His head jerked up.“What?”
I shifted on the bed, stretching my legs out before pulling them under me once more.“I wasn’t the oldest kid in my class, but I was darn close.”
Liam’s voice softened.“How long was it before you finished high school?”
“Just a couple of months.”I inhaled a shuddering breath.Dredging up these memories was like ripping open an old wound, making the pain fresh all over again.Fear gripped me almost the same way it did then.“It was nearing final exam time.”
His expression hardened.“And your parents wouldn’t let you stay until the end of the school year?”
I tugged at a loose thread on my bedspread.“I was too stunned to ask.They were sohappy.”Truthfully, I doubted it would have mattered.They had been so sure that they were doing the right thing.“They were adamant I was leaving,” I whispered.“I didn’t bother to fight it.”
Liam stared at me now, his hands clenched into fists.“So … wheredidyou go?”
I exhaled slowly, steeling myself against any reaction he might have to what I planned to confess.Here went nothing.“About that…”
forty-three
for how long?
Liam
“Aboutthat…I,um… I didn’t go anywhere.”
My head snapped up.“What do you mean, ‘you didn’t go anywhere’?You must’ve gone somewhere.Your parents made you move out.So where did you go?”
She mumbled under her breath.
“Pardon?”My voice came out sharper than intended, causing her to flinch.I injected my voice with calm before adding, “Come again?I didn’t quite catch that.”
She huffed, then, louder this time, repeated, “I stayed in my car.”
My chest tightened.“Tell me you’re joking,” I whispered.But somehow, I knew she was serious.
She shrugged again, avoiding my gaze.“I had nowhere else to go.”
An image, crisp and vivid, punched me in the chest.In it, an eighteen-year-old Maya is curled up in the back seat of a tiny car, struggling to get some sleep before heading to school to take her final exams.But … that wasn’t possible.Was it?
“No grandparents?Aunts?Uncles?Friends?”My voice rose with each suggestion, mirroring my mounting dread.“There must have been someone you could’ve stayed with.”
Everyone in her life failed her so spectacularly that she wound up sleeping in her car?It was beyond comprehension
When my parents died, there was never any question of where I would go.Nana had opened her home to me with zero hesitation, despite my being an adult, and having been living on my own on campus most of the time, anyway.She could have easily done what Maya’s parents had done—told me to find my own place, forced me to figure it out on my own.But she hadn’t.Because of that, I’d always had a home to come back to during school breaks.
Maya released a humourless laugh.“My grandparents weren’t in the picture.I’ve never even met them because they kicked my parents out when they got pregnant with me.And neither of my parents has siblings, so no aunts or uncles.”
I gritted my teeth, the anger burning in my gut.I hated where this was going.“And friends?I’m sure someone’s parents would have let you crash for a few months.”
She shook her head.“I spent so much time focusing on school and working at my part-time job that I didn’t have many close friends.None close enough to ask for something that serious, anyway.”
“Jesus.”Slouching against the headboard, I rubbed at the growing heaviness in my chest.She’d had no one.
Her rueful laughter was a complement to the sombre mood in the room.“Tell me about it.”
Unable to stop myself, I took her hand and interlaced my fingers with hers, hoping she could feel the support that I couldn’t put into words.“That must have been a long summer before college started.I’ll bet you couldn’t wait to move into your dorm room.”
She tensed beside me as though remembering a particularly nasty detail of life in her college dorm.I could relate to that.
“What was it?”I leaned closer.“Bad roommate?I know what that’s like.”Shuddering at the memory, I added, “My first-year roommate thought showers were optional.By the end of the first semester, I had taken to spraying him with fabric refresher while he slept, and smearing Vicks VapoRub under my nose any time I had to be in my room for any length of time.”
