"I won't go without him." I tell Mr. Pence. At this point, it's probably not the smartest idea to be making demands. But I wasn't going to just leave him. Harken had turned down numbers of homes to stay with me. He'd promised we'd stay together- even if it meant we'd be in here until we were eighteen and kicked out with no family at all.
He was seventeen now, and his chances of finding a home were dwindling even more than mine were. I was a year younger. I probably wouldn't get another chance at a home again. I couldn't just leave him. I couldn't.
"Bree, you won't get another chance like this." Mr. Pence is trying to convince me. He's got his mustache all scrunched up as if he refused to let me throw my life away on a 'delinquent like Harken.' But it was Harken who found me when I was huddled scared in my room years ago, and it was him who'd punched Matt Nert in the face when he told me I'd never find a home, it was Harken who did these things, not Mr. Pence.
"I won't go without him." I repeat. My head was screaming for me to give up, to just give in and say I would go despite Harken. I tried to use telepathy to contact the two waiting parents in the other room. I tried to send out my pleas for them to accept us both, for them to look past Harken's bad records and his time spent in fights, and to want me bad enough to accept him too. I was never good at telepathy.
"With someone like him, someone….a boy who's…" Mr. Pence trails off, his hand reaching to scratch at his bald head.
"Who's spent more time in fights then he has in school?" I joke, trying to ease some of this heavy tension. Mr. Pence frowns at me. "Just talk to them." I plead. "Please."
He nods and leaves the room. After the door had been closed a few minutes, I walk around his dark office, finding a seat on the long sofa against the wall. When the door opens again, I jump up, but it's only Harken, come to torture me.
"They probably aren't so great." He says softly, closing the door silently behind him.
"Yeah, well I'll never know." I snap at him, sitting back onto the couch, and looking away so I wouldn't have to see his face flick into a frown like it so often did when I snipped at him.
"Here," he says, yanking his arms from the sleeves of his leather jacket before wrapping it around my shoulders. Great, now I looked like a horrible person. I huff and meet his brilliant blue eyes that could convince me to do anything. How could someone so nice to me be so awful? How could this innocent guy be the same one who put a boy in the hospital last year for calling me homeless.
"I'm your family, Bree. Not those people. None of those people give a shit about you like I do." He's saying. He does this whenever a new family comes. He thinks I would leave him, go off and live life without him, and maybe I would if not for his convincing smile.
"Tell Harken," says, the door swinging open suddenly and making me jump. He looks to Harken, and rolls his eyes in a 'of course you're here' sort of way. "Tell Harken that he can pack his bags." Mr. Pence finishes, looking at me, and closing the door again. I look to Harken quickly, my eyes wide and frantic. I'd never actually considered that he wouldn't want to go with me to a new life, that he would rather stay here. But after a long second of staring at my face, he slips a smile onto his own, and brushes the blond hair from my eyes.
"Think they'll have cable?" He grins. I let a burst of laughter escape from me. He wasn't event that funny, but the thought of getting out of here was making me giddy.