Team Foster-Secen: I'm so glad you like her! It's always good to know that my characters are not awful lollll. Thank you so much for sticking with this fic - it means so much that people like it enough to keep coming back :)))))))))))
Iliveinalibrary: YOU ARE AWESOME! I literally got five emails in a row just for you following, favoriting and commenting on this story and me and I LOVED IT! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT - I literally cannot tell you how much this means to me:) Thanks for sticking with this!
Team Foster-Secen: Yayyyyyyy! Two comments on one chapter is literally a record XD Thank you! In response to your question, no, everything is not ok, but it might be getting better XD I have a book that I am trying to write, another fanfic I am trying to start, and ANOTHER fanfic that it has been requested for me to write but I haven't gotten to yet as well as this one XDXDXD And my writing has felt like crap recently which is always encouraging XD. But I started writing a totally different story to get past stupid writer's block and I think it worked. Maybe. Thanks for asking :) I love talking about myself way too much XD
Aunt Amy was absolutely silent as she carried Keala to the car, loaded her into her car seat, and got into the driver's seat. Aeron was left standing in the museum parking lot, staring at the car. She hadn't spoken a word to him. She hadn't even looked at him. His Aunt Amy was the one person in the world who made him feel like he belonged with their family, made him feel not completely irrelevant to his extended family's life. And now even she was ignoring him. Now even she had given up on him. He was a failure. He never should've been born. He wished he'd never…
The tears came hot and fast. He broke down like a little kid, sobbing uncontrollably as he dropped to his knees in the middle of the museum parking lot. Around him, neon lights shone and horns blared and traffic went on and families drove home and couples laughed together in restaurants, happy and at peace and he was like an island in the middle, surrounded by life but unable to experience it. He was lost, limping alone on a journey with no happy ending… He pulled his arms around his head, hiding his face from the world that only cared to judge him. The slam of a car door near him interrupted his miserable train of thought, and he looked up to see his Aunt Amy standing a few feet away from him with the most lost, sad expression he'd ever seen. She bent down and picked him up like a little kid, hugging him close to her and murmuring comforting words as he sobbed on her shoulder. He'd thought he was too big to be picked up like this, but Amy was strong and wouldn't have put him down for the world. He'd believed that he was too big to be comforted like this, but he was wrong. He was wrong.
"Take me home with you," he cried. "Don't take me to Beni's yet. I want to come with you." He sounded pitiful, and he knew it, and he was ashamed of himself. But Amy wasn't, and she told him that he could stay with her as long as she wanted, and carried him back to the car, and Aeron's tears gradually became tears of exhausted relief instead of emotional pain. He did not feel hope yet - but that would come. With careful nurturing and long rest and emotional security, he would heal, slowly but surely.
But it was not to be.
Amy pulled out of the parking space and drove through the dark parking lot. Aeron heard a dull thunk, like the sound of wood against metal. For a second all was silent. Then an explosion lit up the corners of Aeron's sinking consciousness. Everything went black.