End of Innocence v2.0

By Dixxy

Chapter Seven: A Friend in Need is a Friend in Deed

After getting my daughter to sleep, I finally made it to the Teen Crisis Center. It was a brick building with a nice, green lawn out front and a friendly looking sign. Windows were lined with poorly drawn pictures, most likely children born to teen parents much like my own daughter.

I walked inside to find a well-furnished lobby that included a desk, several waiting chairs, and tables lined with magazines and books. Behind a tall desk sat a woman with curly purple hair and a thick pair of glasses that kept falling to her nose. She was writing something, giving a bored sigh as she did.

I stepped up to the desk and took in a deep breath. "Um. . . excuse me?" I asked.

The woman slowly looked up at me. "Hello?" she asked.

"Yes. . . um . . . I need a place to stay. . ."

"Then you've come to the right place," she said. "Welcome to the Teen Crisis Center."

"I gathered that much. . . now that I'm here, what am I supposed to do?" I asked.

"Well, explain your situation to me," she said.

I blushed. I didn't want to give the full set of details to this woman. "What do you mean by that?"

"Are you a single parents or is the mother around somewhere?" she asked.

"Oh!" I said. "I'm single. Her mother. . . left," I said.

"Deceased?"

"Abandoned."

"Ah," she said, leaning back in her chair. "Your case is very unusual . . . Mr. . ."

"My name is Cye Mouri," I said. "Can you help me?"

"It's my job to help you," she said. She turned her chair to a small computer and started to type. She bit her lip. "Most of our rooms with cribs are occupied."

"Are there any available?" I asked.

"Yes, a room with two beds and a crib. One of the beds is already taken, though," she said. She looked at me with curiosity. "Do you want that room anyways?"

I bit my lip. The idea that someone else was already there made me nervous. What if it was some sort of a drug addict or gang member? Still, it didn't look like I had much of a choice. "I'll have to take that one," I said. The woman gave me a key, a set of instructions on where the room was, and sent me down to the room.

I entered the room and found it dark. Whoever I was sharing with wasn't in at the time. I flicked the light on to see a comfortable looking room. There were two beds (one of each side of the room), a few chairs, and a crib in one corner. I sighed in relief, walking over to put my daughter in it.

Satisfied that she was comfortable, I went over one of the chairs to sit down and read over my daughter's birth records. There was so much I had to learn about her, and I needed to learn it as soon as I could. What if she had some sort of an allergy that they'd already discovered? What if she had any special medical conditions?

By the time I got through the first page of information, my eyes were beginning to droop. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me. I yawned, wanting to sleep. But I was afraid that something would happen to the baby while I was unconscious.

I was vaguely aware of the sound of a door opening. I looked over to see that the door was opening. I blinked, yawning tiredly. As I yawned, my eyes automatically closed and thereby prevented me from seeing who was coming into the room.

"Cye?"

I opened my eyes, blinked, and realized who was in the room with me. The tall, lanky form of the artist who'd saved my sanity was staring at me through wide, shock-filled eyes. "Kojiro? What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here? What are YOU doing here?"

"I asked first!" I interjected.

Kojiro kicked the door behind him closed and sat in the other chair. "My stepfather is a damned bastard, that's why I'm here."

"What did he do?" I asked, interested in hearing about someone ELSE'S problems for a change.

"He and my mom got into a fight the night I left. She stormed out and he started to drink. Well, he got really drunk, and he started talking about how I was the reason they were always getting into fights," said Kojiro, looking down at the floor. "He started beating me." Kojiro looked up at me, wiping away a few tears with the back of his arm. "Cye. . . I was scared. I, I almost went to stay with you guys at Mia's house, but there's already so many people here. I, I didn't know where to do, so I just ran away, and here I am."

I extended an arm and rested a hand on Kojiro's shoulder. "It's all right. You're away from him now. He can't get to you here," I said. Kojiro nodded glumly, looking very hurt and stressed. "How long have you been here?"

"Got here the day after I ran away," he said. "Everyone here has been really nice, but I don't want to be here. I want to be in a more stable environment. There are all sorts of drug addicts and suicidal freaks around here. . . I just want someplace NORMAL to stay. But I don't have any money, and I don't know where to even begin looking for a job." Kojiro sighed heavily, leaning back into his chair. "I feel like my life is ruined."

"I hear you loud and clear," I mumbled.

Kojiro sat up again, looking at me curiously. "How so, Cye?" he asked. He raised an eyebrow. "Now that we know my sob story, why are you here? Sure, you didn't have a normal environment back at Mia's, but it was a hell of a lot better than this place. Why are you here?"

I was about to say something when I heard the baby start to wake up again. Kojiro heard it too, his eyes suddenly dilating to a size I wasn't sure was humanly possible. He looked over at the crib, then at me. I lowered my head in shame. "Sheila, left, because, she got pregnant."

"Oh, Cye," said Kojiro, looking at me with concern. "Is that. . ."

"Yes," I said, getting up. I walked over to where the baby was beginning to wake up. She started to cry, screaming for something. I picked her up, trying to calm her down again. I held her against me, gently rubbing her back as she continued to scream.

Kojiro rushed over to me. "Cye. . . have you checked the baby's diaper or fed . . . they baby recently?" he asked.

"I fed her on my way down here," I said.

"C'mon, let's get to the nursery so we can get this little one changed and fed again," said Kojiro.

"All right," I said, letting Kojiro take my hand and lead me out of the room.

While we were in the nursery, one of the staff showed me how to change a diaper. The diaper was VERY soiled, and I was yelled at for letting my daughter go so long without a change. I tried to explain my situation to the woman, but I couldn't get so much as two words out. Kojiro watched silently, trying to evaluate my situation.

