Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
“No it isn’t.”
“Give us a chance, Connie, let us prove to you that we aren’t going anywhere.”
“No.” My arms fold across my chest so tight my shoulders are pulling.
“We could have so much fun.”
“I don’t wanna have fun with you!” I yell, standing so suddenly my chair falls backwards.
“Why?” Immy pushes and I also want to kick her in the shin. “Tell us why.”
I stare at them both still sitting there, hardly reacting to my anger. Why aren’t they mad that I’m talking back? “Because I don’t like you.”
Hurt flickers in her hazel eyes and I feel guilt, but not enough to make me stop.
“And I know you don’t like me too.”
“That ain’t true,” Kane responds calmly. “We like you a lot.”
His words make my eyes burn. I don’t want them to say that. They don’t need to. “Well then in a week you ain’t gonna like me, or in two weeks you ain’t gonna like me, and then you’ll leave and I’ll never see you again!”
“We won’t leave you,” Immy promises and reaches for my hand. “I’m your momma, I would never leave you.”
“Yes you will,” I cry, tears streaming down my face. “My last momma did!”
“My blood is in your veins. Her blood wasn’t.”
I point at the door. “Melody’s momma’s blood runs through her veins too and she left her and didn’t come back! All these kids here, their mommas and their dads didn’t come back for them. We’re unlovable. All of us.”
“Connie.” Immy stands, tears making her cheeks shiny too. “Places like this are so tragic and I’m so sorry that all your friends don’t have good mommies and daddies. But everyone’s situation is different.”
“I don’t care!” I scream, backing away from the table towards the door. “I don’t care! I don’t care! I DON’T CARE!”
“Connie,” Kane warns. “You ain’t unlovable. Nobody is unlovable.”
“You don’t know anything about it!”
“Neither do you.”
“Kane.” Immy shakes her head at him and I take this moment of distraction to bolt from the room like a rabbit from danger.
I’m trembling, my entire body is shaking. I’ve never felt so many things at once.
The back door at the end of the kitchen opens with ease and I stumble out into the warm air. They let me go, knowing I can’t get far because this place is a fortress. The only way out the back is through a metal gate and I don’t have the key for it.
I run all the way to the end, my legs are burning, and I grab the metal bars and pull. Sometimes I come out here and pretend I can bend them with my mind, or maybe fly over them, and then I run away to a mall and live in a candy store where nobody can bother me because I’ll blast them all into space with my cool laser beams! I’d make the best super person ever.
Immy
“I feel useless,” I admit, looking at the man I love. “She’s so fucking stubborn she’s not giving us an inch. I don’t know how to get through to her.”
“The good thing about this is, that girl has the will of an iron rhino.” David laughs gently at his own words. “Nobody will stop her from following her dreams once she realizes what they are.”
“Something’s gotta give. She hates us.”
“She doesn’t hate us,” Kane replies with a heavy sigh. “She wants to hate us.”
I walk to the window where I can see my daughter sitting at the far end of the small field, throwing stones at the metal bars that line the property. Apparently, she often goes there to think things through and usually comes back in a better mood.
“She doesn’t like to open up,” Stacey utters gently, also looking towards Connie. “Not even with me and I’ve been with her for two years now.”
“That doesn’t bring me hope,” I admit, feeling my heart break even more.
“She won’t open up because she knows eventually I’ll leave. She knows as much as I love these kids that one day I might change jobs or maybe my bosses will assign me different kids. She’s sharp as a whip. But when she knows you guys aren’t leaving, she’ll open up to you, I know it. That kid has the softest center and the biggest heart.” Stacey places her hand on my shoulder but releases me when Kane sneaks up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist.
“We knew this would be a challenge,” he says, his voice deep and gruff, a soothing velvet on my jagged nerves. “We’ve just gotta keep on. She’ll crack.”
“Will we damage her in the process?” I ask, terrified that our actions aren’t going to make her inability to open up any better. “I’m scared of hurting or scarring her beyond what she already is.”
“She’s tough as nails,” Kane reassures me. “That kid is not going to let anyone stand in her way or drag her down.”