Chapter 29

Tyler POV

We finished lunch and then grabbed the things that we'd picked up on the way through the store, and headed down to the warehouse to pick up the desk.

Josh picked up the boxes and handed one to me.

"You know they have carts," I said, hefting the box up.

"Carts are for sissies. Are you a sissy now?" Josh smirked at me.

We went to the cash and I paid for all the stuff and we loaded it up in the car and headed home.

At home, Josh and I carried Samantha's stuff inside.

"You got tools?" Josh asked me.

"Of course I do, man. What do you think I am?"

I grabbed my took kit and we went upstairs to Samantha's room. Samantha followed us, but stayed close to me.

"Want to help us get your desk built?" I asked.

Samantha shrugged.

It took us less than an hour but the three of us got the desk built, and we looked around the room.

"Alright, Samantha, where should we put this?" I asked.

Samantha looked around her room.

"How about under the window?" I suggested.  She walked over and looked out. The window overlooked the backyard and the forest. She shook her head with fear in her eyes. Her dad, of course. He'd chased her through those woods.

"Okay. Fair point," I looked around. "We could move your bed over to the other wall, put your desk in that corner, and the dresser under the window.  What do you think?"

We had a lot of room to play with in this room.

"That could work," Josh said.

"What do you think, Sam?" he asked.

She shrugged.

"I think it's okay," she said.

"We can try it, and then if you don't like it, we can move stuff around. Nothing needs to be permanent unless you want it to be, okay?"

She nodded.

We moved the furniture around, and looked. I put my arm around Samantha's shoulders and smiled down at her. She looked up at me and gave me a small smile.

"Let's go have a snack. I think we all deserve one after all that work," I said.

"You got a beer?" Josh asked.

"I got a beer," I said.

The three of us went downstairs and sat at the kitchen bar.

"Sam, test, insulin. What do you want? Peanut butter and crackers again?"

"Okay," she said.

"Regular milk or chocolate?" I asked.

"You have chocolate?"

"We do. But make sure you take the right amount of insulin for it. We're going to have to go to the grocery store this week with you so you can show us some of the things we can buy that are sugar free or good for you to have. Maybe we'll go tomorrow after school?"

"Okay," she said, pulling out her test kit. I put the bottle of chocolate in front of her so she could test. Jenna came in from the laundry room.

"You guys get Sam's room sorted out?"

"It looks really good," Samantha smiled at her. "They moved my bed and my dresser."

Her face fell.

"I mean, the bed and the dresser," she corrected herself, still unconvinced that the room was hers.

"So, since you gave the kid the good room, where are you gonna put me to sleep tonight?" Josh asked.

"You can have your room back," Samantha said to  him.  "I can sleep on the couch or whatever."

"Samantha, that's your room. It's okay. We have another room Josh can sleep in. We're not moving you out of your room," I said.

The three of us sat and had our snack. Samantha seemed to be warming up to Josh a little bit. And I could see, he was taking it slow with her. He took most of his cues, I could see, from us.

Once we'd cleaned up from our snack, Josh asked if we could go jam in my basement studio. I said sure and asked Samantha if she wanted to come listen. Josh shot me a look.

Samantha looked between the two of us.

"Um, no. That's okay. I-I'm gonna just um, go upstairs, I guess," she said.

"You don't have to do that. Come listen. We'll play you a couple of our old songs. Your own private concert," I said.

"Sam, go down and listen. You'll like it," Jenna said. "Not many people get their own private concerts."

"Can you come?" she asked Jenna.

"Sure, hon. I can come down for a few minutes. I'm going to have to switch over the  laundry in a little, but yeah, I'll come down for a little while."

The four of us went downstairs, and Josh set up the drum kit I keep down there. He's a drummer, obviously, but I have a set, too. I turned on my amp, and looked at my instruments. Josh made a suggestion of a song to play, so I pulled out my ukulele instead.

We  played House of Gold, and a few other songs. Josh decided at one point just to riff. I looked over at Samantha and she looked happy, and awestruck at the same time.

"Sam, honey, I'm going to go switch over the laundry, okay?"

"I'll come help," she said.

"You don't have to. You can stay and listen to Josh and your, and Tyler."

"No. It's okay. I'll come help," she said, shortly, looking between me and Josh.

"Okay, you can come help. It's okay. Come on," Jenna said, looking over at me.

I watched as they went upstairs.

"Dude," Josh said. "What is up with that kid?"

"She's been through a lot, Josh. You have no idea what that kid has been through."

"So, enlighten me. I've been trying to get in touch with you for, like, a week, and you've been blowing me off.  I mean, I flew halfway across the country because I can't get an answer from you.  You call me to get me to basically identify you to a fan, and now you're adopting her? Obviously there's more to the story than that, but dude, you can't cut me out. I need to know what's happening.  Like, one day a kid shows up in your back yard and the next day, you're her parents? Come on man.  Fill me in!" Josh said, anger in his eyes.

"I'm sorry man, I know I promised I'd call you. It's been a wild week.  Sam's dad has been abusing her since the night her mom died.  Well, before that, actually. He was angry that Samantha is a girl, and the night her mom died, he was actually trying to kill her.  Her mom tried to wrestle the gun away from him and he shot her in the head. She died that night and not long after, Samantha was diagnosed with diabetes. He basically kept her barely alive. He made her ration her insulin.  The long-acting, which she takes before bed, he had her on a quarter of the dose. The insulin she takes at meal times, maybe half the dose. You probably noticed she had a hard time giving herself the proper dose at lunch. He also only let her test twice a day. She needs to test before every meal and snack, and he would take her test kit at night so she couldn't test in the middle of the night. She needs to test at night. I wake up at two in the morning to test her. If she goes low while she's sleeping, it can be dangerous.

The night she wound up in our back yard, she was running away from her father. From another beating for whatever reason. She passed out from low blood sugar - probably from not having enough on board as it is, and from running.  He wound up getting arrested at the hospital when he threatened staff who wouldn't let him back with Samantha. He escaped, because he's a lawyer and sweet talked his way out. We had to stay at a hotel one night because they were worried he was near the house.  He was caught.  Samantha saw a therapist, because of some things that happened in the hospital, and she told him the whole story of the night her mom died. He confessed that Samantha was his target.

She has spent her entire life being told she's stupid and worthless. And when she was diagnosed with diabetes, he complained about the expense.  Her life has been hell, and she has been told for 13 years that she's not worth a damn. That she's a burden, and that she's useless and stupid.

She's a mess, Josh. We're working to help keep her blood sugar in range, because too low or two high is dangerous. And we've dealt with both."

"So, you're taking on a troubled kid? What about tour? What about music? Are you giving that all up for some kid who landed in your backyard?"

"Josh! She's not just 'some kid'. She is a kid who needs help, and needs a home. Jenna and I, we agreed to take her as a foster, without even talking about it. It just happened. Jenna and I are ready for a kid, Samantha needs a home. And what her dad has done. She needs love and stability. That doesn't mean I'm done with music. I'm still writing. I mean, I haven't done much this week, but that doesn't mean I'm done. We need a little bit of time to get things sorted with Samantha and we're in the adoption process.

Although, one thing I found out, which really makes me mad, her dad was the lawyer we used for the negotiations on Vessel."

"That really nice lawyer? He had a kid?"

"He did. Samantha is his kid. Was his kid. His parental rights were terminated when he confessed to attempted murder."

"If he's the one I remember, I don't remember seeing anything that would indicate he had a kid. I mean, the one we used on Blurryface, he had pictures of his family everywhere. The one on Vessel, I don't remember anything other than, like, his diplomas, and some news articles or something?"

"Yeah," I said.