I don’t know what to do. I’m not prepared for any of this.

She nods her head, then just drops it against my chest and sobs. “It’s hard.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Twenty-four hours,” I say. “That’s what’s going to happen. Us. For twenty-four hours. The perfect family. Alone. Eating chicken nuggets.”

She looks up at me, tears in her eyes, and I think it’s going to get worse, but she just says. “Can we get fries too?”

I burst out laughing. “Yeah, girl, we can get fries.”

“But the greasy ones.”

“Yup.”

“And Mountain Dew.”

I laugh harder. Of course, she wants Mountain Dew. “Done. Anything else?”

She pauses, and then those big brown eyes blink up at me. “I’d really like to spend those times eating with my foster brother.”

“He’ll be there.” Forever. Even if he shouldn’t be. “Of course, who else is gonna keep you in check?”

“Only you.

I laugh but sober and say, “Only me.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Mary-Belle

“I’m so full.” I groan and lay face down on the couch in the theater room. It’s the only one they have, a giant red leather-looking behemoth of a thing in the very back of the theater room. The rest of the area is covered with black recliners in four rows leading all the way to a screen that covers the entire wall.

Honesty, it’s better than most movie theaters I’ve ever been to back in the day when—usually on my birthday—I was able to spend two dollars to go to the really crappy old theater that played movies that had been out for nearly a year.

It was a highlight.

Just like chicken nuggets.

I look around and smile to myself… how things can change so fast is remarkable. And how I could be given a respite with my, ahem, foster brother, is even better. I don’t have to stress about anything for the next day, my stomach’s full, and I’m in a theater room with air conditioning.

Ambrose left to go grab something, and I’m drinking my body weight in Mountain Dew which, even though I know it’s horrible for me, I’ve never been able to drink a lot because of my situation, so it’s something I always seem to crave, maybe because when I was like seven I asked for some at the gas station and my foster mom at the time let me have it, and it was years before I tasted it again.

This is my third time drinking it since then, and it still tastes the same—it holds the same happy memories of thinking I was going to have a forever home only to have my foster mom’s husband say no to my adoption. She later found out he was cheating. He left a week later, and so did the rest of us foster kids.

I still wonder about her sometimes.

She was nice. She was one of the good ones we always pray to be placed with.