Score one.
The silence drifts for just a moment before she reaches into the cabinet beside her and pulls out a handheld strainer.
“Don’t worry,” she brushes it off casually. “It was just foster care…”
“Foster care? What about it?”
“You said ‘people who survive things,’” she says. “That’s usually not a guess.”
Fair point. “Yeah. I was in the foster system.”
She drains the pasta, movements slower now. “Me too.”
I figured. There’s a difference between people who grew up with stability and people who learned to create it themselves. “What was it like for you?”
She snorts softly. “You want the highlight reel or the honest version?”
“Honest.”
“First home sucked,” she admits bluntly. “Family had a kid already and she hated me. Parents didn’t do much to stop it.”
I don’t interrupt, letting her explain freely.
“She made it… clear I didn’t belong,” Liv continues. “Everything was hers. Everything was off-limits. I was just… there.”
Making her feel temporary, unwanted, and disposable, I assumed. I know the feeling.
“They moved me after a few months,” she adds. “Second place was better. Not warm, exactly, but… stable.”
“How so?”
“The couple worked a lot. I was the only foster kid so there wasn’t any drama.” She shrugs, setting the drained pot of pasta onto a different burner on the stove. She cracks an egg into the pan, tosses the shell into the trash, and starts stirring. “I learned how to take care of myself pretty quick.”
I glance around the apartment again. Yea, that tracks.
“Guess that stuck,” she admits, following my gaze.
“It did,” I agree.
She drops half of a stick of butter into the pot, moves it back to the still hot burner, and starts stirring again.
I can’t take it anymore. I need to know. “An egg?” I ask.
“Adds protein. Plus, it makes it creamier,” she explains casually.
Huh, learn something new every day I guess.
“You’re turn,” she continues. “What was your foster story?”
I let out a breath, crossing my arms. “Short version? I got lucky.”
She looks back at me, a perked brow topping her face.
“I bounced around a bit,” I continue. “Then I got placed with a single man. And it… stuck.”
“Stuck how?”
“He adopted me.”
