Despicable Me Too Ch. 5

As promised, Corinne never left, and she devoted most of her time to helping with the kids. Though Vector hadn't fully welcomed them yet, and they were still usually shut up in the one room the four of them shared, they still had rights. So together, Corinne and Vector made sure those rights were in place. They got the kids off to elementary school, and started a stock of supplies for lunches. They also made sure they had all needed household items such as kids' toothpaste and toothbrushes and that all dangerous things they could get into were locked up. It was, in essence, like a little slapped-together family. However, it was definitely dysfunctional as well.

"Vector, look at this," Corinne sighed as she held up a piece of paper. "Meghan got another detention..."
"Oh great..." Vector replied. "What's it for this time..?"
"I think you should have her tell you herself," Corinne said. "Come on, Meghan."
Meghan shuffled out from behind the corner of a nearby hallway, a none-too-happy look in her blue-green eyes. She stood there and refused to budge.
"Go on," Corinne coaxed, nudging her back with one hand.
Meghan eventually made her way over to the couch and sat down next to her "father".
"So... Um... What's up?" Vector asked. "Why are you in trouble again?"
"You don't have to fake like you care," Meghan said. "I know you're just keeping us here so you can impress that bald guy."
For a moment Vector was shocked that she had gathered so much, but then he realized that she was the second oldest of the kids, next to Sabrina. She was in fourth grade, so it wasn't like she was a baby. "This isn't about that," he said. "Now tell me, why did you get detention?"
Meghan crossed her arms and pouted. "I hit someone," she said. "But they took my marker first..."
Vector sighed. The villainous part of him would have congratulated her on this. An eye for an eye, what else is fair? But now, regrettably, he had to be the parent, not the villain. "Look, you can't just run around hitting people," he said. "No matter what they do, you have to use your words. Now I'd understand more if they hit you. You should be allowed to fight back if you're being beaten up. But it seems like lately you've been doing the beating."
This much was true. In a short few weeks since school started Meghan had already gotten in trouble for putting her hands or feet on someone five times.
"This isn't your problem, jerkwad," Meghan said. Strong language for a nine-year-old.
"Look, I adopted you, so it is my problem now," Vector said.
"Whatever," Meghan said. "You're never gonna be my real dad, so why should I listen? You don't even care about me!" She started to cry. "Maybe if you paid a little more attention to me and didn't shut me in that stupid room all the time I wouldn't have hit people in the first place. You make me so angry!" She turned away from him.
Vector didn't know what to say. In his life, he never even thought he would have to talk to a child as a parental figure, much less an angry and upset child. But that wasn't the whole truth. There was something else barring his speech at the moment. Something about the way she talked to him was oddly familiar. Something was echoing back the same words in a different voice in the back of his head. The squeaky voice of himself as a child. True, he had never been adopted, but he and his own father were just as far apart emotionally. They still were. Even now. Those few words from Meghan had stirred up a lifetime of arguments and fights, and he couldn't deny that it was beginning to pull at heartstrings he never knew he had.
Before he knew what he was doing, he had his arms around the sobbing girl. She attempted to push him away, but didn't have the energy to anymore.
"I'm sorry..." he said. "I'm sorry I didn't realize how much it hurts to be left alone... I know what that feels like, and no one deserves it..."
He held onto her, rocking back and forth gently until she stopped crying. Then he brushed her light brown hair away from her face and smiled reassuringly.
"I'm not going to let any of you go without a father for your whole lives. It's just not going to happen."

The ice encasing his heart had already been cracking, and now the first chip had given way.