Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 102708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Not only that but I wanted her to trust me. It was the only way I’d get answers out of her. At least that was what I kept telling myself. The last thing I needed was to get emotionally involved with my brother’s girl. Besides, he asked me to do this. If he wasn’t going to ask her questions, I sure as hell was.
Trust was such a foreign sentiment for me. I’d never experienced the desire to have anyone confide in me. Not even Julius, and he was my flesh and blood. It came with too many strings attached and emotions I refused to waste time on.
I didn’t care to have anyone’s trust. It never bothered me, seeing as I didn’t trust anyone either. How could I demand that from someone when I wasn’t willing to give it out myself? It was the way I’d always been, and there was no changing that.
It didn’t take a therapist to understand it was trauma from my parents being selfish bastards. I had more memories of the bad than I ever did of the good. The number of times they left me somewhere or with someone to do or get drugs was unforgivable.
I learned at far too young an age what drugs looked like. At one point, I thought everyone’s parents were always high. I didn’t know until I was about seven or eight that it wasn’t normal to see your father stumbling around belligerent or your mother depressed or extremely happy.
She was either up or she was down.
There was no in the middle.
I often thought about her mental health and whether she wasn’t suffering in silence. However, when that notion was acknowledged, I’d wonder if I had it too. I’d spiral, thinking something was wrong with me.
Constantly being self-aware of any triggers that would keep me up at night was just the consequence of trying not to lose my shit on a daily basis. Which was another reason to become cold and detached. If I didn’t care, I didn’t get hurt. Having two parents who were junkies didn’t help my anxiety. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and I never forgot it as much as I tried.
Right when the stillness was becoming too much, I reminded her, “You have an hour.”
She grabbed the paper, writing:
The only clothes I own are black.
With that, she gestured to the closet, and there in the corner was a pile of pitch-black darkness. Most of it looked old and tattered, and for another reason I couldn’t explain, it pulled at me. My gaze shifted to the stuffed animals that were on the floor in the corner of the closet. I recognized them immediately. They were comfort items from CPS.
Did she run away from them?
She noticed what I was looking at and reached for the handle to close the bifold door, but I stopped her.
I blurted, needing to know, “You were in the system?”
She hesitantly nodded, eyeing me cautiously.
“Is that what you’re running away from?”
The question lingered in the air, along with her worry about what I’d do with the information, as I answered the question for her.
Not ceasing my interrogation, I pressed, “Where are your parents?”
Again, I should have known better because she wrote down, challenging…
Where are yours?
I argued, “I asked you first.”
Her stare narrowed in on me.
I don’t know.
There in three little words, I was shoved to the edge, crashing to my demise, and I sincerely replied…
“Me neither.”
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
KRAVEN
We stood there at a standstill, neither one of us moving or making a sound.
What can I say?
She’d seen my true colors, flashing bright and bold in front of her eyes. My truths were like a warning in the night, telling her to steer clear of the jagged rocks that approached. Like the current of a river, the force of gravity dragged her down the stream right along with me.
There was beauty in her pain.
Realizing we had a lot more in common than I ever considered was magnetic for me. We’d been taken by CPS a few times, but through it all, in the back of my mind, I always knew Julius would reunite us. I wouldn’t admit it to him, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. I had someone who loved me and made damn sure we weren’t separated after all these years.
Despite often bumping heads, we fought to stay together. I couldn’t imagine battling that alone. If she had someone to look out for her, they would have found her already, and it took this moment between us for me to truly grasp that concept.
Question after question plagued my thoughts. Each one more unforgiving than the last, tumbling around in my head. I didn’t give any thought to what happened next. I swore I moved on autopilot.
One minute, we’re in Julius’s room, and the next, I’m leading her into my parents’ bedroom, only stopping at my mom’s closet.