Once the baby was in a new diaper (and for that matter, bathed), I was bottle feeding her from a rocking chair. Kojiro was sitting next to me in silence, watching the baby drink. I was afraid of what he was going to say when he finally did decide to speak up. I didn't mind getting the tongue lashing from the staff member. It was my friend I was afraid of getting yelled at.

"So, tell me exactly WHAT happened," said Kojiro after several minutes of silence.

"Last night I went out for a walk and ran into Sheila. She told me what happened, and told me she was going to put the baby in the orphanage," I said. "I stopped her and told her I'd take care of the baby. But. . . Kojiro, I don't know anything about babies. If you listened to enough of what that woman said then you know it."

"So you just found out she even got pregnant last night?" said Kojiro. I nodded. "That's actually a half decent argument on why you don't have a damned clue at what you're doing, though you seem to be doing all right with feeding her."

"A woman on the bus I took down here showed me how to bottle feed," I said. "But there's so much I DON'T know about this, Kojiro. I'm not READY to be a father."

"Well, ready or not, here she is," said Kojiro. He smiled, looking down at my daughter. "She sure is a cutie."

I blushed. "Thank you," I said, unsure of what else to say.

"No, I'm serious. She looks so peaceful and content there, just sucking on the bottle and lounging in your arms," said Kojiro, laughing lightly. "How old is she?"
"About a week. Sheila must have been in the hospital a few days with the baby or something," I said.

"Well, they usually are, aren't they?" said Kojiro.

"And you're the one that wanted to open the daycare center," I mumbled.

"Hey! That was just a thought, and besides, I HAVEN'T LEARNED ANY OF THAT STUFF YET!"

"Shh!" I said. "You're going to startle one of the babies that way!" I said, taking the bottle out of my daughter's mouth.

"Okay, I'll shut up," said Kojiro, holding his hands up in defense. "Well, if you ask me, the logical thing for us to do now is to stick together."
"Stick together?" I said.

"If you and I put our heads and our wallets together, we can probably survive in this crazy world," said Kojiro. "Maybe we could even finish high school between taking care of the squirt and whatever jobs we end up getting."

"You want to help me raise the baby?" I asked.

"Hey, what are friends for?" said Kojiro, giving me a smile. "It might be fun to have a baby around."

"Kojiro, she isn't a toy- she's a baby," I said.

"Speaking of the baby, does she have a name yet?"

"Well. . . no," I said, looking back at her. "I've been so. . . I don't know, frustrated and busy, I haven't thought of one yet."

"Well why don't you think of one now?" said Kojiro. "There are a lot of nice names out there. Makato, Umi, Ami, Hikaru-"

"I want to give her a more. . . not oriental name," I said. "She isn't oriental- she's Caucasian like I am."

"What's wrong with that?" asked Kojiro.

"Nothing, I just want her to have a name that would fit in well if I ever took her back to England," I said. "Something my mother would aprove of."

"Then how did you end up with a name like 'Cye'?" asked Kojiro.

"Got me," I said. "Do they have any baby name books here?"

"I think so, let me go look for one," said Kojiro, getting up. "You stay here, all right?"

"All right," I said. What else did I have to do? I watched as Kojiro left the nursery, then went back to gently rocking myself and my daughter back and fourth in the rocking chair. What now?

Kojiro returned quickly, holding two baby name dictionaries. The two of us started to leaf through them, asking each other advice on what to name the baby.

"What about Kimberly?"

"How's about Sara?"

"No, no, Lindsey."

"Leslie?"

"Margaret?"

"Or how about Amber?"

"Yeah, but you haven't heard Sharmine!"

I was just about to give up, opening up the dictionary in my hand to one more random page. I started to read through the names, getting bored with the whole ordeal of naming my child. ". . . Arden, Ardis, Aretha, Argene, Aria, Ariadne, Ariana, Ariel. . ." I rambled. Then, I paused, going back to the last name I'd said. "Ariel."

"Arial?" asked Kojiro. "You mean something pertaining to aerodynamics or airplanes-"

"No!" I said. "It's a name. There's an animated film called The Little Mermaid that has a mermaid named Ariel in it. I always thought it was a really pretty name myself."

"Well, if it's a name you like, then name her Ariel," said Kojiro.

"Are you sure?"

"Does it look like she's protesting?"

I looked down at the baby, seeing that she was asleep, her mouth hanging slightly open. I looked over at Kojiro through a curious eye, who just nodded. "Well. . . I don't know. . . I mean, she's going to have that name for the rest of her life. . ."

"Trust yourself here, Cye," said Kojiro. "Think real hard. It's not like your naming her something weird or whacked out like. . . oh, I don't know, some hard to pronounce thing."

I still wasn't sure about the name until the baby began to stir. I braced myself for another crying fit that would've taken all I had to calm her down. But no such fit came. Instead, she opened her eyes.

I pulled my child closer to me, looking into her eyes as she looked into mine. There, staring right back at me, were two sea green pools not at all unlike mine. My eyes began to water at the sight, and before long, I felt salty tears pour down my cheeks. "She's got my eyes."

Kojiro placed a hand on my shoulder, looking down at the tiny girl. "You're going to make a great dad, Cye," he said. "She knows who you are and she wants to be your friend, I think."

I looked up at Kojiro through reddened eyes, raising one arms high enough for me to wipe my eyes on the shoulder of my shirt. "Do you think Ariel is a good name?"
"I think it's a great name," he said. "Congratulations, Cye. You're a dad."

I looked at Kojiro and weakly smiled.