Chapter 9

My mom nudges me with her elbow while Foster is changing. "You didn't tell me you were all buddied up with a cute boy?" She giggles and continues to tease, "If I'd have known, I would have made snacks or dressed nicer."

"Mom don't make this weird. He's my friend. He is cute, but we don't know each other that well yet. He lives in the café on the street behind ours. His mom runs the café and usually one of us heads over to the other's place to pick each other up for school. We live so close; it'd be a waste to not walk to school together to keep each other company." The entire time I talk my mom just rolls her eyes at me and mocks kissy faces. She may be forty but that doesn't mean she has more maturity than a preschooler.

"Whatever you say C. All I'm saying is that I definitely wouldn't mind if you two were . . ." my mom cuts her sentence short as Foster enters the room.

"You wouldn't mind what?" Foster says, fixing his shoelaces.

"Oh, you know, I wouldn't mind if you two hung out over here more. It's pretty empty around here when Claudia isn't blaring music or watching the TV," my mom explains, trying to cover up whatever she was going to say. Thank god. That would've made things so awkward between us. I'm happy with getting to know him and his mom and his cute little cat. I don't want this to be ruined by something as silly as a crush.

As soon as Foster has his shoes adjusted, L springs out of the shadows to leap onto them. L bites and chews and paws at the shoestrings. I try to rush over to save Foster's shoes but before I make it even one step closer, Foster has already scooped up the little maniac and uses his hoody string to entertain him.

"Sorry about that. He is still a baby so he can be kinda nuts at times."

"No worries, I remember when Cocoa was younger. She was always trying to be a daredevil. She'd climb up curtains, sneak out of the loft to bother customers, tear up my bed, all those things. Once she turned 2, she settled down a bit. She can still be a little fireball sometimes though. You know, you've met her." Foster puts L down and L immediately tries to climb back up Foster's leg. I can see the claws as he makes his way up. I would've been screaming if L did that to me. I can't imagine how painful that is, but he doesn't seem to care. He is just smiling and trying to mess with L. Eventually L is successful and back in Foster's arms.

"Now that you've got an outfit for Monday, want to head back to your place or maybe go get some food?"

"I don't think this little guy would let me leave if I tried," Foster scratches behind L's ears and his purrs echo through the room. What a turd. If I tried to pick him up and pet him, he would just try to attack my fingers. Foster adjusts his arms to have a free hand to do stuff.

"That's fair. You are the first male he has ever met so that must mean something. We can stay here. We can watch movies in my room. You could explore my bookshelf to see if you can find anything interesting to read. We could color. I did just get a new stress coloring book." I pick it up off of the coffee table like a nerd and wave it in front of Foster's face to show it off. He snorts and grabs it from me.

"Man, I don't remember the last time I did anything artsy, let alone coloring. Where did you find this thing? It actually looks cool. Like it doesn't look like something meant for kids," he tries to flip through the pages, but L starts to get impatient while waiting for pets. L starts batting at the book and Foster drops it. I pick it up and show Foster to my room. My mom makes more kissy faces at me when I turn to shut the door. I stick my tongue out at her before closing it.

Foster looks at my bookshelf, running the tips of his fingers along the spines of my books. His hands are kind of huge I realize to myself. How did I not notice when I was dragging him over here? His hand stops on a book without a title. It simply has my name embroidered into the side and on the cover. My face immediately flushes bright red. I run over to grab it from him and then hide it behind my back.

"What?" he looks concerned.

"This is private. I forgot I had this on my bookshelf." Foster nods and turns around so that I can hide the book somewhere safe.

"You can turn back around." He turns back around and sets L on the floor. L circles around Foster's feet but doesn't try to scale him like previously.

"So about that coloring book?" I grab the coloring book and my colored pencils. I move my desk away from the wall and position it in front of my bed so one of us can sit on my bed and the other one of us can sit in my desk chair.

"Which page should we color? I personally love page 43. I mean who wouldn't be interested in coloring baby squirrels and other forest animals."

"Naah, let's color page 6. It's a shark." I let out a 'disappointed' sigh and agree to color that picture instead of the other, way cuter, way better picture. It's a pretty big picture so we each work on one half of the sheet. Twenty or so minutes later my mom pops her head through the door.

"Hey guys, I'm going to go to the grocery store to get stuff for dinner and the rest of the week. Foster, are you staying for dinner?"

"If you are okay with it, I don't mind staying. I really appreciate it, Mrs. Jones." He replies way too formally.

"Not Mrs. Jones, just Sylvia is fine." My mom waves her hand at us and then closes my bedroom door, but not before raising her eyebrows at me. I shoo her away and we get back to coloring this terrifying shark picture. How did I get stuck with the dismembered human half of the picture? Foster notices that I'm not enjoying my coloring so he stops coloring and rotates the page so that I can work on the shark without saying anything. He gets right back to work filling in the page. That was thoughtful.

