CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
"Sorry, I left." I mumbled when I got home. Most of my family had gone to bed so right now it was just my Dad, Jackson, Mam'aw, Grandma Ruby and Aunt Dolly waiting up for me. Lorraine was asleep when Joe and I left the hospital and Dr. Lexi promised to look after her for us until we could get back to her. But, now I was at home, and Joe was... Joe was probably alone in his apartment, the thought made my heart hurt.
"Do you need to talk about what happened?" Grandma Ruby asked, reaching out to brush my cheek. We were all sitting around the kitchen table and I looked down to my hands.
"No." I denied, I didn't want to talk about it. Ever. I wanted to forget it. "I need to find a way to help Lorraine."
"Who's Lorraine. Sweet Pea?"Aunt Dolly asked, I think this was one of the few times Aunt Dolly and Mam'aw were together without fighting.
"The little girl." I sighed, where was Beary? If Lorraine couldn't have me or Joe then she liked to sleep with Beary. "She's alone and scared and she needs me."
"I'm sure she'll be fine, Miley." Mam'aw tried to sooth me.
"Don't patronise me." I snapped, clenching my fists on the table.
"We're not patronising you, Miley, we're worried."
"Well, don't be, I don't need you all to baby me." I slammed my hands down on the table and stood up. "Lorraine is the one you need to be worried about; her parents and brother and sister are dead; she's just been through a plane crash, no-one even knows if she has any surviving family, and now she's all alone in that hospital and they're going to send her away to Childrens Services soon."
"Miley, calm down." Grandma Ruby tried, looking concerned. "We don't know what happened, but clearly that little girl means a lot to you, but she's not yours to fret over. They're going to take very good care of her." I felt frustrated, why couldn't they understand me?
"But, she is mine." I forced out, struggling to find the words to make them see. "She doesn't have anybody left now except me and Joe, and she;s mine now and I need to make sure she's okay. There has to be something I can do to make sure she's okay."
"Unless you're gonna adopt her the best you can do is keep in touch with her and just be there when she needs you." I know Aunt Dolly was trying to suggest I do the latter and just keep in contact with Lorraine, but that's not what I took from it.
"That could work." I was talking to myself. I ran to the house phone since I didn't have a new one yet and dialled the number I'd commited to memory this afternoon when Joe had given it to me. Joe's phone number.
"Hey, Adorable Grad." I could practically hear Joe's grin. "Miss me already." His tone was cocky, but I could hear the hopefullness.
"We could adopt Lorraine." I blurted out my idea.
"WHAT?" Joe's soft question was underminded by Dad, Mam'aw, Grandma Ruby and Aunt Dolly yelling it.
"We could adopt her, then she doesn't have to be apart from us, we can keep her safe and happy, we wouldn't have to wait or guess or hope that she was okay because she'd be with us and we'd make sure of it." I rushed the idea out.
"Miley, you need to sit down and thik about-" Grandma started to say.
"Miley Ray, that is a completely ridiculous-" Mam'aw began at the same time.
"Now, Miley, that's not what I-" Aunt Dolly back tracked on her words.
"You're only a baby yourself and you-" Dad was shaking his head.
"Okay." I drowned out my families objections when I heard Joe's agreement. "Yeah." He sounded a little mor sure this time. "Yeah, we can adopt Lorraine, you're a genius, Milo."
S
"I have to go to the hospital." I told Dad after I hung up. After I'd told Joe about my idea to adopt Lorraine my Dad had grabbed the phone and hung up on him before we could talk about it any more. Everyone had been trying to convince - or demand - that adopting Lorraine was a bad idea. Until the hospital called and ad had been worried that something was wrong with me so he let me speak to Dr. Lexi Lane.
"Are you okay? Did something happen? You hurt your head when the plane crashed, didn't you?" Dad worried, why couldn't he understand that that's how I feel about Carter, Sean, Will and Lorraine.
"I just need to go, Dad." I started dialling the phone again, looking for my keys at the same time.
"Did you change your mind?" Joe asked when he answered, I could hear the worry.
"No." I assured, I still wanted to keep Lorraine, and I wanted to do it with Joe. "We need to go to the hospital."
"What? Why?" Joe was alarmed and allert.
"It's not me or Rai, the boys are there." My precious boys; all Dr. Lexi had said was that they were there and I should get there soon. What did that mean?
"I'm on my way." I heard movement as Joe started getting ready to leave as well. I clicked the phone off and finally found my keys - in the key bowl, who would thought - before starting to the door.
"Boys?" Dad questioned, following me. Mam'aw, Grandma and Aunt Dolly had gone to bed not long ago, saying we'd talk more in the morning.
"Don't start, Dad, I need to go." I muttered, running out the door.
"Miley!" I was almost bowled over when I ran into the hospital twenty minutes later.
"Woah, I got you, Baby." I knelt down to hug Will. Little 7-year-old Will with teartracks on his cheeks and scared big brown eyes so much like Joe's it was almost eerie. "I got you."
"What's going on?" Dad followed me in.
"Are you okay, Will?" I brushed his little tears away, my heart breaking with each one. "Are you hurt? You need to talk to me, Bud."
"Bad dreams." Will sniffled, hugging me again, tightly. The next thing I knew another pair of small arms were wrapped around my neck as I knelt in the middle of the hospital waiting room hugging Will. Sean, his 9-year-old brother.
"I wasn't scraed." Sean denied in a mutter, I smiled and snaked and arm around him too.
"What are you waiting for?" I looked over at the sound of Joe's voice. "Miley loves a man who can admit he's got a weakness." He was talking to he oldest of the brothers, 12-year-old Carter, who at his words practically ran to me as well.
