I own it not.
Shawn was exhausted.
Not the kind of exhausted you get after winning a close basketball game. That was a good exhausted, it meant you got to actually do something. No Shawn was so tired that he wanted to fall down dead.
First, there was the Matthews. Eric and Mrs. Matthew had gotten to the apartment just before the police. They were the ones that answered all the questions for him. Shawn just couldn't do it again.
Then Feeny was there, again. He brought chocolate. A bad move on his part, because whenever there was chocolate in the room, Shawn had to eat it. This strange behavior was mostly Feeny's fault. When Shawn was little, maybe only here or four, he had made the mistake of going on his preschool field trip. It was a trip o the beach, so naturally, Shawn wore his bathing suit.
That was he day that Shawn learned that his father was, for lack of a better word, different.
Feeny took Shawn to his house; because Shawn had made the mistake of letting it slip that he hadn't seen his parents for days. Feeny had given him chocolate-an enormous chocolate bunny. Shawn had eaten the whole thing.
Bu it wasn't the police, or the Matthews, or even Feeny who wore Shawn out so much.
It was Turner.
Turner had come to him after everybody else had gone (Shawn had insisted that Cory went home.) He had started normally enough, trying to talk about anything else except, well, the obvious subject.
Then Turner laid a hand across Shawn's back, sending spasms of pain down Shawn's spine and making Shawn tear away from Turner's grasp.
Turner looked surprised-even hurt-for a moment, then, more gently, he put a hand back across the boy's shoulder's lowering it down in a way that only caused the boy to wince.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked quietly. Both knew what he was talking about. They were back to reality. Back to Shawn's dad.
"I didn't want you to worry." Shawn mumbled, though the excuse sounded hollow even to his ears.
Turner gently squeezed Shawn to him, careful not to upset any of the numerous cuts and bruises. "But I do worry about you." Jonathan said quietly. He bent forward and kissed the top of Shawn's head. A fatherly gesture that Shawn had only experienced a handful of times in all his years. "Which is why maybe..." his voice trailed off.
Shawn didn't want to breathe. He didn't dare to hope that maybe, just maybe, he could be adopted once and for all. And yet, he still wanted to keep that hope. He needed to hold onto that dream of maybe.
"Maybe you could stay here. Forever. Maybe, if you want to, you'd like to be adopted. By me."
That was what made Shawn so exhausted. He had always had the insane wish that maybe Turner would adopt him. That maybe he could belong somewhere. Maybe. Maybe.
So what did Shawn say?
What do you think?
I think he said no.
Well, I'm not goning to tell you, 'cause you have to review first.
