrance. It was past visiting hours but the hospital staff all knew us, and he worked here. Growing up I always found myself spending a lot of time here, so much it was a home to my brother and I, not that our own father cared.

​

         “I’m going to visit mum,” I state giving him a light kiss on the cheek. “I won’t be long,” I nod before headed towards the hospital wing where she was and he went to finish some papers while we were here.

​

         When I was a child my mother was a great woman, an educated woman with a plan, married with a family. She was always smiling, I remember she was always beautiful even those early school mornings when all she did was throw on some pajamas, but she always had a certain glow to her. She was never really angry with us, always forgiving us, even the mother’s day all three of us got lost in the woods behind our house; we had wanted to get her her favorite flowers but they only grew far in the woods. At a time I believed we could all be happy, we could all be normal. I learned soon it was only a dream when I went from being the middle child to only being the youngest and soon I will be an only child.

​

         I stare at the shell of the woman I called mother. Bony hands folded over her barely moving chest, her once soft full of life skin has now shriveled clinging to her thin muscles and bones. Raven colored curls pillowed her head, framing her sleeping face. Almost eight years now, they asked if I wanted to pull the plug, the anger I have wants to say yes but that motherless child says no.

​

         I’ve lost track on the countless conversations I’ve had here, how often I’ve come to speak with her though I know she will probably never wake up. Its childish, how much I wish to see her. I stand when I hear Oliver in the doorway, I don’t remember how long I was talking probably an hour or so. I fold her arms again giving her a kiss on the forehead before I leave again.

​

         Two weeks seemed to go in a flash. Oliver spent them working, and when he was home he helped me clean up the house. I spent the time finishing up Alexander’s room, it used to be a room we used for storage but it was the biggest of the unused bedrooms or at least the ones I could manage to stand in without toppling over with guilt, we keep those locked. I stand wiping the sweat from my forehead, absentmindedly smearing the paint from the back of my hand across my face. I barely managed to finish the mural in time, I thought it would help to give the room some life after so many years and I wanted to give him something. It wasn’t too much since, knowing a teenage boy he probably wouldn’t like extravagant, so I went with a simple ocean view with a view nautical fairytales thrown in for fun, like mermaids or selkies, he liked those, to counter the forest landscape outside. I feel a grin break out on my face, a part of me beginning to feel good about this.

​

         I set my dirty brushes in the cup before picking up my phone. “Hello Lewis Rollins speaking.” It’s Heather, telling me all the paperwork finished going through and we could go pick up Alex. “Thank you, I will be there as soon as I can,” I nod before hanging up. Oliver was working all night and I didn’t want to make Alexander wait.

​

          Though I was excited a pit of guilt flooded my stomach as I drove towards the orphanage. For Oliver’s sake I was trying my best not to think of my father, trying my best to remember I’m different than him, I have more than just him in my genes but still all I could do was feel fear. A great man sure, made a cure for cancer sure, but no one knows what I know, the lengths he goes, and the so called sacrifices for the world.

​

          I sigh resting my elbow on the window, one hand on the wheel, traffic is slow. When I was a boy I respected him, I thought he was the greatest man in the world, I wanted to be like him, a scientist, a genius as the world would call him. He was the reason we moved to the boonies, to be away from societies glare and the governments’ laws. My siblings and I were never allowed in my father’s lab, but I remember the time I snuck away wanting to make something just like he did. His lab was clean and smelt of bleach, I can’t remember what I pulled off the shelf, and I was eight so I wasn’t thinking, but I remember the reaction it had, a loud pop and a gust of red vapor, caused temporary blindness for a week and damaged my sight forever. He locked it up after that incident and never looked at me the same way again. I had only wanted to make him proud. I shift slightly in my seat. I wanna throw up at the memory, the thought of me wanting to make a monster proud. Sighing again I turn up the radio to drown out my own thoughts for the rest of the drive.

​

       I’m not him, I won’t be him. I repeat over and over in my head while I wait in the small office. Tapping my fingers against the chair lightly trying not to just pace, though I soon move to bite my well chewed fingernails.

​

         “Thank you,” I nod shaking her hand lightly before I turned to Alex, taking his bag from him. “Ready to go?” I smile lightly trying not to look as afraid as I felt; I had to be the adult.

​

         He nodded and we left back to the car. “Where’s Oliver?” he asked as I set his bags in the trunk. “Can I sit up front?”

​

         “Sure,” I answer climbing into the driver’s seat. “He’s working today, we weren’t expecting the papers to go through until another week so we’re sorry if things are a little messy at home, and we’ve been working on cleaning up.”

​

          He shrugged lightly mumbling he doesn’t mind. He keeps his eyes glued on the window for most of the way. The car was silent and filled with a sort of uneasiness; neither of us really knew what to say.

​

         “Do you really want a kid?” he asked breaking the silence, surprising me. “You’re a lot different than Oliver, you don’t talk much.”

​

          I shrug. “To be honest, no I never wanted to be a father,” I answer seeing no point in lying to him. “Never wanted the responsibility of another human’s life, I’m afraid I will only let another person down,” I sigh glancing at him when he turns his head. “I’m not the greatest person in the world, and I never had the greatest example, it was a reason I didn’t want a baby, I figured if you’re older it’s less chance of me screwing up.”

​

         “You’re both different then my dad,” he added swiping his hair out of his face. “He wasn’t great but he wasn’t terrible, he didn’t like me much though, or my mum, they weren’t like you two,” he explained lightly. I let him continue not wanting to interrupt. “They never wanted to be in the same room, only stayed for me, but I knew they hated each other, it was why I wasn’t with them, I had run away to a friend’s house. It was my fault.”

​

         “That sort of thing isn’t your fault Alex,” I correct. “But I know the feeling, I could have helped my family too, but I ran away and it was too late to save them,” I'm sure he doesn’t want to hear this. “I ran away too, I still feel the guilt but I’m learning to adjust to accepting it wasn’t my fault.”

​

         I glance seeing the question he’s going to ask. “My father, Dr. Elias Evans, I'm sure at one point was a great man, but as he grew power and popularity he slowly lost his mind,” I begin summing it up mostly. “He helped find a cure for a lot of the world’s problems most known for his cancer research, he worked a lot at home, he believes in human testing,” I don’t want to scar him, I don’t want to continue. “Let’s just say he didn’t care who he sacrificed to get it, I was only spared because he learned before I was born the first tests didn’t work for guys.”

​

       He fell quiet for what seemed like forever. I was sure he was ready to just jump out of the car, afraid I would be like my father. “Evans? I thought it was Rollins,” he asked breaking the tension.

​

       “Oh yea, I use Oliver’s name, Evans is my actual name, I use it on legal stuff but everywhere else I’m just Lewis Rollins,” I explain enjoying the change in subjects.

​

         We didn’t talk much the rest of the way, mostly we discussed things like his schooling, or things he wanted to do this summer and if we could get a dog. The worry and guilt I once felt had slowly left me, I enjoyed the company and found myself looking forward to this whole father thing.

​

        “I’m sorry about your family,” he stated as we drove up the long driveway. I was curious I had almost forgotten the conversation. “But I met this kinda cool guy and he said those things aren’t our fault,” he smiled a little. “We just gotta learn to adjust.”