After another hour, Foster and I finish the picture and stand back to appreciate the lovely craftsmanship of our collective coloring job.

"That looks sick." He smiles, probably the largest smile that I've seen so far, and then looks at me.

"Do you want to take it home or should we hang it up here?" I gesture towards my empty corkboard. He rubs his thumb on his chin while deciding what he wants to do.

"Would you be sad if I took it home? I really really like it." He pleads with puppy dog eyes.

"I don't mind. Honestly having a creepy picture like this on my wall might give me nightmares." He does a little cheer and then puts it into a folder, all nice and neat, before packing it into his backpack. As he does that I grab the remote to the TV on my dresser and scroll through different movies on Netflix. When he returns, he puts my desk and desk chair back in their original places and sits on the edge of the bed next to me.

"Should we watch another scary movie?"

"Honestly, I don't think I can stomach another one. We watched sooo many last night that I kind of felt sick when I got home." I clutch my stomach.

"That's fine. Don't push yourself. What about something everyone loves. . . Shrek 2!" I laugh and nod.

"That sounds lovely. Why I don't think I've heard a better idea today." I pretend to be an old English lady. He finds the film and turns it on. It's been such a long time since I've seen any of the Shrek movies. I think the last time I watched one, I was like eleven or twelve years old. The movie starts and Foster lays back on the bed. I stay seated towards the front because if I lay down, I don't think I will be able to see the TV.

After the Dreamworks screen has gone, I feel a pang in my chest. It hurts. I grab my chest quickly and try to calm myself down but it isn't working. It's getting hard to breathe. Foster quickly sits back up and rubs my back.

"Hey hey hey. Are you okay? What's going on?" As soon as he asks, I feel my eyes start to fill with tears.

"I don't know. I just feel so sad. My heart hurts and I don't think I can stop crying." The tears threaten to fall. I try to wipe them away before it happens but once the dam has burst, I can't really do anything about it. This is so embarrassing. I'm sitting here, crying my eyes out like a baby, in front of a cute boy. My mom isn't even here.

Before I can try and calm myself down again something wraps around me. It's warm and it smells nice. Kind of like the woods after it rains. I start to calm down. I can breathe again, but the tears are still coming. I stay in this position, being hugged by Foster until my eyes start to close. It's so warm and cozy. Before I know it, I'm asleep.

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Sylvia pulls her car into a spot at the front of the building to make unloading the groceries easier. Good thing the kids are home to help, Sylvia thinks to herself. She grabs one of the hefty, brown paper bags, and heads for the front door. It takes her a minute, but she manages to open the door without dropping the groceries. After making it to the loft she notices how quiet it is. Did they leave? She wonders. She sets her things down on the counter and looks around to see if anyone is home. She peeks into Claudia's room.

"Hi, Mrs. Jones," Foster says as if there isn't another human being passed out in his arms.

"What happened?" Sylvia asks a slight edge can be heard in her voice.

"I'm not sure. We finished coloring our picture and then we decided to watch a movie. As soon as the movie started, she said her chest started hurting. Then she was crying? I tried to calm her down and the next thing I knew, she was asleep. . ." He looks up at Sylvia, this time with fear and worry etched into his face. "I didn't know what to do. I don't know if you should move people when they are unconscious? I also didn't have your number to give you a call. She doesn't have a temperature and she is breathing normally. I have just sort of been sitting here, holding my breath, hoping you would be home soon. Do you know why she might have passed out?"

Sylvia rubs her temples. She calms down but is still worried about the state of her child. She observes everything that is currently in her line of sight before realizing that they were watching children's movies. Then it all clicks.

"She hasn't watched any kid movies since she was thirteen. The last time she watched a kid's movie, it ended up being the last movie she saw with her dad before he passed." Sylvia's eyes gloss over but she manages to keep the tears at bay. She walks over and helps Foster lay Claudia under the covers. "She probably just passed out. Every once in a while, when she remembers her dad, this will happen. She just needs to rest, once she wakes up, she should be okay," Sylvia shares. "Do you still want to eat dinner over here? I think Claudia would understand if you decided to go home. This may all be overwhelming for you."

"I think I'm gonna stay. I want to be here when she wakes up, just to make sure she's alright." Sylvia and Foster leave Claudia to rest and head out to the kitchen.

"Oh, that's right! I have a car full of groceries downstairs. Would you be willing to help me get them all unloaded here?" Foster follows Sylvia down the stairs. It takes a bit longer than Sylvia thought it would, but they managed to get everything unpacked. Foster sits on the huge armchair of the couch. He silently watches videos on his phone while Sylvia prepares dinner, waiting to see if C will wake up and join them.