A/N: Wow, one review over the magic number! I'm gonna go out on a limb here and make the next magic number 130. If it doesn't look like we're gonna make it, I will post anyway but I want to see how close we get! Things are starting to move along now, so expect more of Christian's past to be uncovered! Enjoy!
I really like living with Grace and Carrick and Lliot, they teach me so many things. I can play the piano alone now, and Grace likes to sit on the couch and listens to me play. I can write better now too, and Grace corrects me every time I do it wrong. Lliot watches television with me and teaches me other games like soccer but are called baseball and football. I must have gotten bigger because I can hop on the swing by myself now, and make it move by myself too. I don't know how long it's been, but Grace flips the calendar like five or six times. I really love them, but they love Lliot more. I don't use words, and they just talk like I'm not there. Sometimes I sit through dinner and no one looks at me. I don't even use my book at dinner because I don't want it to get dirty. I spill my milk and juice a lot because sometimes Lliot laughs loud or something makes a loud noise and I spill it or it falls because my arm hits it. I don't make tears over it anymore because Grace said accidents happen but none of them make as many accidents happen as I do. Things spill because I spill them, things fall because I drop them, things break because I touch them. I dropped Grace's phone when she was showing me a picture and it fell and it broke the screen. Grace wasn't mad, or happy, she didn't really say anything about. She had a new one the next day though, so I didn't feel sad anymore. I broke a cup at dinner and Carrick asked Ms. Touhey to clean it up but no one else said anything.
At night I have dreams about sticky green rugs and Mean and Mommy and Blankie and Car and fires and screaming and crying. Mean is always hitting me and Mommy and she's dead and I'm dying. Grace explained to me what death was when I saw a dead bird by the park. I knew what she really meant, and I knew where my Mommy was then. She was with the bird. I wake up from those dreams and the screaming and crying I hear is actually me and the light is on and Grace or Carrick is in my room. They don't know what to do because I can't let them touch me but they want to and I just can't stop screaming. I can taste the peas and smell the light sticks and everything just makes me sick at night. I hate night time. They just sit there and look at me and they look tired and sad and I hate that I make them that way.
Sometimes at night I can't sleep and I don't know what to do so I go in the room with the piano and play music really quiet. Grace comes out and listens for a minute and then I put my hands down and stair at the floor. She's never mad though, sometimes she just goes back to bed or sometimes she comes to sit with me and listens to me play. I don't know how to read time yet so Lliot tells me what time it is and day of the week but at night when he sleeps I can't tell. I have to stay with Ms. Touhey most days though because Lliot goes to school and Grace and Carrick go to work so i just draw and play piano. Ms. Touhey makes me sandwiches and soup and I watch television but I like when Lliot comes home so he can tell me more about school.
My heart feels sad a lot, and when Grace brings me to the hospital and the doctor they talk to me and try to get me to tell them how I'm feeling. I don't use words but I draw pictures and the more they ask the more I dig the crayon into the paper. Grace tells me I'm frustrated and angry and she wants to help but I need to let her. I just stare at her and than stare at the floor. The lady doctor tells Grace she doesn't think I understand them, and that I need more help than this. She says words like 'emotionally underdeveloped' and 'unable to communicate'. It makes Grace angry and than I never see that lady doctor again and I see a new one. The whole way home Grace tells me she knows I understand and she wishes I'd use words and show that I do. I just stare out the window when she talks because I just can't. I want to tell her I can't talk and I never will. I have nothing to say.
Grace tells me it's my birthday, and it's weird because I don't know what that is. She says it's the day my Mommy had me and I don't know how she knows that because she wasn't there but she said it's time for a party. When Lliot comes home from school and Carrick and Grace come home from work, two more people come who they say are Grace's Mommy and Daddy, and my grandma and grandpa. They are nice people and they bring me a box wrapped like Grace used to give me and it has trains in it, and I'm happy because the cars and ducks will have new friends. Lliot gives me a soccer ball, and Carrick and Grace buy me a weird thing with two big wheels and two small wheels called a bike and they say they will teach me how to ride it. They sing me a song and bring me a cake after dinner and Lliot tells me to blow out the candles and make a wish. I think and close my eyes and blow. I wish I wasn't sad anymore. Now I get to be five and not four.
Grace flips the calendar more times and months go by. I don't talk still, and Grace still gets mad at the doctors. Lliot and I play a lot more together and he doesn't have school anymore for now so we play in the sprinkler and pet the neighbors dog. I learn so much from them everyday and they teach me new words and what things are all the time. I like drawing pictures of the new things I learn. Lliot teaches me how to do rolls in the grass and kick really high. He tells me about this girl that he likes, and she's ten but now he's only eight. He says she's his friends sister, and she's really pretty.
I want to tell him that I want to see her, but I just stare and listen. He said he hugged her once and she has pretty teeth and a nice mouth and really nice blue eyes. She sounds nice. I don't know any girls besides Grace, Ms. Touhey, the lady doctors, and the girls from the foster house who I don't see anymore. Mommy was pretty, Grace is pretty. So is the rest of them, but I don't know if I like them like Lliot likes that girl. Am I suppose to? He really likes her because when he goes to his friend's house he wears his not dirty sneakers and clothes and winks at me before he leaves the house. He spends a lot of time there now and less time with me.
I sit in my room a lot and stare at the television because I find it boring. Grace gets upset that I don't want to go outside anymore and Carrick always takes me to the park and kicks the soccer ball with me like Lliot does when he's home. Carrick asks me questions that I can't answer without my book but I can't draw and kick the ball so I just watch the ball. "Is everything okay, little man?" I don't talk, why does he ask?
Grace plays piano with me and she teaches me more pretty songs and I play them over and over, and some of them I play because I think they are nice but I never heard them before. Grace likes when I do that, she said they are my songs and I like that because nothing is mine. Grace seems to really love me when I play the piano because Lliot says it's dumb but she loves when I do it. It makes me feel special when Grandma and Grandpa and Grace and Carrick sit on the couch and I play them the piano. I feel like they hate me sometimes, but not when I play songs.
Grace flips the calendar more and more and I feel sadder and sadder because nothing is different or better. I still feel sad and Grace and Carrick love me less and less and Lliot goes to the girls house more and more and I feel so alone.
Grace sits me and Lliot down one night and tells us that there is another little girl who might need to come live with us and be our sister. Lliot seems really happy about it but I don't look at her because it doesn't matter to me. She asks me if that's okay and my head says yes and that makes her happy. She tells us that she'll be here in a few weeks tops, and I don't know if that's soon but I hope not because they will love me even less now