Truth was, she told me lots of things. I spent more time here than I should have, always requesting the cameras off. Everyone here thought I was here to use her, and that I wanted privacy to do it. But, in truth, I was letting her use me. Letting her leanon me when the days got heavy.
I became a friend.
“That was different. He was different. He was special.” Her pain ate away at me, as the tangible feeling of it thickened in the air.
“Noted.” I smiled, knowing that no one would ever compare to him. “I thought I told you to lay off; you’re not helping yourself.”
“I can’t control it.” A sob broke away from her. “Go away.”
“For you to start the same daydream over again?”
She didn’t answer me. But I knew that would happen. It was what had been happening for the last three months, maybe longer. But that was when I started witnessing it, because that was when she finally got sent back here, under my request. Before that, it had been a long ten years since I saw her last. If anything had happened to her in that time—if her life had been cut short—I’d have died from guilt. . .
Well, I would have if Hell didn’t kill me first.
My attention had been on him for the last ten years. I’d adopted him as a younger brother, and he wasn’t the only one. I had a small band of misfit victims living in my home—boys who needed almost as much help as he did.
Life had been hard, on me and them. But on Woodrow, especially. He’d been in and out of psych wards for the last ten years, which was why I could never leave the state to go looking for Jolie. I had to wait until I was in a position of power to bring her to us.
Woodrow needed me.
He was lost in his grief. His little sister haunted him daily, and so did the girl in front of me. He’d closed the door on all he had left—his God, and lived only for the promise I made him when I first took him in.
That I’d find his girl and bring her back to him. . . and I’d have found a way to do that already, if he was mentally prepared to handle the reunion.
He’d been released three and a half months ago. And it was the longest time he’d spent from an institute, aside from one time, three years back, when he’d been sent home to heal after an operation to remove a tumor in his throat. The tumor was cancerous and had been ignored for years.
And that was a hard fucking time, for me as well as him. Because, as a result of the fear that cancer left in its place inside Woodrow, Ihad to deal with an overgrown child. . . and I had no idea how to do that. I wasn’t a parent or a psychologist.
I couldn’t help him. . .and Jolie.
Until now, when Woodrow was relatively normal, by his standards, at least.
“Why does it never end happily?” I wondered, moving my attention back to the girl in front of me. Her daydreams always ended the same, without a happy ever after. With her sobbing her heart out. With Woodrow dying of cancer.
Like he almost actually did.
She didn’t know he’d had it; she didn’t know he survived the fire—she’d convinced herself he hadn’t, and it brought her misery every single day.
I hadn’t corrected her assumptions; I didn’t want to bring her more pain, brought by the hands of other brutes as she tried tirelessly to escape and find him.
Until recently, despite always knowing I’d help her, I didn’t know if Woodrow would ever be mentally well enough to see her again. Maybe my approach was wrong, but I did what I thought was right for him. Because, for the longest time, he was my top priority.
“Because we never got a happy ending,” Jolie interrupted my train of thought before it crashed into a wall of guilt.
I blinked in the image of her, her skinny fingers scratching at her skin. She’d need a lot of help after this.
And I’d pay for it all. I’d do anything to make her better, but something inside told me, it would only take one thing—one person—to bring her back to herself. To a reality she’d be happy to live in. And it wouldn’t cost a thing.
“But it’s a daydream, Jolie. You could have your happy ending.”
Her head bobbed, and the burlap sack grazed her shoulders. Her fingers rushed to the area, her nails leaving scratches on her already mauled skin.
“It is,” she replied quietly. “But I never got to grieve.”
“You’re still grieving, Jolie.” I blew out a heavy breath, as Jolie held hers, holding backthe sadness. “You haven’t seen this boy since you were eighteen. Why don’t you dream of the future you wanted together?”
“It would hurt more.” She sniffled again. “It would hurt too much to wake up from that.”
