“That’s why I reminded you,” she says, her words muffled by my chest. “I love you.”
The words I’ve barely ever heard in my entire life, but I believe she means them wholeheartedly. And I mean it too when I say, “I love you, too.”
“See you later, Reid.”
I wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole as I lie. “See you later, Penny. Good night.”
“Holy shit,guys! Do you see this?” Walker holds the slip of paper like it’s a precious crystal heirloom. A quick glance around our small circle and he’s not the only one. Nikolai and Hayden also look at their own checks with a similar awe that I’m sure I’d find on my own face if there was a mirror in front of me.
The number in front of me doesn’t seem real. Even split between the four of us, it’s more money than I’d ever thought I’d see in my whole lifetime.
“I’m buying a mansion! Indoor pool party at my place,” Nikolai announces.
“You can’t buy a mansion with this,” Hayden chuckles. “Not yet at least.”
Nikolai grins. “Then I’m buying a motorcycle.”
The check trembles slightly in my unsteady hands. My fingertips turn white with how hard I’m holding it, like the faintest breeze in this stuffy office will whisk it out of my hands and take it out of reach.
“What are you gonna do with it?” Walker beams at me and grips my shoulder excitedly. I sling my arm around his shoulders and pull him close while we both look at our first big paychecks since we moved out here and got our record deal, overwhelmed by the amount of money I hold.
Words tumble around in my brain like a bowl of wet noodles, and I can’t sort through them. For all of us, it’s a lot of money. But for me particularly, with no stable family life, coming from a foster home where I got nothing, it’s staggering.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “Put it in the fucking bank so they can’t snatch it back, that’s for damn sure.”
Walker lets out one of those bellowy laughs of his and slaps my back. “Let’s go do it!”
Later that night,I sit in the dark living room of our shared apartment while the other three sleep. The city lights shine through the open curtains, twinkling just how I dreamed they would all those nights when I laid in that creaky small bed in the foster house.
This is real. You’re here.
I haven’t allowed myself to think about my mother, my foster parents, Penny, any of it. Blocking it out is the only way to move on.
But as I think about the money sitting in my bank account, I can’t help but think about Penny, the foster sisterI didn’t know I needed. How’s she doing? Is she getting enough to eat? Is she back to crying herself to sleep at night?
I got out of there, and I want her to be able to do so too when she’s old enough.
The brightness of my phone screen against the black of night hurts my eyes as I turn it on and pull up my bank account.
I may not want to look back, but I know what I need to do.
10
Aspen
Present
“Inever saw any of that money.” My words are stolen by the sea breeze and pulled out into the dark sky beyond. The two of us sit shoulder to shoulder on an overlook on the ocean’s edge. We’re the only car up here, and it feels like we’re the only two people in the city as we sit before the ocean. It’s calm, despite the raging discovery between us.
Reid’s silent next to me as he digests my words, before his shoulders start to shake with anger. “Those selfish fuckers,” he mutters.
I don’t bother disagreeing. Our foster parents, Gina and Patrick, didn’t give a shit about us kids. They liked collecting their paycheck, being praised for being such good people, taking in us “unfortunate children,” and having extra hands around the house for chores.
They weren’t abusive physically, or like a lot of the horror stories you hear about foster homes, but they were neglectful, and not the parental figures I needed emotionally or for stability. They gave us kids enough resources to scrape by, just barely most of the time, to not have any questions raised about the environment they provided.
“I mean, I knew they kept the government money they were being handed out for us, but I never would’ve thought…” I trail off.
“You never even thought that I’d send anything back for you?”
