“Why didn’t you tell me that you didn’t have money? I thought that you had everything figured out,” Kaden says, pointing a finger at me as he shuts the door.
“What the hell are you talking about? I have plenty of money.”
“Then why the hell were you not in California last weekend?”
“I wasn’t invited to California, Kaden.”
He stares at me like he’s the confused one. “Of course you were. Why would I not want my baby sister at the most important night of my career, possibly my life…”
“Beats me, but I’m pretty sure that I would have remembered receiving an invite for that kind of thing. What do you mean, I don’t have any money?”
“Dad said that you couldn’t afford it. I would have paid for it, you know,” he says. I stare at him in utter confusion,because what is he talking about right now?
“How would Dad know what I can and can’t afford? I haven’t talked to him since I moved here, Kaden. He didn’t even fucking tell me that I had a place to stay. Beckett had to call me himself and let me know that I had a place to go, and that I wouldn’t have to be staying in a cardboard box off I70.”
He scoffs as if I were lying to him. “He says he calls you every week to check in.”
My jaw actually unhinges at that statement.What the actual fuck?I pull my phone out of my pocket and toss it to him. He catches it easily. He stares at me like he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with it.
“Look at my call history, read through my fucking text messages, I don’t care. But I can promise you that I have not heard from that man in almost three months,” I say, my emotions starting to get the better of me. I was trying to keep it under control so that I didn’t turn into a blubbering, emotional idiot.
He looks at me for a few moments before tapping on the screen of my phone. We stand in silence as he scrolls through my phone before he slowly hands it back to me. His eyebrows scrunch together in confusion as he stares at the floor.
“He lied to me, why the fuck would he do that?” he whispers like he’s talking to himself and not to me.
“I don’t fucking know, but I wasn’t invited to the draft, Kade. If I had been, I would have been there.”
He looks up at me, and his eyes are sad. “Heliedto me.”
It’s like his whole world is coming down around him. I don’t know how to feel bad for him, because yeah, the man he idolizes is a dick and always has been.
“Yeah, welcome to my life,” I mutter as he sits on the bed.
“What else has he lied to me about?” he whispers.
“How am I supposed to know? As I said, he doesn’t talk to me. I’ve talked to Briar and Monica maybe ten times combinedsince I’ve moved out, almost all of which I’ve initiated. They don’t care about me.”
“Ten times? Sloane, you’ve been out of the house for three years,” he says, looking up at me.
“Yeah, I know, Kaden.”
“Ten times?How the hell is that even possible? I talk to Dad almost every day. And Mom calls at least once a week.”
“I don’t know, probably because they don’t give a fuck about me. They don’t care if I live or die, or anything. I don’t ask for money; they don’t pay for my schooling or any of my living expenses. I have no value to them, so they don’t care.”
“That’s not true, you do. They do care, Sloane. They ask about you, they do,” he says, but it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than me. He goes quiet again, as if he’s thinking about the conversations that he’s had with our parents.
“Why do you think I’m staying here?” I ask.
“Because you needed a place to stay, and Beckett had room for you,” he whispers.
“Well, yeah, but you left out the part about the fact that I went to Briar and Chanel first, and then he ghosted me.”
“That’s not true, it can’t be.”
“You saw the call logs, what do you mean? I know that it’s probably hard for you to grasp since he’d do anything for you, but he’s never cared about me. I’m just the child who should have never been born. I’m not worth anything, don’t you realize that?”
“No, don’t say that. You have your social media and stuff. You’re doing well. Yeah, maybe, they don’t take you as seriously as they should, but…they do love you. You’re their kid, theyhaveto.”
