I could see that I surprised him. It was good to know he didn't already know everything about me like I’d feared.
"What's her vice?"
"Heroin mostly, but from what I gather, she's dabbled in a little of everything."
"You know it's not your fault, right?"
Nolen wasn't the first person to tell me that. My therapist liked to remind me of it often whenever I was forced to put Hannah back in rehab.
"It's hard not to feel responsible when I raised her."
"You never should've had to raise her to begin with."
Another thing my therapist liked to tell me.
"I know that, but I did and look how she turned out? She can barely go six months without turning to drugs."
Nolen didn't look at me with pity like I expected him to. "I don't have any personal experience with this, but I've heard plenty of people say you can help a person as much as you want, but they have to want it themselves before a change can ever be made."
Wow, at this rate, I wouldn't need to pay a therapist when Nolen could give me the same advice for free.
"You're starting to sound an awful lot like my therapist."
Nolen gave me his signature crooked smile. "I don't think I've ever had anyone tell me that before."
Suddenly the atmosphere in the room was much lighter. I was actually able to chuckle about the current situation.
"Well, I'm glad to be the first."
The smile on Nolen's face didn't last long before he got serious on me again. "You know you can trust me, right? Whatever is going on; I want to help you."
If only it were that easy.
"Like I said before, this isn't about trust. It's about protecting my family, and only I can do that."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nolen
How could I get Vanessa to see that I only had her best interests at heart, and that included her sister?
"You don't have to do this alone." I was practically begging her to let me in, but I could tell by the stubborn look on her face that I wasn't going to get anywhere tonight.
"Just please drop it."
"On one condition."
There was no way I could give in without at least a little pushback.
"What is it?" Vanessa looked at me skeptically.
"Before you do anything stupid, you come to me."
I could see she was thinking about it, and it made me wonder if she had already done something stupid.
"Someone has already come to your house to hurt you, and they are threatening your sister. If you would let me, I would deal with the problem so you never have to, but since you refuse to do that, this is the next best thing."
I may have left out the fact that I planned to do some digging in the meantime. What Vanessa didn't know wouldn't hurt her.
