“Clay…”

            “I found her.”  Clay offered instantly, tears falling from his ebony eyes.  “She just gave me up.  Not reason other than she was young.  She didn’t try.  She just didn’t want me.” 

            Chelsea’s mother came into the room, and Chelsea kissed Clay’s cheek.  “I’ll be right back.”  Chelsea spoke with her mother softly.  “Mom, is it ok that I stay here with Clay?  He’s…  he’s pretty depressed…”  Her mother looked over at Clay, whose head was hung down, staring at the floor. 

            “Yeah, your dad will be back by noon, and I’m sure I’ll be here by then too.  See if the boy will go to sleep?  He looks exhausted.”  Chelsea hugged her mother hard and the woman left the house.

            “Clay?”  Chelsea asked and Clay looked up.  Chelsea moved over to him, kneeling in front of him.  “You have got to let this go.  You have a wonderful family, who loves you so much…” 

            “Why didn’t she love me enough to keep me?”  Clay demanded.  The anger and desperation in his voice almost too much for Chelsea.

            “She loved you enough to let you go, to let you find this other family, family is more than bloody baby.  It’s love, the ties that bind you so that you can be yourself, not the ties that bind you down.”  Clay’s eyes met her and he leaned in, forgetting for a moment that he was in such inner turmoil, and kissed her.

~*SoN~*~

            The SUV was steamy, one single handprint on the back glass as it rocked slowly. 

            “You can’t stop….”  Madison begged.  Aiden nuzzled into her neck, kissing it, nibbling at her neck.

            “I don’t have a…”

            “It’s ok baby, it’s ok.”  Madison urged him, and Aiden lost the last of his resistance as she pushed him over the edge.  Aiden kissed Madison harder, her legs wrapping him and he tried to forget everything that was bad in his life.

            Two hours later, Aiden was sneaking into the house.  Dawn had broken over the city and he went into the shower.  Turning the water in, stripping from his sweaty clothes and getting into the shower.  Wanting to wash off the events of last night, or rather, this morning.  He couldn’t believe he’d fallen for Madison and her manipulating ways.  He was really a slut for the girl, wasn’t he?  What was it about her that kept him dropping his pants every time she smiled his way?

            “Son?”  His dad said from the other side of the door.

            “Yeah Dad!”  Aiden yelled over the shower, pulling the curtain aside and waiting.

            “I wanted to know if you wanted to go see your sister today?”  Aiden’s green eyes smiled and soon his lips curled into one also.

            “Yeah, that would be cool.  Um, when?”

            “How about around 1pm?  I have to go show a house over in WeHo.  Dig out a few tapes if you have some she hasn’t seen.”

            “Yup, ok Dad!”  Aiden said.  His heart lighter now.  Aiden quickly got out of the shower, wrapping a dark towel around his slim torso, moving to his room and kneeling at a box in his closet.  Digging around and finding a new tape of his last game, throwing it onto the bed and watching it bounce.

            His sister, Zoe, was in a residential home.  She was older than he was, and was autistic.  She didn’t relate to the real world, but two years ago, by accident, they’d found out that she did relate to them on video tape.  If she saw them on the TV screen, she would talk to them; interact as if they were real.  If you sat with her, she’d ignore you the whole time you spoke.  The doctors had told them it was normal for autistics to act that way.  Last year, she’d moved from her spot on the floor, touched the screen of the big screen TV that their Dad had bought her and whispered his name, ‘Aiden’.  It had been enough to drive Aiden to tears.

            Aiden dropped the towel to the floor, sliding his feet into a pair of discarded boxers and set the alarm of his clock.  He’d take a nap, get up, eat and wait for his Dad so that they could go see his sister.  At least something good was going to come from this day, Aiden thought as he drifted off to sleep, dreaming of a world where he and Ashley’s baby had lived and he was still the star of the basketball team.