“I didn’t want to get involved in this shit anyway. Glass took it too far. Nobody was supposed to die—least of all her. What was he thinking? How could he do that?” I could hear sniffling coming from their direction and one of them kept apologizing to the other. What is he sorry for?
The car stopped, and I instinctively scooted as fast as I could toward Nathan. We huddled together until the door in the back opened, and we were met by a pair of sky-blue eyes. I wasn’t sure why, but he made me feel somewhat safe. I was glad it wasn’t anybody else. Maybe it was because I could see the sadness in his eyes. Still, the longer he stood there, the worse the feeling in the pit of my stomach got. I moved as close as I could to Nathan, and he did the same until we were shoulder to shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Blue Eyes whispered. “I have to separate you. You’ll both be safer this way. Everything is okay now.”
He leaned in and grabbed Nathan, who let out a muffled scream, mimicking my own. Blue Eyes put Nathan over his shoulder and turned around. Nathan stopped screaming and turned up his head so that I could see him. I knew he was trying to be brave. My brave friend. My chest was heaving in sobs as I watched him get taken away from me. As I drowned in my tears, the other man started to speak.
“I’m sorry, little girl. This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said in a broken voice. “I know you don’t understand this, but I’m truly sorry.”
I wished people would stop saying that to me.
Blue Eyes came back and closed the back door again before going to his seat. “I’m going to take you to a good home now, Baby Girl. You’ll be with your Aunt Shelley. She’s going to take real good care of you.”
I fell asleep crying, wondering where we left Nathan. I hoped he was back home with his family. The next time I woke up I was lying in a bed, untied, and a woman with blond hair and kind blue eyes was watching me. I made her cry when I asked her where my mommy was.
“You’re mommy is an angel now, Doll,” Aunt Shelley said as tears swam in her blue eyes. “She’ll always be with you.”
“Do you know my mommy?” I asked quietly.
“I do, I know your mommy very well,” she replied hoarsely.
“Do you know where my daddy is?” I replied as I slumped my shoulders.
“No, baby, I don’t,” she said as she ran her fingers through my hair.
I asked her for my parents every day for months. One day I woke up with no hope and stopped asking.
Aunt Shelley tried to make me feel comfortable and never gave up on me. She started taking me to a therapist when I wouldn’t stop drawing pictures of women with blonde hair laying in red puddles. The therapist asked me a lot of questions, and one day Aunt Shelley stopped taking me. She home schooled me until I was ten and she got diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a double mastectomy and survived the cancer, but still enrolled me in the local elementary school, where some of my friends from dance classes went. The school gave her the option to let me skip a grade since I was advanced, but she decided against it. She said that adapting to school was a big enough deal and that I didn’t need middle school to be my first school experience.
When I was twelve, Aunt Shelley was diagnosed with lymphoma and was given four months to live. She never told me she was dying.
“I’m sick, Cupcake,” she said one night over dinner.
I frowned. “Sick how?”
“I have cancer,” she said in a wavering voice. I gasped. I knew a couple of kid’s in school that had family members die of cancer.
“Are you gonna die?” I ask quietly.
Tears filled her eyes. “God needs another angel to help him, but I don’t know when he’ll need me.”
She told me she loved me, and I would be with people that would take care of me. She said her neighbor, Phoebe, would take me to a good lady named Maggie Parker. She asked me to promise her that I would behave, continue to study, and follow my dreams. I promised her everything. I would have given her the world if I could.
One night after dance class, I laid in bed with Aunt Shelley as she was hooked up to uncomfortable monitors. She squeezed me to her side and held me close. We had a live-in nurse with us, which led me to believe that things were going very bad. Aunt Shelley refused to stay in the hospital and leave me alone. As I laid with her and talked about math and science, she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I told her that I wanted to put bad guys in jail. She suggested I become a lawyer because I had guts or a police officer because I was selfless.
I looked at her with a smile on my face. “I love you, Aunt Shelley.”
Tears formed in her eyes, and I wished I hadn’t said anything. I didn’t know what came over me. I just had to say it though. It was the first time I’d ever told her that I loved her, not because I hadn’t always loved her, but I couldn’t say the words before then.
“I love you, too, Blakey,” she replied.
We fell asleep hand in hand. She passed away the next day. For the second time in my life, I felt alone, lost, and hurt. Thankfully, I only felt that way for a week—until I was taken to Maggie’s house. That was where I met the people that I considered my real family. The ones I adored, would die for, and kept me going. The same ones I would shut out in order to protect from getting hurt by me.
Chapter 3
Present
“So, did you have a nice weekend?” Cole asks, breaking the comfortable silence we had as I drive him to the airport.
I roll my eyes but can’t keep myself from smiling. “You were here all weekend; you should know that I did.”
“Did you like that I was here all weekend?” he asks as he jabs me in the ribs playfully.
I squeal and shimmy a little. “It was alright,” I say with a shrug.
His chuckle makes me grip the steering wheel a little tighter. When we get to the next red light, I turn my body to face him. Whatever I was thinking about bringing up vanishes when our eyes lock and I see a mix of sadness and longing in his eyes that reflect my own. Honking cars startle us out of our trance and I clear my throat as I turn my body to continue driving. I park in front of O’Hare International Airport and watch as he gets down and opens the back seat. He puts on a navy sports jacket before reaching in for his bag. I turn in my seat to face forward when he closes the back door.
“I guess I’ll see you...thanks for coming,” I say quietly, looking straight ahead. I’ve always been horrible with goodbyes; and goodbyes with Cole aren’t my favorite thing in the world. I hear him sigh loudly and I tilt my head when I feel him get back in the car.
He leans in and my heart goes into overdrive when he picks up the hand I have resting on the gear. “You don’t have to thank me,” he says. “See you soon, baby,” he murmurs softly as he grazes the top of my hand with his lips, liquefying my insides.
I’m not sure how long I sit there staring at the door that Cole walked through before my brain starts functioning again. I shake my head to clear my thoughts and notice a little black velvet box on the passenger seat. My first thought is: Shit. He left something. My stomach turns at the size of the box. It could be a ring. Oh my God, is he going to propose? I can’t even think about that, but damn it, I’m reaching over and picking it up anyway. I don’t know why I love to torture myself like this. I clutch on to the little box with shaky hands before I take in a deep breath and open it. I let out the breath when I see a necklace with a silver skeleton key on it. It’s amazing. I don’t analyze it too much before I snap the box closed and toss it back on the passenger seat before driving home.