CHAPTER TWELVE
Jordy’s sister lives in a dilapidated apartment in a not-so-great part of town. When I pull up to the building, there are two sketchy-looking guys out front engaging in what I’m fairly certain is a drug deal. The front door opens and Jordy races out; I can hear one of the guys say something to her, and her snarky retort. She jumps into the car, hits the button to lock the doors, and tells me to drive away quickly.
Once the car is moving, Jordy practically melts into her seat. I glance over to see her drop her head back and close her eyes. A million questions fight to escape my lips, but Jordy looks as exhausted as she sounded on the phone. If her wrinkled clothes and the slight, unpleasant odor wafting off her are any indication, she’s been wearing the same outfit for the last few days.
“Are you okay?” I ask tentatively.
She doesn’t speak for a long time. I expect her to say she’s fine or give the bare minimum of details. Instead, when she opens her mouth, words spill out so fast, it’s a struggle to keep up. She tells me about her dad losing his job and how unbearable it’s been at home. She explains about her phone being cut off, her sister’s baby getting sick, and how she spent the last several days taking care of her three-year-old nephew while her sister, who’s due to have baby number three in a few weeks, stayed at the hospital with her two-year-old, who was severely dehydrated, but is fine now.
“I wanted to call you, but I couldn’t remember your cell number or the number of the center, and my sister doesn’t have a computer, so I couldn’t look it up.” Her words come so fast and in such run-on sentences, she’s winded at the end of each one. She sucks in a deep breath and continues. “I finally found some old paperwork from the center in my backpack and got the number from it. When my sister came home for a bit yesterday, I used her phone to call the center.”
“I got your message,” I tell her.
“Okay, good, so at least you knew I was still alive.”
I glance at her, my heart giving a sharp tug at the sight of her tired smile. “I was relieved, but still worried.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“No, don’t apologize,” I interrupt. “It’s not your fault. There’s only so much you can say in a message, especially since it wasn’t my personal line. I’m just glad you’re okay.” Silence falls again. The questions that are still kicking around in my mind fight once more to be vocalized. “Why didn’t you tell me your dad lost his job?”
“Because I knew you’d try to fix it.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
Jordy sighs. “No, Hollie, it’s not. It would be so easy to let you help me.Tooeasy. But I can’t become dependent on you. You won’t always be around.”
“What do you mean? Of course I will. I’m not going anywhere, Jordy.”
She falls silent again. When I stop at a red light and look at her, she shakes her head. “I know when you say that, you mean it. You believe it’s true right now, at this moment. But everyone always leaves me. My mom, my siblings. My dad is still there physically, but he’s checked out in every other way. He doesn’t notice or care if I’m around, doesn’t do anything for me. How will I learn to deal on my own if I let you fix my problems for me? If I learn to rely on you and then, for whatever reason, you’re not there anymore?”
Her words are like a punch to the gut. Jordy is too young to be this jaded. The car behind me beeps its horn, startling me. The light is green, but my foot feels like lead on the brake. I ease it off and start driving again.
“Helping someone you care about isn't the same thing as fixing their problems,” I say. “It’s okay to accept help. I understand how terrifying it can be to let people in, to trust them and lean on them, but I promise you not everyone leaves. Not everyone will hurt you or disappoint you.”
I’ve only ever told Jordy bits and pieces about what my life was like at her age. I didn’t want to dump all of that on her, but I told her about some of the parallels in our lives when we first met because I hoped it would help her to trust me and see that working at Belle Vie was more than just a random career choice. I know I should confide in her now, the way I did with Spencer earlier today. Tell her I don’t know what I would have done without my friends and their parents. How I had to swallow my pride and let them help me because it meant the difference between going hungry and not. Having a home and not.
This isn’t the moment for that, though, so instead I ask, “Have you eaten?”
She mutters something I don’t catch, making me wonder if she’s commenting on my sudden change of topic. I ask her to repeat herself and she groans before saying, “Not since yesterday.” She clears her throat and speaks louder. “There wasn’t much food in the house and I figured it was more important for my nephew to eat.”
“We’ll stop and get something, then. What would you like?”
“Oh, it’s okay, I’ll scrounge up some food when I get home.”
Something inside me clicks into place at her words. “You’re not going home. What would you like to eat? I can stop and pick something up or I can make you something when we get to my place.”
“What do you mean I’m not going home?” She jerks forward in her seat. I meet her eyes briefly, seeing the panic written all over her face. “You’re not taking me to, like, child protective services or something, are you?”
“No, no, of course not.” We approach a small strip plaza and I pull in, parking the car in the first available spot. It’s too difficult to concentrate on the road and have this conversation at the same time. “I went by your place today to try to find you…”
She closes her eyes and drops her head back on the seat like she did when she first got in the car. “I’m guessing you talked to my dad?”
“I did. I obviously can’t tell you what to do, and I know you said you want to figure this out on your own, but I’m telling you that you don’t have to. I’m telling you I’ll be here and I’m not going anywhere. I want to bring you home with me, at least for tonight. We can grab takeout or stop at the grocery store and I’ll cook for us. Whatever you want. You can sleep in my spare room and we’ll figure things out tomorrow, whether that means you going home or…or staying with me for a while.”
Jordy opens her eyes and stares straight ahead. The businesses in the plaza are closed for the day and we’re far enough from the street that I can’t hear any traffic noise. Silence stretches, filling the car until it presses at my eardrums and weighs on my shoulders. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s possible for silence to suck the air out of a space when Jordy meets my eyes.
“Fish and chips?”
