Wow. I really don't know where this came from. Initially this was supposed to be the last part of another Kyle story I had written, but I shelved it and went with something else. So here it is unbetae'd or rewritten you are getting it as is. Please enjoy and I would love to hear and thoughts. I own nothing and mean no harm.
The transition from teenager to adult was not at all what he thought it was going to be. One morning he woke up and technically, legally, he was an adult; but in his head and his heart nothing felt different.
"Good morning birthday boy."
From the door Nicole stood with a tray stacked high with pancakes.
"Good morning."
He smiled from his desk and stood. There had been little sleep for him last night; unexpected nerves had kept him up.
"I thought you might like something a little special this morning."
Standing he took the breakfast tray and set it lightly on his desk. Nicole pulled over another chair and patted the chair next to her.
"I know there are lots of plans for your special day, but I wanted this time just for us."
Grinning, feeling better than he had since the sun had risen, he took the seat and dug into the plate Nicole set before him.
They chatted over their meal, sharing their favorite memories and silly moments.
"I can't believe you're eighteen."
There were tears in Nicole's eyes, "what's wrong?"
Birthdays were a rite of passage, one that marked growth and change, but he had never thought that they could be sad.
Nicole waved her hand, giving him a watery smile, he handed her the unused napkin that still sat on the tray.
"It's nothing, really, I'm a Mom and you're growing older, and I am allowed to be emotional."
Understanding, he leaned to his left and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, this was another thing he had discovered; people, women in particular, got sentimental about the funniest things.
"So what big plans do you have today?"
The house was beginning to wake up, the stomping feet and shouts trickled down into his room, "I'm not sure."
"Well I'm sure that whatever goes on it'll be a special day for you."
A special day, that's what birthdays were, a person's one day a year that they can be special. It's perhaps because this day was so special that he was feeling so down. Everyone wanted to celebrate his special day, everyone except someone who was special to him than he had ever realized.
Perhaps he had been projecting his thoughts, he was pretty sure he could do it if he tried hard enough, Nicole squeezed his hand, "you know I'm sure Jessi wishes she could be here."
At the mention of her name his stomach twisted, "yes, of course she would," he doubted it though. Jessi had been gone eight weeks three days and thirteen hours and he hadn't heard from her once. So no, he didn't think Jessi wishes she was anywhere else.
After all she had been the one to leave, the one to slip away without warning or a proper goodbye; she had simply left him.
"Your day is going to be wonderful," Nicole had stood, and he automatically followed taking her hug and offering to clean up after their impromptu meal.
"Absolutely not, no cleaning no fixing, nothing, it's your day," and before he could protest, ask her to stay, she was gone.
No one would have ever called him a loner, he was as comfortable with others as he was with himself, but he had never actively put himself into one situation over another.
Not anymore; he craved the presence, the distraction of as many people as much as possible. If any of his friends or family noticed his new clinginess they had not said anything to him. The last thing he wanted was to be around people, he ached for privacy, longed for quiet.
The moment he was alone though, his thoughts began to wander and his heart began to ache, he would think about her, Jessi, and it would just hurt so much. Kyle had experienced loss and heartache; between the pain of losing Adam and the reality of his birth he had gotten his fair share of both.
Nothing though, nothing, had prepared him for the loss in his heart that Jessi had left him with. No one else had been prepared for the change in him either.
Finally he had told Amanda, she had asked him over and over what was wrong, why wasn't he smiling or laughing, this was supposed to be their time, finally, and he had simply looked at her and whispered the one answer she had not been able to handle, 'Jessi left me'.
Amanda had left him too after that.
He suspected the loss of her companionship would have hurt more if is heart hadn't already been broken, but maybe not. Amanda had never really been his so what was there to lose.
Jessi though, Jessi had been his from the very beginning and he hadn't even realized it until she was gone.
He was eighteen now technically and legally an adult, today was the first day of the rest of his adult life and all he wanted to do was stomp his foot and demand she come back. He wanted everything back to the way it was before. With Declan and Lori back together and bickering, Josh and Andy cuddled up on the sofa, and Jessi standing in his doorway looking at him like he was everything.
That look he had taken for granted, everything about her he had taken for granted and he wanted her back, needed her back.
It wasn't like he could go to her.
Go to her, he stood; his room began to fade away as his thoughts focused and crystallized on an idea, a plan. A blueprint on how to work him out of the misery he was wallowing in, and he really needed to stop listening to Lori's emo playlist, but it was an idea.
If Jessi had left him and he was miserable, than wouldn't it stand to reason that if he was back with her than he wouldn't be miserable anymore. It was more than reasonable, it was logical.
Moving faster and with more animation than he had in weeks he grabbed a bag out of his bureau and began stuffing clothes in. Foss would be angry, angrier than Kyle had ever probably seen him; there were plans, great and complicated plans for Kyle's life. Plans that were going to upended by his trip across the country, but it was his life now, eighteen had never sounded so good, he smiled, and what his life needed was her.
Grabbing his wallet and passport, you never knew, he grabbed his phone and Google flight times with one hand. In the other hand he hastily scrawled out a note of explanation and apology tacking it in the only empty spot on his cork board, the spot had been empty for six weeks one day two hours.
He was taking a big risk, he hopped onto the window ledge, a huge gamble, he surveyed the contents of the only home he had known; growing up meant leaving behind the comforts of home and taking chances on the maybes.
Maybe she would give him another chance, maybe she laugh at him, maybe she had found someone else to laugh with; his jaw clenched at the one possibility he hadn't ever wanted to acknowledge. Just because he had been too blind to see everything that she was didn't mean anyone else hadn't.
Swinging his legs through the window he knew he still had to go, he still had to try; he was finally doing something.
All in all it wasn't a bad way to start adulthood.