There's A Place For Us

Chapter 19:Hugo

William looked concerned about me wanting to be a soldier. It wasn’t ideal, I knew that, and I knew I could die, but I wanted to help the people who had nobody to fight for them like me or people who fought but could only do so much like Sam and Timothy.

“I’ll come back, I promise. It’s not forever. And it’s not for another two years,” I tell William.

“You don’t know that. There are guns and bombs where they’re sending you. It’s not a requirement anymore, why do you want to go?” he exclaims.

“I told you why. I’m not smart like you. And the system is broken, I fell through the cracks, that shouldn’t be able to happen and if Seth did what he did to me because he had it done to him, those people, those people shouldn’t have children anywhere near them. I can’t fix the system from the inside, I want to but I can’t afford to. I have no way of going to university and even then, I can’t look at something there is no record of. I can’t prevent what happened to me from happening to another kid, and I hate blind faith,” I continue.

Timothy kept quiet, I don’t know if he was silently supporting me or disapproving along with William. I had wanted things to be the same as they were when we were young, maybe that wasn’t possible if he wasn’t going to let me do this.

“I don’t want to lose you,” William exclaimed. “There’s no guarantee you’ll come back from that. And if you do, you won’t be the same person either necessarily, war changes you, you were already hurt by Seth but you could get PTSD from war, lose a limb or two.”

I already had PTSD thanks to Seth and the incident.

“I don’t have many options,” I replied.

“You can go back to school, fight to go to New Hampshire with Timothy. Get a job, and save up for college or university. What will Timothy do if you die over there?” William exclaims.

Timothy keeps his gaze on the floor, I can tell he’s hurt. I’m used to hiding my own pain, I know what it looks like when someone else is trying to do it. He was concerned about this, too but he was keeping his head down because he knew I hadn’t had many choices in the past few years and this was one of the few things I was looking forward to aside from the possibility of living in New Hampshire with him and Sam.

I wanted to talk to Timothy about what he was thinking about all of this. I even wanted to know how Sam would feel about it now.

“I think it’s time we left,” I reply quietly looking at Timothy and nodding toward the hall.

I saw William break then. He moved towards his desk, and grabbed a pen and a notepad. Timothy got up off the wall. As he walked towards the door, William stopped him and gave him the piece of notepad paper.

“So, he can call me,” William says quietly.

Timothy nods and takes the paper. He joins me in the bedroom doorway and William follows slowly at a distance behind us down to the front door.

“You’re leaving so soon?” Mrs. Halligan questions.

“Yes, we have somewhere to be,” I lie.

I watch Timothy’s expression at the lie. He knew we had nowhere to be. The lying bothered him. It wasn’t like I was lying for anyone’s benefit other than my own. I guess I’d been lying for so long, (the last two years), about where I was living, whether I was fine or not, I had stolen to survive, I was a common criminal with no record because luckily, I’d never been caught.

“I hope we’ll see you again soon. I hope it works out with you being adopted,” Mrs. Halligan wishes us.

“Thanks, see you,” I bid.

We step outside into the mildly cold weather of the mid-day. We walk halfway back to Timothy’s apartment before Timothy takes my hand and prevents me from taking another step forward.

“Hugo, he’s concerned you’ll get hurt. He’s your friend. If you want to do it, you can. He just wants you to know there are other options,” Timothy explains quietly.

“Do you think it’s a bad idea?” I ask.

“Defending your country and other countries isn’t a bad idea. Everyone who does it has their own motives, he has his own motive for wanting to keep you here, anyone who’s ever cared about someone knows that. You have your own motives for going, too, though,” Timothy continues.

“Do you want me to go?” he asks.

“Of course, not but it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop you. You’ve been looking forward to this,” he replies.

“I want to live with you and Sam in Hampton,” I admitted honestly.

“When you turn eighteen, you can live wherever you want. You just have to get through the system,” he reminds me.

“I hate the system,” I state.

“I think most people do, that’s why people want it changed. It needs to be changed but the right people never seem to make it far enough to impact anything,” he replies.

Timothy’s phone started ringing. He started digging around in his pockets with his free hand, and finally, he pulled it out of his back jeans pocket.

