Born To Be Your's

Chapter 3

The elementary school’s dismissal was less a release and more an explosion of noise and color. Blake and Travis stood near the chain-link fence, the lingering tension from their suspension hanging between them like smog.

When Maddie spotted them, she ran over, her pigtails bouncing, a wide, sweet smile plastered across her face.

“Blake! Travis! Look!” she chirped, holding up a sheet of construction paper.

Maddie’s artwork was a meticulous creation: a sparkling pink and purple castle, surrounded by impossibly perfect unicorns and princesses. It was utterly innocent, a piece of artwork that belonged in a different family entirely.

“Beautiful, Mads,” Blake said, forcing a genuine note of pride into his voice. “A real masterpiece.”

Ryan, however, walked over with the swagger of a small, victorious general, holding his paper like a trophy. His twin’s work was the antithesis of Maddie’s soft, escapist fantasy. Ryan’s paper was a frenzied mess of black, blood-red, and charcoal gray. It depicted what appeared to be a flaming school bus, miniature dead bodies scattered around, and one figure—likely the teacher—being pursued by a stick-figure wielding a knife.

Blake’s jaw tightened, but he kept his expression neutral. “What is this, Ry?”

“It’s chaos,” Ryan announced proudly, his eyes glinting. “A demonstration of structural failure and combustion. I think I got a B.”

“You didn’t get an F?” Travis asked, momentarily forgetting his own trouble.

Blake shook his head, running a weary hand through his dark hair. “No, they’re afraid of him. Good work, Ry.”

He took their hands, leading them toward home. Travis remained quiet, the guilt about the suspension heavy on his shoulders. Blake kept his mind focused on the logistics of the impending theft.

Blake dropped Travis and the twins off at the dilapidated front porch. “Stay out of trouble,” Blake told the three of them, though he knew Ryan was incapable of following that order. “Trav, start mapping out the river access roads. I’ll be back with Mark.”

Blake continued the short walk to Mark’s Headstart facility, a tiny, slightly cleaner building funded by the state. The contrast between the outside world and the sterile, hopeful environment of the preschool always felt jarring.

He found Mark in the classroom corner, away from the loud circle of children attempting a sing-along. Mark was sitting cross-legged, perfectly quiet, arranging a small collection of wooden building blocks. He wasn’t building anything; he was simply lining them up perfectly by size and color, from the smallest blue cube to the largest red rectangle.

A young teacher, maybe only a couple of years older than Blake, with an earnest, worried expression, approached him. Her name tag read Ms. Kennedy.

“Hi, Blake. How was your day?” she asked softly.

“Just got suspended for a week,” Blake replied flatly, his smart mouth defaulting to the cynical truth. “But otherwise, fantastic.”

Ms. Kennedy didn’t flinch. She glanced down at Mark, then lowered her voice. “Blake, I know you and Laura are doing incredible work with Mark, but I need to talk to you about something.”

Blake nodded, impatience prickling his skin. He needed to get home and plan a felony. “Spit it out, Ms. Kennedy.”

She took a deep breath. “He is smart, Blake, incredibly so. He recognizes colors, letters, and numbers far above his age level. But he doesn’t talk, he doesn’t socialize, and he spends most of the free play time lining up all the toys. He doesn’t engage with the other children at all.” She gestured toward the wooden blocks, lined up with mathematical precision. “He has a profound need for order, and any time that order is broken, he gets overwhelmed.”

Blake felt a flicker of icy fear—the kind he usually buried with a smirk. “He’s four. He’s a kid. He’ll grow out of it. Travis didn't talk until he was five, and now we can’t shut him up.”

Ms. Kennedy looked him directly in the eye, her gaze filled with genuine care, not judgment. “Blake, I’m not saying this to worry you, but I highly recommend you talk to Laura and get a referral for a specialist. We see this often. He exhibits several markers for autism spectrum disorder. He’s highly functional, but non-verbal communication and the need for strict repetition and order… these are classic signs.”

Blake chuckled, a sharp, dismissive sound that was all defense. “Autism? Come on. My parents were addicts and thieves. That’s our disorder. My brother is a genius. Mark’s just focused. He’s fine.”

He didn't wait for her response. He swooped down, grabbing Mark, who immediately abandoned his perfect line of blocks and clung to Blake's neck.

“Say bye to the lady, buddy,” Blake muttered. Mark only made a soft humming sound against Blake's ear.

Blake walked out, his jaw so tight it ached more than the spot where Xander had hit him. He dismissed the teacher’s concern instantly. Autism. The word was just another way for the system to label them, another bureaucratic excuse to look down on the Coppers. Mark was just quiet. He was smart. He was fine. He had to be. Blake couldn't handle another catastrophe.

