Bastian (English)

I finished wrapping up the present I had gotten so carefully and looked at the watch in my phone. Still two hours until Father's Day...

It had been a tiring day, so I decided to lay down for an hour or so. I was supposed to be asleep, after all.

After setting up an alarm on my phone, I rested my head on the pillow and closed my eyes. If someone had told me when I arrived this house that I'd put some much time and effort in a present for that man, I wouldn't have believed a single word...

The relationship between my father and I hadn't started well at all... To begin with, most children are babies when they arrive home for the first time... I, on the other hand, was six. That and I wasn't even their son, I had just been adopted.

I had only seen my new parents like four or five times before my adoption, but my mom and I had bonded immediately, so it was fine for me if I went to live with her... There was only one problem: her husband didn't seem to like me a lot. I didn't mind it that much the first couple of times they went to visit me, after all, he was just some guy sitting in the couch while my mom and I played with some of the cool toys in the visit room. However, he stopped being that irrelevant when I moved in with them.

Ahspen Stholberk was a young guy from Norway that had left his home in order to study in Canada, where he met my mom on their first year of college. He didn't really look like a bad person, he always smiled at my mom like she was the most amazing person he had ever seen... But it was kind of obvious he wasn't pretty fond of me.

My new 'parents' were a young couple, they had just finished college like four years before knowing me, and they had spent almost half of that time traveling. The guy's family owned a company, which had allowed him to work from home for some time.

My new mom was a pretty and fun lady who always enjoyed playing and spending time with me, and I always felt safe and happy whenever I was with her, which happened to be all the time since I arrived her home. I didn't mind much the guy's indifference, we hardly ever had to talk or interact in any way. I think he agreed to adopt me just because my mom had wanted a kid, but I didn't care because I had her, so the man and I were able to almost ignore each other for some months without problem. Until one day... 

One afternoon, six months after I'd been taken out of the orphanage, my mom didn't show up to pick me up from school... In the preschool my mom had enrolled me, we stayed inside after class and the teachers called us when our parents got to the classroom door, but that day I found myself face to face with my mom's husband when the teacher told me it was time to go home.

I stood there for a moment, totally confused until my teacher ushered me to put my jacket and backpack on. I obeyed, eyeing him confused while the teachers and him made some small talk. Suddenly, he took my hand and said goodbye to my teachers as he practically dragged me through the school. It was obvious he wasn't used to walk with me, because I had to almost run to keep up with him.

"Where's my mom?" I dared to ask once we reached the parking lot.

The man sighed , but made no attempt to answer until I stopped walking and started dragging my feet. Something was wrong...

"Where's my mom?!"

He stopped walking and their cold blue eyes looked at me as if he didn't know what to do with a screaming child, wether to talk to me, throw me a toy or push me down the first stairs he found. After a moment, he opted to just answer.

"She's out on a business trip, but she'll be back in two weeks." He might as well could have told me the world was going to end...

Now, it had been a long time since I had thrown a tantrum, but that didn't mean I had lost practice. I can't remember exactly what I was thinking or why did I choose to do that, but soon enough I was the center of a big scene... I had thrown my backpack as far as I could and my jacket too, which was kind of stupid because it was pretty cold, I was also screaming that I wanted my mom. At some point, I had pulled my hand free and was doing everything possible to keep him from taking it again. If having fits were a subject, I would have been the brightest child in my class.

A little while after he had given up trying to take my hand or getting me to shut up, one of my teachers arrived. Apparently, the teacher watching the school door had called her.

While my teacher tried to get me to calm down, I could see the clear humilliation on the guy's face. I bet it was the first time he had had to deal with a fit like that, and it didn't help he had failed miserably.
After the teacher somehow convinced me to let her put my jacket back on, she started talking to me about how good kids were supposed to listen to their parents and behave themselves, but I couldn't stop crying for my mom. I didn't want to stay stay with that guy I disliked so much at the moment, and he obviously didn't want to watch me either. He was looking at me menacingly while holding my backpack, like daring me to start another scene... Which I was really willing to do.
I was so upset about the whole situation that my teacher had to walk with us to the man's car and help me put the seatbelt on...
The man thanked my teacher and got into the car, where the only sound was my crying.