“It’s Aunt Sam,” he replied answering.

Timothy kept hold of my hand and we walked slowly, linked. We make it to the door of Timothy’s apartment building but Timothy has barely said a word to his phone, he’s listening intently. We stop at the apartment building door, Timothy is still listening, he looks up and tries to see around a corner next to the building. A cab pulls up, and a woman and Sam get out. Timothy and Sam both hang up their phones. He releases my hand quickly before this woman can make any judgments about us.

The woman is tall, in her mid-forties, and she has one of those business suits on in bright orange from another century with floral patterns. Her lipstick is bright red and crinkled from her aging lips. Her eyes are a steely blue and her hair is dark brown. She reminds me of my elementary school principal, most principals are sweet, but mine ruled with an iron fist. Caught fighting? You didn’t get detention or a warning, you got suspended. Caught chewing gum, detention. The teachers often let us off with warnings, but if the principal found out, you were in for it.

“Hugo?” she questions looking at me.

I find her smile creepy. Her teeth are too white and perfect for my liking.

I nod timidly wanting to hide behind Timothy.

“I’m Mrs. Davis, your new social worker,” she explained.

She was a lot older than my last one, maybe that meant she had more experience and wouldn’t lose my file? That was the only good thing I could see coming from her since she’d already rejected Sam’s adoption opportunity. Wasn’t that your job as a social worker? To get the kids under your care adopted? Especially, if they were older?

“I’ve been talking with Samantha, we’d like to do a trial run of you living with her. So, you’d be her foster kid before being adopted. She’d filled out paperwork for you to go to school in Hampton, you start next week, you’ll make the trip down this weekend, okay?” she informed me, her smile becoming more genuine.

I stepped back slightly, not believing it. Just yesterday, it didn’t seem like I was going to have a permanent home, but now she was willing to try.

“I get to have a home,” I mumbled.

“You do,” she replied placing a hand on my shoulder.

“She’s found you a therapist in a city nearby, you will see him once a week and you need to go to school. You most likely will graduate late but better late than never, right?” she replied.

Sam had found me everything I needed in order to come live with her and Timothy, not all foster parents, she wasn’t even my foster parent, she had to do all this to become my foster parent, not all foster parents would fight for some kid they barely knew that hard. Timothy caring for me probably helped. She didn’t want to see Timothy heartbroken.

“I get to go with you when you leave,” I mumbled to Timothy still in disbelief.

He hugged me then, I was surprised since he’d let go of my hand at the sight of Mrs. Davis. I staggered, fixing my balance and returned his hug. Mrs. Davis smiled at us with her genuine smile. She didn’t remind me of my elementary school principal anymore.

“Thank you,” I exclaimed to her.

“You’re welcome. We don’t know when Seth’s trial will be but I’ll be calling Samantha with updates and I’ll come to Hampton to pick you up and bring you back here when it’s time. You will be required to provide testimony but since you are a minor, your name will be excluded from any papers and the testimony will be given in a separate room from Seth for your own protection and comfort,” she explains. “It probably won’t be for a while either, there are still people coming forward. That guy really did a number to a lot of people, he’ll most likely be locked up for a long time.”

“Right,” I replied as Timothy released me.

“I need to go pack,” Timothy replied quickly excited.

Sam was smiling from behind the cab, the driver was looking annoyed.

“I’ll be in contact, see you,” Mrs. Davis bids.

Mrs. Davis got back in the cab and they left.

Sam approached us.

“I’ll help you pack, come on,” she replied.

We went inside the apartment building and climbed the stairs to Timothy’s apartment. He pulled folded boxes from a closet and started disassembling his living space. All his pots and utensils got packed. His clothes and towels were folded and boxed up. His books are stacked and sorted. Soon we had a stack of boxes that would be loaded into a truck Sam had coming this Friday.

“You have to cancel your classes before Friday,” Sam reminded Timothy.

“I will,” Timothy replies labelling the boxes.

He’s so excited his writing is barely legible. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him this excited. Those classes were really putting a damper on him. Maybe Sam saw that, too and knew coming home would be good for him. For both of us.