He carried Mark home, trying to shake the teacher’s soft, earnest voice from his head. He had a fence to jump and copper to steal. He didn't have time for diagnoses.

Later that evening, the Copper house was operating in its usual, controlled chaos. The electric stove was sputtering, trying to heat a pot of Mac N’ Cheese with sliced hotdogs—the family’s preferred survival meal.

Blake, still fueled by the nervous energy of the afternoon’s near-fight and the lingering adrenaline of the suspension, was at the stove, stirring the pot. He moved with a practiced grace, his muscles shifting easily under the black thermal shirt.

At the small kitchen table, Travis was trying to help the twins with their homework. Maddie sat obediently, coloring a mermaid, while Ryan was carefully drawing a diagram of how to construct a crude explosive device on the corner of his math worksheet. Travis looked utterly overwhelmed, his gentle personality ill-suited for the chaos. Mark was seated in his booster seat, happily playing with a piece of string.

The back door opened, letting in a gust of cold air and the scent of cigarettes and stale beer. Laura was home from her shift at Paul’s pub. She looked even more depleted than she had that morning, but her eyes immediately began their customary check of the room.

“Hey, Maddie, Ryan. How was school?” she asked, hanging her worn canvas bag on the back of a chair.

The twins answered instantly. Maddie launched into a detailed description of her mermaid. Ryan merely grunted, folding his explosive diagram into a small square.

Laura then turned to the older boys, her gaze heavy. “And how was school for you two?”

Blake knew this was the moment. He kept stirring the pot, the cheesy slurry bubbling, anticipating the storm.

Travis, who was a terrible liar, immediately stuttered, “It was—it was great, Laura! Nothing, uh, nothing to report!”

Laura scoffed, the sound sharp and humorless. She walked up behind Blake, her voice dangerously soft. “That’s funny, because Principal Thompson called me about thirty minutes ago. Right in the middle of cleaning up some guy’s vomit, actually. Said you two were suspended for the rest of the week.”

Blake took a deep, steadying breath, scrunching his face. He hated the disappointment in her voice more than Thompson’s insults.

Laura reached out, gently touching the light purple bruise on Blake’s cheekbone where Xander had landed his punch. Blake involuntarily winced.

Laura sighed, rubbing the spot gently. “Blake, you are too smart for this. You have to learn to turn the other way. You're almost eighteen, and this time they won’t send you to Juvie. They’ll send you to real jail. We can’t afford to lose you.”

Blake didn't argue. He just nodded, his jaw tight. He knew she was right. If he went down, the already fragile architecture of their family would collapse entirely, leaving Laura with four kids and no income. His smart mouth was going to cost them everything one day.

They sat down to eat the Mac N’ Cheese and hotdogs. The only sounds were the scraping of forks and Mark’s quiet hum. Laura focused her attention on getting Mark to eat. Mark happily ate the pasta, but when he encountered the sliced hotdogs, he methodically picked them out and dropped them, one by one, onto the dirty floor.

Before Laura could launch into another worried plea about Mark’s eating habits, the back door burst open without a knock.

Francis, a fiery orange-haired whirlwind, stood shivering in the doorway, bundled in a massive, fluffy purple coat.

“Jesus, shut the door, Francis, we’re not trying to heat the whole block,” Laura muttered.

Francis didn't apologize. She hurried over to the stove, grabbed a serving spoon, and immediately started eating out of the pot of Mac N' Cheese.

“Just came to warn you—weather report says snow tomorrow. Better turn that gas heater up high in case we lose power. You know how those landlords are.” She swallowed a mouthful of pasta. “Also, I have great news!”

Blake immediately sensed the shift in the air. “You finally sold Paul’s truck to fix your small boobs?”

Francis glared at him, putting her hands on her hips. “No, you sarcastic prick. Better than that. Paul and I are doing something responsible. We’re getting into the fostering game!”

Blake laughed, a sharp, cynical sound. “You and Paul? Fostering? Francis, the only thing you two are fit to raise is the county’s crime rate. You’re going to be a mother to a kid? That’s rich.”

Francis’s green eyes narrowed, the fire matching her hair. “I’d be a great mother, you little asshole. And it’s not a child. It’s a teenager. And it’s a genius idea, Laura! The government gives us money for it! It’ll pay for my nursing school! Easy money, guaranteed income, and all we have to do is provide a roof and supervision for some moody kid who can mostly take care of themselves.”

Blake simply returned to eating his food, momentarily silent. The idea was insane, stupid, and yet, exactly the kind of desperate, pragmatic hustle that made Paul and Francis their neighbors.

He didn't know the exact nature of the "moody kid" yet, but he knew one thing: if Francis and Paul were involved, that teenager was going to be another disastrous complication dropped directly onto the Coppers' doorstep. The suspension and the theft suddenly felt like minor inconveniences.