Dicky was the first one to wake up the next morning. He lay in his bed, just snoozing for about five minutes, before he opened his eyes.
At first he felt confused. The events of yesterday hadn't reached his morning mind yet. Why was he in a tiny room? Why was Dawn in there? Looking out the window, he realized he wasn't anywhere near home.
First a few minutes later, it hit him that they were in Corinne's house. He felt his eyes tearing up.
Ricky rolled over, and slowly sat up in his bed. He looked over at Dicky, and when he noticed Dicky's eyes, his got watery too.
"Should we wake the others", Ricky whispered.
Dicky nodded. He got out of bed, and saw Nicky laying on left, with his back towards him. Dicky tapped his shoulder. Nicky seemed to be in a light sleep, as he sleepily turned his head immediately.
On the other side of the room (which was only one meter away from the youngest quads), Ricky had waken Dawn up, and she sat in her bed, resting on her arms.
The room was quiet for a minute, before the quads heard steps in the hallway. The creaky door slowly opened, and Corinne peeped in.
"Good morning, quads" She talked quietly, and tip-toed into the room, closing the door behind her.
"Good morning"
Dicky and Ricky wiped their eyes.
"I was just waiting for you to wake up. I have some news" In spite of the situation, Corinne seemed quite excited. "We've found families that would like to take care of you"
Nicky, Dicky and Dawn lit up, happy to hear some good in the moment. They smiled at each other, and whispered something.
Ricky however, didn't join the quiet celebration. His eyes were tearing up again, and he looked concerned.
"Did... did you just say families?"
The other quads picked up on it too, and their little celebration ended as fast as it had started. Corinne nodded. First at this point she processed what was going to happen to them.
"Four families have volunteered to take care of you, but each of them could just take care of one child"
The quads looked at each other, tears quietly streaming down their faces.
"Are we going to different families?" Dawn already knew the answer, but she felt that she needed it told to her anyway.
"Unfortunately... yes", Corinne informed them. "One of the families could welcome their foster kid as early as today at noon"
"Wh-... which one of us?" Nicky sounded nervous.
Corinne's eyes fell on the oldest quad.
"Dawn"
A couple of hours after getting to know Dawn was leaving, the quads stood on the lawn outside the house. Next to them, Corinne sat in her car, waiting for Dawn to finish her goodbyes, so she could drive her to the airport, and fly to Florida with her. She understood how awfully hard this was for them, but there was no other solution. She couldn't take care of them for more than a couple of days, and no family would volunteer to take care of more than one, let alone all four.
"I can't believe this is happening" Dawn sniffed, and wiped away a tear with her teal sleeve. "I mean, you guys have caused me so much trouble and anger, but-" She sobbed. "But I never wanted to leave you"
The boys, also crying their eyes out, nodded agreeing.
"How could things go this wrong?", Nicky asked.
The other three shrugged. Corinne peeped her head out the car window, and the quads turned to her.
"Dawn... we have to go now. The family are expecting to see you in four hours"
Dawn turned back to her brothers.
"Quad hug"
The four kids came together to a big hug. Sobbing, they hugged each other harder than ever.
"I love you guys", Dawn cried.
"We love you too"
They let go. Dawn grabbed the only luggage she had (her backpack), and turned around to get into the backseat of the car. She didn't feel like sitting in front. Talking to anyone except her brothers was the last thing she wanted to do.
As Corinne started the car, and slowly drove away, Dawn look at her brothers. They sobbingly waved to each other, all the way until Corinne turned to the right. For all Dawn knew, that could have been the last time she saw Nicky, Ricky and Dicky. She just wanted to get right back to them, and never ever leave again. That was the only thing she could think for the entire car ride to Denver, and on the flight to Florida.
Corinne had looked over the entire country to find families, and none of the ones volunteering lived anywhere close to Colorado. Dawn was going to a family called the Rallison's. She knew little about the family, and all Corinne had let on was that they lived in St. Petersburg, and had two kids.
