"Hannah!" Haley screeches in my ear "Hannah, wake up! You know there's no prince here sleeping beauty!" I groan and Haley shakes the bed causing me to jolt from my dreams.
"Okay, I'm up! Now stop screaming before we get in trouble. You know we're on the first floor, we'll get in trouble if anyone hears us." I croak sleepily throwing my legs over the side of my bed.
I walk over to Haley and I's small closet and shuffle through our clothes before finding a Panic! At The Disco t-shirt and a pair of black skinny jeans. Walking toward the bathroom, ready for a shower, Nolan begins to cry.
"Hey Haley!" I yell out "Nolan's crying, can you get him? I have to shower." I look back to see Haley making her way across our small room, towards Nolan's crib. I close the door knowing he's fine.
I smile as I turn on the shower so the water can heat up. Nolan was supposed to go into the fostering system because Miss Fay, the owner of the orphanage, didn't have time for a baby. Haley and I, feeling we could relate to his story, decided to take him in.
You see Haley and I were only two when we were left sitting on the steps of London's Home for Orphaned Children. We were abandoned just like Nolan, we just wanted to give him a better life. From what I've heard kids in the foster system don't say in one house for more than a year. Nolan being in that from the time he was only, about eight months. Well his life would be quite a mess in that situation.
After showering I get dressed thinking back over the month we've taken care of Nolan. It's definitely been a challenge, but we've made it this far. Haley's definitely been the more motherly figure, but we both love him as if he was our own son.
When I'm finished changing I plug in my flat iron and let it heat up as I get ready. When I'm done I pack up my things to make room for Haley. Heading toward the door there's a hurried knock. I swing the door open and find Haley, who blabbers out that she really has to pee and pushes me aside. I laugh at her actions and walk toward Nolan who sits happily on the floor.
I sit down next to Nolan and he gurgle joyfully as he chews on one of the large plastic keys on his key ring. I give a small laugh while stroking his hair, then kiss his head. Our lives aren't perfect, in fact there far from it, but we make the best of our situation. As I watch over Nolan, to make sure his doesn't kill himself, I hear a loud click from the hallway. I peek my head out of our room for a few seconds, as the sound signals the turning on of our really old speaker system.
"Girls!" The speaker blares " Your protocol for today is the same, only difference is we have a few couples coming in. Boys…" I close the door and resume looking over Nolan as Miss Fay goes on about the boys.
I trot over to Nolan, as he has made his way toward some of our textbooks and pick him up. He whines in dismay as his plastic keys hit the ground with a dull thud. I bend over to pick them up as Haley exits the bathroom, wearing a black and white checkered flannel and some skinny jeans.
"Your on diaper duty today." Haley says as she gathers Nolan's toys up. I sigh and carry Nolan over to the changing table.I change his diaper and then grab him some new clothes.
"Miss Fay said there's a few couples coming in today, so we're bound to see someone, right?" I say pulling Nolan's pants over his chubby legs.
"Really? Yeah I guess we'd see someone. If she said a few than that's more than we've had in more than a year!" Haley says joyfully as I shimmy Nolan's shirt down his pudgy body.
When Nolan's changed we head down to the mess hall for breakfast. I walk over to the breakfast line to get our tray, as Haley gets Nolan set up in his high chair. After grabbing our tray I walk back to our table, which is located in the back, right corner of the room.
It's so different in the orphanage now, new rules have been past and nothing's the same. Miss Fay is struggling right now, because it's been over a year since the last adoption. We get most of our money for adoption and donations, but not many people have the heart to donate.
So one of the new rules is: Two kids, one tray of food. Haley and I have the only exception, Nolan. But he just gets bottles, not real food. Everyone worries what will happen if we have an odd number of kids. Would someone have to go hungry? Surely not, right? If going hungry was the case, Haley and I decided we would gladly share with anyone who needed it. All hopes are that it doesn't come to that though.
Nolan sucks happily on his bottle as Haley and I split our food.
Renson, one of the older boys in the orphanage, passes out everyone chores lists for today. When he slips the off-white paper onto our table, there's nothing out of the usual. Other than the bold red words that read: Adoption Meeting, 9:43.
"Haley." I breath "Haley! We have an adoption meeting!" I screech flapping the paper around.
"We do?" She questions grabbing my hands to see the paper. "We do!" Haley yelps in confirmation.We both squeal like hugging and wiggling around in our seats.
"Hann." Haley says quietly once we've settled down. "Hann… We could finally have a family, a real family." Her voice cracks with emotion.
My heart breaks seeing Haley like this, vulnerable. She's always so strong and brave. I know how much it hurts knowing your not wanted. But Haley's always been so tough, almost like it didn't faze her. Now, now we could be part of a real family, we could finally be wanted.
