Soul - Colby Brock

Fifty-Eight - Colby

She posted a photo with a girl that looked strangely exactly the same as her with the caption: 'I'll explain later...' what did that mean? I called her. She seemed to let it ring for a little while. "Hey, babe, saw the post, huh?" she said through the phone.

"Uh yeah, who's that little girl?" I asked.

"I'll have to explain in person," I heard shuffling. "Gracie, go play with Brandon upstairs, yeah?" she said in that tone you did when talking to little kids.

"OK! See you!" then footsteps and a little giggling from little kids. 

"Tave?" I asked.

"Hm?"

"Who is it?" I asked again.

"I can't explain over the phone, it's too important. Plus I'm with Callum and my sister, Emily," that wasn't the name of the kid. It was Gracie.

"How soon can we meet up?"

"Tomorrow. I'll come to your house, Callum is coming, too, though. Oh, and I need everyone else there, plus one camera," I stumbled over my words. "OK?" she asked. I sighed.

"Yeah OK. How are you?"

"I'm great, you?" she sounded happy. I was happy for her.

"Confused but otherwise I'm good,"

"Okie, love you, talk to you tomorrow," still cheerful.

"Love you too, see ya,"

"Bye," she hung up on me. Sam, who I was with, looked at me confused.

"I am so confused," I said. Sam nodded.

"You're not the only one, bro. You're not the only one," Sam agreed.

**********

I paced around the living room nervously. It was the next day and Octavia was on her way. All of the roommates were in the game room. There were three knocks that sounded on the door. I wasn't sure why I was so nervous but she said it was important. I opened it to see the girl from the Insta photo sitting on Callum's arm and Octavia standing in front of them. "Hey, babe," she smiled, pecking my lips lightly. 

"Hey," I replied. "Hi, Callum," I greeted. He just nodded to acknowledge me.

"I want to explain first so they're gonna wait out here," she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me away from the door. Callum closed it with them still outside. "Sit," she ordered. I obeyed. "OK, so, here goes I guess. When I was eleven, my sister, Emily, had a kid called Brandon. She was eighteen at the time and decided to move out to look after him, to get him away from the uh, group," she glanced nervously at the camera in Sam's hand. This was going on my channel but Sam held my camera because I opened the door. "Anyway, when I was fourteen, so three years later, I met this douchebag named Jay who, in short, took away my V card," she continued to explain. Wait, is that her... "in the process of doing that, I became pregnant. At fourteen. I knew I wouldn't be able to look after my kid and things were getting serious, in a good way, with the... group, so, I turned to Emily. For the last five years, she has been looking after my daughter, Gracie, for me and I can't thank her..." she looked at the camera, "enough. Over the duration of her life, Gracie has known Emily isn't her mom and Brandon has known she isn't his sister but his cousin. I have visited her every January, as you know, it's January. Up until... recently," she looked me in the eye, "Gracie was the only person I loved other than my brother. Obviously, there's more now," we smiled at each other.