Rebecca Pov

  It was like 6 O'clock in the morning, I had just finished wrapping all of Jordan's presents, and I was feeling fucking old because he was 5, (yes the fact that he's almost fucking 30 nowadays makes me feel violently ill at times), so I was about to make myself a cuppa, (because I could, ya know), when there was a knock on the front door, so I went to answer it, and it was my youngest sister Sofia.

  "Hi"

  "Hi, how did you find me?"

  "Why?, don't you want to see me?-"

  "No it's not that, Rita found me on my birthday and now you finding me makes me think there's someone just blabbering about where I live"

  "Oh, that actually makes sense, we don't have to have a relationship if you don't want to-"

  "Why wouldn't I want that?"

  "Rita made you raise me up until she kicked you out"

  "That's not on you Sofia, you were barely 5 when she kicked me out"

  I didn't think of it as me raising Sofia until she said it, (it was just so normalised), I just thought that I was doing what Delia did for me before she got kicked out, (though if I had given it half a thought, I probably would've come to that conclusion, but I avoided thinking about life with Rita like the plague), and if I'm being honest, Rory probably did the same for Delia until he was found out as a boy.

  "I have questions that I know for a fact that Rita would never answer, even if I didn't tell her to go fuck herself, and I don't really remember the rest of the siblings"

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "I'm surprised you remember me Kiddo"

  "It's hard to forget the closest thing I ever had to a loving mother"

  Holy shit I wasn't expecting Sofia to actually just spit it out like that, but I suppose she wasn't wrong, (but it didn't help me feel any less guilty about leaving her there, even though there was no way in hell that Rita would've let Sofia come with me), I just wasn't used to anyone else being as blunt as I was, (though I was not that long away from my kids starting to be that blunt).

  "Was Jack's real name Jack Addams"

  "No, his birth given name was Joseph McCarthy, but I think that Jack used Jack as Jack is a nickname for John and most aren't going to think about looking for a Jack"

  "Did you find where he grew up then?"

  "Not physically, I was adopted by one of his nephews, so his brother had answers to questions I did have, do you need help?"

  "What makes you think that?"

  "Most people wouldn't let a 15 year old in their care wander around before 6 O'clock in the morning, and it looks like you have a bin bag that has all your belongings in"

  "I was kicked out of my foster home a couple of days ago"

  That was when the alarm bells started ringing in my head, (not because she was kicked out, people kick children out for the stupidest reasons, but because it was her foster home and they probably didn't report it if she was roaming the fucking streets), but I didn't want to let Sofia know that, (because she would probably run and that's the last thing I wanted to happen at this point).

  "Were you living in Manchester before they kicked you out?"

  "Why do you want to know?!- are you going to send me back?!-"

  "No Sweetheart, (sighs), I want to know so that I can report them"

  "Why do you want to report them?"

  "Because they're getting paid to look after you, they didn't go through the official channels to remove you from their home, so they're still getting paid while you're here and fucking homeless"

  "Oh, I was in Essex, somewhere near Southend, it wasn't the worst place I'd been in, they at least feed us every day-"

  "Them feeding you doesn't make them good foster carers"

  The next couple of hours just seemed to blur together between calling the correct people and making sure Sofia didn't run out the front door because she didn't want all the fuss about her previous home, though I knew the feeling really all too well, (so I don't blame her for having felt that way).

  "I'm sorry-"

  "Whatever the fuck for Kiddo?"

  "I didn't know that me coming here would cause all this trouble"

  "It's not trouble at all, it's just the correct way to go about it, which I know is such an insane concept to grasp considering we had Rita as our mother, it still catches me off guard sometimes"

  "It does?"

  "Yeah"

  "When they do find somewhere for me to stay, can I keep in contact with you?"

  "Of course you can"