"What on Earth was that, Sebastian?" He spat after driving some minutes. Needless to say, I refused to answer. Everyone called me Bastian unless I was in trouble, which I shouldn’t be in, because it wasn’t fair. I wasn’t liking that guy, and even less with him using my complete name. They were just two letters, but meant the world to me right then... “I asked you a question.” I just glared and stuck my tongue out at him, I just wanted my mom back... He glared back at me and held the steering wheel tighter before sighing tiredly.

I have to recognize the man was being pretty patient, he sure wasn’t used to receiving that attitude or dealing with brats.

“I understand you didn’t expect this… situation, but she’ll be back soon. Everything’s going to be alright.” Despite his attempt at soothing words, it just creeped me out to have him talking to me so much (much more than I was used to). “Look, I know we haven’t been exactly close, but maybe we can spend some time together while Leah... your mom gets back.”

I rolled my eyes at that. He didn’t even like me, but he wanted to ‘spend some time together’? Yeah, right…

He was obviously awkward in my presence, since he made no further attempt at talking to me the whole ride until we stopped at the mall.

Needless to say, I was a complete nightmare. Since I got down from the car, I refused to hold his hand even though it was crowded at that time of the day, I also took advantage of every time he got distracted to run from him, I stuck my tongue out at him everytime I had to look directly at his face and I refused to talk to him at all.

But the last straw was when, after trying (and failing) to shop for some sweaters for me, we went to the food court.

Even avoiding seeing him eye to eye, I could notice the guy was slowly losing it. He was usually a very collected person, but right then I could have swear he was about five minutes from getting an eye tic and crushing his cell phone from gripping so hard. It was pretty satisfactory at the moment, made me think that maybe if he got fed up with me, he’d call my mom and ask her to come back.

“What do you want to eat?” as it had become my habit, I just stuck out my tongue and even blew raspberries at him.

The man tried to contain an exasperated sigh and ordered a milkshake from the nearest restaurant. It was a clear desperate attempt at getting me to at least talk to him, because I had never saw him eating any kind of junk food. What he never imagined was that as soon as he’d try to pass me over my milkshake, I’d slap it with the back of my hand out of his grasp and right towards his shirt.

The sudden shock on his face made my security fade a little. I didn’t know what I had expected, but I certainly hadn’t even considered getting in any kind of trouble. However, his progressive change of expression from disbelief to anger told me otherwise.

“THIS IS ENOUGH!” the man roared completely furious, not caring at all about all the people that turned to look at us.

Completely taken aback by the menacing expression and scary yelling of the man, I did the only thing that came to my six year old mind… I burst into tears.

Unfortunately for me, the guy was now too mad to care, so he just grabbed my arm and started walking away, not minding all the tears and screams I kept producing.

“Excuse me, sir,” someone else’s voice caught my attention as the guy stopped dragging me around, “Is everything alrigh?” I looked up to find a big serious man dressed as a security guard blocking our way.

“No, it’s not. This brat threw his drink at me, so now we need to go home.”

“I’ll need to ask you for your ID.”

“My ID? What kind of stupid joke is this?!”

“Are you okay, kid?”

The guy holding my hand huffed.

“He’s better than that, the spoiled little shit.” Without really knowing why, I just cry harder at that.

“Is he your relative?” the guard spoke to me again.

“What are you even implying?” We looked alike enough, same dark hair and blue eyes. 

“is he something of yours?”

“NO! I DON’T EVEN KNOW HIM!” I bawled even louder than before… Not like I was completely lying at the moment.

“That’s bullshit!”

“Sir, step back.”

“I’m not stepping the fuck back, I…”

It all happened too fast, but next I knew my mom’s husband was laying on the floor and the security guy was standing beside me with a taser in hand.