I need to not lose my shit.
Sloane rests a hesitant hand on my back. “Are you okay?”
I blow out a slow breath.
Her house was broken into. She’s being attacked by the woman who raised her and a man who doesn’t give the first fuck about what’s best for her.
And she’s asking if I’m okay.
I blow out another slow breath. “I don’t like parents usingI raised youas a control tactic.”
“Did your parents?—”
“My father did.”
I start to move, but her voice stops me. “I didn’t realize that’s what it was until a couple years ago. ThatI raised youwas one more tool in the guilt kit. Now, I watch Libby and Clay Rock with Tillie Jean, and with Grady and Cooper, and I watch how they enjoy letting their kids live their own lives and make their own choices, how they trust their kids to be good people without the constant insistence that what they want is best, and I just—I want that. But I’ll never have it.”
“You have them though. They’re the family you chose.”
She doesn’t have what I have.
She doesn’t have the tight-knit group of friends that she grew up with. The ride-or-die buddies that you can trust with everything because you always have.
She had to start over from scratch to build her family.
What if she’d started somewhere else?
What if she’d started somewhere with more people just like her grandmother and Nigel instead of people like the Rocks?
She blinks quickly. “Sometimes when I’m with them, I almost feel like I could do it. Like I could be the parent I didn’t have. The one who doesn’t use guilt and shame and manipulation. But I don’t know if I ever really wanted kids of my own, or if they were just the expectation. But I still love my grandmother. Shedidraise me. Shedidsave me. I just…don’t…like her right now.”
I realize I’ve gone from clenching my fists to rubbing my hands down my thighs, and I bolt to standing. “Can’t control other people’s choices. She can’t control yours, and you can’t control hers. Can only control how you react to it. You want a grilled cheese?”
I don’t wait for her to answer.
Easier to keep my hands busy and make a sandwich neither of us eats than it is to sit there with her, wanting to wrap her in a hug and not let go.
Keep her safe.
Safe from the entire goddamn fucking world.
From the shitstorm coming at her from all sides.
And to get a hug back.
To have someone I don’t know who’s been through shit and come out on the other side hug me tight and tell me that I’m okay too.
That my temper doesn’t define who I am.
That I do good in the world.
That my scales will be tipped to the right side when my time’s up.
Not because I need to believe in eternal salvation. But because I need to know that I’ve done my part to make the world better before I go.
The cat dashes in front of me, skids to a stop, looks up at me, and meows.
I toss it one of the cat toys Beck and Sarah left on the table, and it crouches down, wiggles its butt, and attacks.
