“Being on the street again?”
She shakes her head and looks up at me. Her eyes are warm like melted chocolate. “My biggest fear is being abandoned by people I love.”
My heart cracks, and I squish her against my body. “I won’t leave you. Mother won’t leave you. Stella will never leave you. Heck, I’m pretty sure Ren will always stay by your side. You have so many people who care about you, Hayden. We will not abandon you. We will stay. I will stay.”
She sniffles into my jacket, and I try not to think of snot getting on it. I love this woman, but I alsoreallylike my suits.
But, of course, she can blow her nose into it and I’d let her. Love does that to people, it seems.
“Thank you, Darcy. I–I never dreamed I would have so many people in my corner. Much less someone like you.”
I squeeze her tighter, and she cries onto my shoulder.
I want to tell her everything right now, but I have to wait until after the interview because I’m fairly certain I will die a painful death if she leaves me after I tell her the truth of Ophelia.
After a moment, she straightens and pulls away. I don’t let her go, but I do give her a little of the space she is clearly wanting. With one last sniffle, she says, “I need to tell you something, Darcy.”
“What is it?”
“I—I think I was an unofficial accomplice in the death of a child.”
My body stiffens at the statement, the words “death of a child” have my mind to spiral down memory holes involving Ophelia and dark streets and drug needles.
“I’m listening,” I say, prompting her on. “Nothing will change my mind about you. Once I set my mind to something—to someone—I don’t go back.”
“You might retract that statement soon,” she mumbles. Hayden wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands, black mascara smearing across her face. She takes a deep, steadying breath, and I rub circles on her biceps with my thumbs.
“When I was nine, I ran away from the group home I was living in. I was upset and furious with Director Hoggs, the man who managed the place, because he had beaten one of my best friends when she snuck a cookie from the kitchen. Anyway, I ran away because I didn’t know what else to do. Kerri, my friend, was taken away in an ambulance. I found out later they told the medics that she had fallen down the stairs.”
Hayden pauses, and something between raging anger and utter sadness passes across her features. She sighs again and looks down at her twiddling fingers. I give her arms a squeeze, reminding her that I am here.
She continues, “I was on a street in the middle of a classic dark and stormy night. I kept picking up rocks and throwing them at abandoned buildings, trying to sort through the big emotions I felt. That’s when I saw her. A little girl who looked to be my age. She was wearing a pretty pink dress and her golden hair was tied in a matching pink ribbon. I only saw the colors with each flash of lightning. She was walking with a man, and as I sat and watched the two of them, the man caught sight of me. I ran away because I didn’t know if he was dangerous or not. Growing up with the older boys in the group homes, I grew to have a healthy fear of guys who were bigger than me. Anyway, the man followed, which sounded alarms in my young brain, and I scaled the side of a building until I perched on the roof. He never saw me there. As I caught my breath, I saw the young girl pick something up off the street and then, a few moments later, the man heard her scream and ran back to her. He tried to calm her and figure out what was wrong, but it was too late. Minutes passed and she fell to the ground. She never stood back up.”
With every little detail Hayden tells me, my stomach churns. Blood rushes from my face, and I’m left frozen as a stone-cold statue. Memories of cold, pouring rain soaking through my clothes as I hit my knees and tried to restart my sister’s heart swirl in my head, making me dizzy. I kept looking back to see if the other girl was around, but she had disappeared. And because I chased her,simply trying to help her, my sister paid the price. Hayden’s story is familiar.
Too familiar to be coincidental.
“She died. And I ran away,” Hayden finishes in a blank tone.
My emotions roar as realization sinks in.How twisted is fate! How intertwined our lives are! How God sees so much further into the future than we give Him credit for!
Silence encompasses the room as my mind screams and spins. I swallow, sandpaper coating my throat. “Hayden, I have to tell you something.”
“What is it?” She sniffles.
“That was me, Hayden.”
She meets my eyes, tears already running down her cheeks.
I tug at my tie, needing to find room to breathe in the midst of the thickness of the reality I’m facing. “I’m him. I’m the man.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hayden
“What do you mean you’re him?” Panic builds and builds like rushing water pushing against a cracked dam. “If you’re him, then that means the girl I watched die on the street that night is…”
“Ophelia,” Darcy whispers her name. “My little sister.”
