Page 91

“So this is all about you?”

I nod. “For once, yes.”

He sinks further into his seat, with nothing more to say because there is nothing he can ask from me he hasn’t already taken. The bus station is almost empty when we arrive. A cleaner pushes a mop across the tiled entrance, and a man sleeps curled up on a bench seat. The departure board flickers above the ticket window, with the first bus of the morning scheduled for a couple hours from now.

Rowan peers through the windscreen. “This is where you’re leaving me?”

I open the glove box and pull out my emergency cash, which is tucked into an envelope. There is a little over six hundred dollars, so I separate five hundred and hold it out to him.

His gaze drops. “That’s it?”

My final thread of patience snaps, and I pull the money back, Rowan’s hand following automatically.

“Valli, come on.”

“No,” I say firmly.

His hand drops. “What?” he asks in confusion.

“I was going to give you five hundred dollars, and the first thing that comes out of your mouth is that it isn’t enough.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. But I have nothing.”

“You have more than you deserve.”

His face darkens, but it isn’t like I wasn’t expecting it. This always happens when he doesn’t get his way.

“Don’t act like you’re better than me,” Rowan snaps.

“I don’t,” I say as I put five hundred dollars back into the envelope. “But I think I’m done being hard on myself because of you.”

His eyes widen when I hold out a hundred-dollar bill. “You’re seriously only giving me a hundred?”

“It will buy you a ticket and food.”

“And then what?”

I shrug. “That is no longer my problem.”

“If you hadn’t started fucking those freaks, none of this would have happened,” Rowan rages.

I slowly turn toward him. “You brought Steedy into our lives. This is all on you. I was kidnapped because of you, and those freaks, as you call them, saved me. They gave me the family I always wanted and protect me like you should have. Although they barely know me, they have done more for me than you ever have. Me and Leni.”

I climb out of the car, my eyes burning from crying. Rowan follows, slamming his door as I walk around the front of it and hold out the money.

“You’re abandoning me?”

“No, I am finally letting you go.”

He starts to cry, and I nearly lose my nerve. Then all the bad things he has ever done flash before my eyes.

“I loved you so much that I kept letting you hurt me because I thought loving someone meant never giving up on them,” I tell him quietly.

“I do love you.”

I shake my head. “No. You love having access to me. Love knowing I will clean up after you. You love having a sister who feels guilty saying no.”

“That’s not fair.”