#sofia belkebirs

Victor gets in a huge fight with his parents, and ends up storming out of the house. Furious and hurt, he walks to Bilal's house, and asks if he can spend the night.

Of course, Sofia lets him.

Lieutenant Retz is also there, because he was having dinner with Sofia and Bilal.

Anyways, they kind of just hang out, but it's obvious that Victor is pretty upset.

-

The next morning, Sam shows up.

Sofia answers the door.

"Is Victor here?"

She glances behind her, at where Victor is clearly standing, and steps aside.

Victor doesn't look at Sam. "Mom and Dad send you?"

"No." At that, Victor does look at him. "I just figured you would be here."

"Oh."

Sam asks what the fight was about.

Victor replies that he doesn't want to talk about it.

Sam doesn't push it.

A minute later, Bilal is dealing cards for a game of what would be Uno, if they hadn't added so many extra rules that it was now unrecognizable.

An hour later, Romane comes over. They deal her in for the next round of Not-Uno, and everyone is happy.

Several hours later, it's 5:00. And no one wants to say anything, but the Deslandes family curfew is 6:30, and Sam keeps anxiously glancing at the clock. Finally, he stands up. "I have to go." He drags out the act of putting his jacket on for as long as possible, to give Victor a chance to say something.

Victor remains seated, and says nothing.

"Victor, are you-"

"I'm not going back." He suddenly says, with a decisive tone that makes everyone pause.

And Sam looks like he wants to ask a thousand questions, but the only one he does ask is, "Are you sure?"

Victor nods.

"They'll be mad."

"They're already mad."

And the two stare at each other for a moment, and it's not understanding, because it'll never really be understanding, but it's close enough.

Sam leaves.

Sofia returns from the store. Romane and Victor both ask to spend the night, and she says they can.

Romane texts her mom. Victor does not.

 -

The next morning, Romane goes home, and Victor goes with her. He lets Camille try to force his short hair into a ponytail while Romane draws in a sketchbook. Then Romane dramatically acts out stories for Camille, and Victor goes through his assigned summer reading, making occasional commentary on Romane's theatrics.

Then the three of them watch Christmas movies, even though it's the middle of July.

Around dinnertime, Romane's mom gets back from work. She tells Victor that he can stay for dinner if he wants to, but Victor is observant, and he knows she only had enough food prepared for four people, and he knows that Herve is coming back soon.

So, he politely declines.

Romane pulls him aside, and quietly asks him where he's going to go, and Victor doesn't have an answer. But he won't go home, and he has exactly two friends in the world who aren't related to him. And he knows that Sofia Belkebirs likely won't have prepared enough food for three people, but she's a physicist, and Vanessa Chassangre is a cashier, and weighing his two options against each other, he would be far less of a burden at Bilal's house than at Romane's.

So he tells her that he's going back to Bilal's house, and he says goodbye to Camille, and then he leaves.

Once he's standing in front of Bilal's front door, he hesitates. He thinks about going home, thinks about how he doesn't have any right to be doing this to his friends.

Then he remembers the look on his dad's face when he left. And he knows it's selfish, he knows, but anything is better than going back to that.

So he knocks, and Bilal opens the door, and the two of them spend the rest of the night eating leftover ravioli and arguing about their respective tastes in music.

When Sofia comes back from work, she doesn't ask why Victor is still there.

-

The morning after that, Sam and Romane both come over to Bilal's house, and life goes on in a similar manner for several weeks.

 -

One day, Sam shows up with a backpack in his arms, and pretends that he's not crying.

Sofia takes one look at him, and decides to order the kids pizza.

Then Victor says something about how at least one of them had the sense to actually grab a bag before running away from home, and it really isn't that funny, but suddenly they're all laughing.

Or maybe they're crying.

Either way, the pizza gets there at around the same time that Lieutenant Retz decides to visit, so he and Sofia talk quietly in the kitchen while the kids play video games.

After about two hours, the two go to check on the kids.

All four of them are asleep. Sam's arm is around Victor's shoulder. Romane's controller is still in her hands, and her head is resting on a pillow that's propped up against Bilal's leg. Bilal is leaning against Sam's side, one hand resting on the tv remote.

And Sofia doesn't know how any of this is going to work when they start school again in the fall. She doesn't know how Mr. and Mrs. Deslandes are going to react to her basically adopting both of their children. She doesn't know how they're going to handle any of the legal or financial problems that might follow.

But, right now?