Almost four hours after Dawn last saw her brothers, the taxi Corinne had called pulled up to a house. Dawn climbed out of the taxi as Corinne payed. They had pulled up to a long line of terraced houses.
They were all painted white, and had black roofs. A tiny four-step staircase led up to each black, windowed door. Above the doors, a number plate was hanging, telling you which house was which.
"Thanks for the ride"
Corinne caught up with Dawn as the taxi drove away.
"Are you ready to meet your foster family?"
Dawn nodded, although she wasn't 100 percent sure. Corinne started leading her right, towards the end of the road.
"The Rallison's live in number 26"
Dawn didn't answer. They continued walking up the street, until they reached the right house. There were multiple different flowers on the window sill, and a little lantern hung beside the door.
Corinne got up the steps and tapped on the door three times. Each hit made a deep knocking sound. Footsteps could be heard from the inside, and very soon the door was opened by a woman.
The woman looked like she was around 40, as her face had some wrinkles here and there. She had scrawny, dark blonde hair, which straightly reached her shoulders.
"Oh, hi. You must be Dawn" She smiled, trying to seem welcoming as she pushed the door fully open. Dawn could now see that she was wearing a grey knitted sweater, and a pair of jeans.
Dawn just nodded, and stepped into the house. The inside was quite modern, and the walls were painted light grey. The woman's shirt matched them perfectly. Right in front of the hall, there was a hallway, which seemed to lead into the living room. Dawn could see a man, and two children sitting on the couch. She could immediately assume they were the woman's family.
"I'm sorry for the mess. We've been cleaning for an hour, but some things just won't go away"
Dawn didn't understand what that lady meant. Compared to the Harper house, this place shone as diamonds. The woman reached out her hand towards Dawn.
"I'm Scarlette"
Dawn hesitantly took her hand, and shook it. Scarlette's hand was dry, and gave her a somewhat boring vibe.
"And this is my family", Scarlette continued talking as she led Dawn into the living room where the other three were waiting.
There was a smiling, tall man, sitting in the middle of the couch. He had happy, green eyes, and a full head of curly, brown hair. He felt more like a funny person than Scarlette. Considering he was wearing sweatpants on such an occasion, she concluded he wasn't really a 'formal man'. She didn't care about that. It wasn't like Tom was any better.
On the right side of the man, a little girl was sitting. She couldn't be much younger than Dawn, but she was definitely not older than her. The girl had her mother's hair color, and dad's hair texture. It was a pretty nice mix, and it perfectly fitted her blue eyes. She wore a white t-shirt with cherries on it, and a skirt with suspenders. One of the suspenders wasn't put on though.
The little boy on the other side of the man basically looked like her twin, but younger. He couldn't be older than ten, as he had a child-looking face, and wore something that kind of looked like one of Nicky's shirts. But for all she knew, he could just as well be a child-at-heart.
Scarlette sat down on the other side of the little girl.
"Meet your new family"
Dawn didn't like how she said 'new family'. It was as if she was going to stay there forever.
"This is my husband, Michael"
The tall man smiled and waved.
"And these are our children. Wynter, she's eleven, and Kevin is eight"
The kids smiled too, but something felt a little off. Sitting there on the couch, smiling, the family looked pretty picture-perfect, but still something felt a little wrong.
Dawn noticed it a second later. The kids' smiles looked forced, and their eyes looked scared. Were they scared of her? Maybe they were just shy. Yeah... that had to be the case.
But it was not...
Being shy was not even close to the real situation.
"Hi... I'm Dawn. I'm twelve, but you probably already know that" Dawn had never felt so quiet and sad while presenting herself.
Scarlette stood up from the couch.
"Wynter, Kevin, why don't you show Dawn where she'll sleep?"
The two children immediately stood up from the couch.
"Yes mom" the younger boy, Kevin, said. He didn't sound like he was happy saying it. And it felt forced. Forced to please Scarlette.
"Of course" The girl, Wynter, did the same.
They walked up to Dawn, and started leading her through the short hallway. As they turned in the hall to go up the stairs, Wynter whispered:
"You do not want to be here"
