I know it might be a while before she lets us visit Robin.
All the same, I’m in the calmest mood I’ve ever been in when I finally get behind the wheel.
It doesn’t matter how long it takes, I guess. All that matters is I know she’s doing well now.
Not knowing was driving me insane. Actually getting to see her was exactly what I needed.
At least I knew what I had to do.
It’s just crazy that I didn’t realize why it was turning me into a psycho.
I switch on the air-con as I take us out of our sleepy, familiar little neighborhood.
It’s been a long time since I really lifted my head to look around me.
We live in a place that’s so clean and quiet that it’s idyllic, and I’ve had my pack crammed into a tiny two-bed apartment while I was trying to figure out which life path to choose, like a moron.
It’s not like I don’t have money.
When you’re homeless at fourteen, thanks to the trauma your mom has from how she ended up with you, you learn how to make money fast. As an Alpha, I had it easy. My instincts were sharp.
I made a killing at the track, after I procured a fake I.D. from a kid in one of my classes.
It helped that I was already tall and muscular.
No one ever mistook me for a minor.
I never quit school, because I didn’t want to waste money on an apartment or a motel room.
Sneaking into the gym after hours was easier.
I slept on the couch in the football coach’s office for years and no one suspected anything.
Those were crazy days. My mood was pretty fucking awful the whole time.
Comes with the territory when the only family you have hates you.
It took a while to realize I could find a family of my own.
Shayne showed me kindness when he had no reason to be nice to me, not after the way I treated him in high school. He told me he forgave me. That he knew I must have been going through something. Then he asked me how I was doing, and I lost it.
It was six months until graduation, and my mom had just died.
She’d left me everything.
The woman who had tried to kill me multiple times over the years, had left me her house and everything that had ever belonged to her.
Almost as if she actually loved me.
In reality, she couldn’t stand to be around me.
I know I reminded her of Frank Palmer.
That’s why she left me with the neighbors at every opportunity.
I barely slept under the same roof as her while I was an infant.
And the older I got, the more she left me to fend for myself.