As we finish our food we look over the rest of our slightly shifted schedule. Check rooms at 8:00, clean up the meeting rooms and waiting room at 8:35, take out the trash by 9:00. Nothing to hard or time consuming. At 9:15 we can start getting ready for our meeting, then at 9:40 we head downstairs to wait for the couple.
A few other girls and guys are seeing the couple so we won't get into the room until about 10:00, but that's no big deal as the next thing on our schedule doesn't have to be done until 10:45. All we have left to do at this point to take out the trash, and it's Haley's turn for that so I'm taking Nolan upstairs to start getting ready.
I change him into a shirt with a tie printed on it and a pair of black pants. After getting Nolan changed I lay him down in his crib so I can pick out something a little nicer than what I have on. Looking through the closet I find nothing, all I have are band t-shirts and fandom based sweatshirts. I sigh and grab a pair of my not ripped black skinny jeans, this is the least I can do.
As I'm changing I hear the door open and the closet door slide open, Haley must be back and finding something to change into. I walk out of the bathroom and find Haley nowhere in the room. I walk hesitantly toward the closet.
"Rawr!" Lillian screams jumping out of. The closet at me. I yelp in surprise and stumble backward.
"Bloody He-" I cut myself off and begin to laugh. "You scared me to death Lillian!"
Lillian is a girl who hasn't been here very long, only about four or five months. She was dropped off because her parents couldn't "deal with her any more." You see Lillian has ADHD and Dyslexia. Her parents couldn't pay for medication and she was always getting into trouble. Both of her parents worked all day and she was to much trouble to keep alone all day.
"Head back to your room silly! You have to get ready for later and finish all your chores." I tell her as she hugs my legs.
"Okie Dokie!" She squeals and runs out of the room as Haley enters. Haley laughs and heads over toward Nolan.
"You ready?" She asks picking up Nolan and placing him on her hip.
"I think so." I reply brushing a hand through my hair. With that we head downstairs and join the small line of kids waiting to be interviewed. The line inches up one by one. And then we were next.
"Ok." I sigh brushing down my shirt. We're next in line to visit a couple who is looking to adopt. We're next, oh gosh we're next. I bounce lightly from foot to foot trying to get my nerves out. My hands are shaking just slightly, showing off my anxiety.
"Hann, it's fine. Calm down, there's nothing to be worried about." Haley says trying to calm me, by my nerves are only calmed slightly by Haley's words.
"Well it was very nice to meet you, I think we only have one more group so we'll be thinking about it." Says a very posh voice as the door opens and a guy, who I'm pretty sure is named Charlie, walks out.
The voice belongs to a tall man with curly brown hair, and chocolate colored eyes. He calls us into the room, where we are greeted by a bubbly man with raven hair and icy blue eyes.
"Hi!" The raven haired man says quickly "I'm Phil and this is Dan." He said pointing to the other guy and leading us to some comfy seats.
"We just have to ask a few questions, about your health and stuff." Dan says awkwardly.
"Okay ask away then." Haley says while Nolan grabs at her hair.
"First, do either, well, do any of you have any have any allergies? " Dan asks, we both shake our heads and Nolan imitates us.
Dan and Phil both laugh as Nolan shakes his head back and forth lightly. I smile as Nolan reaches out for Phil, who is sitting just across from him. He's always been friendly with strangers, I always hope he'll grow up as happy as he is now.
"Do either of you have depression, anxiety, or any other mental health conditions?" Phil asks with Nolan sat gently on his lap.
I look nervously over at Haley. The truth is I haven't been diagnosed with anxiety, but it's fairly obvious that I have it. It's better than it used to be, I wouldn't leave our little room for days at a time, now I rarely freak out for more than an hour.
"Well, I um, haven't been diagnosed with anything, but I think I might have anxiety of some sort." I say ringing my fingers as I do.
Dan looks and Phil, Phil looks at Dan. They both nod and continue asking questions.
"How old is this little guy?" Dan asks poking Nolan's belly as he does. Nolan laughs gleefully.
"He's around eight months, we don't know his real birth date but we went with the day he was left here." I reply hesitantly.
"So, how long have you lived here?" Phil asks while holding Nolan's small, chubby hands.
"We've been here for thirteen years, drop off when we were both two." Haley replies with a sad smile. Thirteen wasted years here, years of potential just gone. I huff quietly and answer more questions.
They ask if we were biological twin, if Nolan was our biological son, if we had full custody over him, if we had proper education, and if we had any friends here. Most questions were easy to answer, some sorta hard. Like the friends question, we only know of a few people here. Kids tend to keep to themselves, mind their own business. We also tend to keep busy to avoid each other.
After the questions the lead us from the room and told Miss. Fay that they would be back in a few days with an answer. As they left Nolan began to whimper and make little grabby hands. And with some strange assurance, I held him close.
"Don't worry Nolly. They'll be back, and we can stay with them after that." I cooed at him, knowing in the back of my mind, we most likely wouldn't be picked.