"What happened?" I asked when I could finally stand up, Will still attached to my side. "Are you guys okay? Are you hurt?"
"We wanted to see you and we didn't know how so we came here." Sean explained.
"I miss you." Will looked up at me with his big brown eyes.
"I missed you too, Buddy." I ruffled his hair affectionately.
"It wasn't even a day." Dad muttered behind me.
"Dad." I warned, why was he being like this?
"I get that you looked after them after the crash, but this is real life now, Miley, you can't come running every time a five year old misses you." Dad shook his head, as if it were obvious. "What about school? You start at Stanford in the Fall, are you just going to run out of class everytime a child can't sleep?"
"You need to back off." Joe growled and I sighed, I guess something Dad said flipped that anger switch in him.
"Excuse me?" Dad was angry too. Great; two of the men who mean the most to me were angry at each other; and Joe gets scary when he's angry. Hanson is in intensive care because Joe was angry. "Who the Sam-Heck do you think you are to talk to me like that Boy? Just because you're some big shot singer doesn't mean you're better than everyone else." Dad was glaring at Joe, who was glaring right back; blue-grey against hazel-brown.
"Well, you're excused because I'm the guy that's in love with your daughter and right now you're being a real ass to her so you better leave now and stop pissing me off because the last guy who was an asshole to Miley is in intensive care right now." Joe snapped, clenching his fists.
"Is Joe gonna be angry like before and hurt that man like he hurt Hanson?" Will asked and I felt a thrill of fear; Hanson deserved what happened to him, but this was my Dad.
"Joe." I spoke a warning to him as well.
"You think you can threaten me?" Dad stepped closer to Joe, who wasn't backing down for anything. "You're nothing more than a self-rightous little punk who needs to be put in his place." What happened to 'I owe you my life' from yesterday? - or was it this morning? It was hard to tell, all my days were starting to run together. For all I know we could be in the middle of August.
"Dad. Joe. Stop it, both of you." Dad still looked angry, but he didn't say anything else and at the first sound of my voice Joe went completely silent - I wasn't entirely sure he hadn't stopped breathing. "Just-just stop fighting." I pleaded, I did not need this right now.
"Okay, Baby." Joe agreed easilly.
"We really are so sorry to bother you." The boys' Uncle spoke up after watching the stellar display from the men in my life. It occured to that I hardly knew them; I knw them in passing by their faces, but I didn't even know their names.
"It's no problem." I smiled, "anything for my boys."
"We really can't thank you enough for looking after them." The Aunt said.
"They're great boys." Carter was standing a little away again, acting all tough and manly, like he didn't need anybody, but I'd seen the tender way he looked after little brothers on the island, and how he'd tell Will stories about magical kingdoms to help him sleep at night. "Great boys who need to tell me what's wrong?" I turned back to them.
"You weren't there." Will reitterated what Sean said. "I like it when you're there."
"Maybe it would be best if we stayed close by, until the boys are a little more stable." Aunt suggested to her husband. I deffinately wasn't opposed to the idea.
"Where do you live?" Joe asked, his voice thoughtfull. I could tell just by one glance that he was still angry, but he was trying not to be.
"We were going to move to Pasadena, where the boys lived... You know, before." Aunt answered, before the plane crash, before their parents died. I don't think it had really sunk in yet.
"I can call my lawyer tomorrow." Joe hummed thoughtfully. "Hey, Milo, how do you feel about Pasadena?" Either I'm gettng my signalls crossed or I think Joe just asked me to move in with him in Pasadena. Which, wasn't all that out there if I put in perspective since an hour ago I asked him to adopt a 4-year-old child with me.
"Joey Vitolo has a great pasta place in Pasadena." I giggled at the memory of how I had to get Jackson a signed baseball after accidentally/on purpose destroyed the fake one that he prized that Dad gave him. "You should try the veal."
"No." Dad cut in, looking red and angry as I absently sat on a bed with Will laying down with his head in my lap and fingers running through his hair. "No. Just-no. You're only a baby yourself, Miley, I won't allow this; you're not seeing this punk anymore, you're not seeing these kids, they're not your responsibility, you're not moving in with some strange man, and you are most certainly not adopting a child." Dad protested and I sighed, it was going to take a lot longer than a day for Dad to be okay with this. Will started at the mention of not seeing the kids but cooed soothingly at him and kept fingers combing his hair back. "You're going to go to Stanford with Lilly. You're going to come home on the weekends. And you're going to forget all this foolishness and come home right now." Joe snapped again, I think I could actually pinpoint the moment my Dad's words made the rage inside him bubble to the surface; it was when Dad said I wasn't allowed to see Joe anymore.
"Now you wanna know what I think is gonna happen?" Joe cracked his knuckles with a sadistic smile, stepping closer to my Dad. "You're going to shut up, turn around and walk out of here and leave Miley alone until you learn that the safest thing for you is to let Miley be happy."
Once again; sorry for the wait.
1) I have an idea for the final chapter that will tie everything up in a nice little bow.
2) I've been so busy I haven't even had the chance to start on the next chapter of Camp Rock Year 3, or finish the first chapter of the possible story I've been working on.
3) To date what has been your favourite part of this story?
4) What has been your least favourite aspect of this story?
Please review?
Smiler For Joe!
P.S: Ever waiting for new Miley music, checking every available source several times a day for any info I can find. She said it's all about the timing; I'm thinking around Winter or something for a single? (Summer for people in the northern hemisphere). So it can be the Summer hit?