“No!”
Suddenly, without warning or before he could even realize it, a yell broke out from Jaimie, high and insistent.
He yanked his hand away from Alex’s, breaths suddenly beginning to escape shallow and fast. His cheeks flushed,
mind whirling as he stumbled away.
“Wait – Jaimie!” Without thinking, eyes suddenly tense and alert, Alex’s hand whipped out, latching onto
Jaimie’s arm. A few passerby had begun to let their eyes linger on the sight, a few murmurs flowing through the
crowd. Desperately, he searched the younger boy’s eyes, sweat slick on his forehead and eyes wide and pleading.
“Stop it!” Jaimie’s voice had begun to rise in pitch now, heart hammering inside his chest. His breaths
shallow and rapid, his eyes whirled around, suddenly taking in all the passerby’s eyes piercing into him.
“Look, Jaimie, we don’t have to do this-”
“You’re not my dad!”
Alex froze.
His breathing heavy and rapid, Jaimie slowly turned away, head pounding. Gritting his teeth, he furiously
brushed away a few of the bitter, unwilling tears that had pricked towards his eyes, face flushed and heated.
For a moment, Alex didn’t say a single world, paralyzed to the spot as he stared below him, letting his hand
fall idly to the side, heart slamming in his chest. Suddenly, there was a strange look in his eyes, as if that sweet
affront of joy and enthusiasm guarding them before had been dropped. All of a sudden, he just looked completely,
and utterly lost. As if wandering through a maze, never sure the right way to turn.
But the unspoken words were there. The words that always seemed to linger between them, no matter what
sweet affronts lay at the surface. Even when smiles were forced onto faces, when hands interlocked together and
lights flashed and everything around them screamed that it was perfect. There were always those unsaid words,
bubbling between them, driving the final barrier. That made Jaimie’s hand inch away ever so slightly everytime he
neared too close. That made Alex force a brighter smile on his face with every passing second, though his words
died in his throat and the meaning beneath it faded. That made them walk a few small inches apart, instead of in
a half embrace, or atop his shoulders, like the families surrounding them,
You’re not my Dad.
Slowly, his eyes met Jaimie’s. Jaded green unwillingly raising to meet soft blue. Two different eyes, two
different people, somehow pushed together by fate. A door opening to an adoption center by chance. A click
of a computer. Two bright eyes peeking out from a hallway, from all they had ever known, stepping out into
something new.
Somehow leading them both here.
Slowly, Alex raised his eyes to meet Jaimie’s.
A low, trembling sigh escaped from him. And carefully- tentatively- he began to talk one more time. One
last time. This time, however, his words were slow, soft, each one said purposefully. No smiles on his face. No
disguises. “Look... I know I’m not your dad. I know I don’t know everything.” He paused, uncertainty gazing into
Jaimie’s ones. When Jaimie didn’t say a word, he continued. “I didn’t know that you don’t like crowds, or if you
like carnivals, or what games and snacks you like.” Slowly, he lowered himself to Jaimie’s height, carefully staring
into the younger boy’s eyes. Jaimie didn’t look away, heart beginning to slow as he met his adopted father’s gaze.
“But I’m willing to learn. If you’re willing to help.”
For a moment, neither said anything, his words hanging in the air between them. And though the sights
and sounds of the carnival still whirled around them, suddenly, it seemed far less loud, far less big, as Jaimie
met his eyes.
Then, slowly, a small sentence slipped from Jaimie, tentative and quiet.
“Could we go get dinner now?”
A soft smile formed upon Alex’s lips. Carefully, he straightened up, eyes lingering on Jaimie. For a moment,
his hand began to move towards the boy’s smaller one- but then, with a sheepish smile, he moved it away. Don’t
overstep it.
“I think that sounds like a great idea.”
Yet as the two slowly began to wander off into the distance, disappearing into the dying afternoon light, the
carnival fading to merely a faraway blur behind them, one last thing happened.
Jaimie took Alex’s hand.
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