Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lexi
“This is my mom.” Camryn holds out a picture and I take it from her. We’ve been having sessions twice a week for the last three weeks and each time she opens up a little more. “We went camping a few weekends before the accident and we ate so many s’mores I felt sick. But it was a good night.”
“I love s’mores.”
Camryn is silent for a few minutes, then says something that breaks my heart for her a little more. “Do you think I’ll ever stop being sad?”
“I think there comes a time when we can think of them, or we can tell a story, and it hurts less. We start focusing on the memory more than the loss. But I also think that no matter how much time passes we will always miss them and wish that they were here with us. Something special will happen that we want more than anything to share with them.”
“I talk to them still,” Camryn confesses. “People think it’s weird.”
“I don’t,” I interrupt her, needing her to understand that however she chooses to grieve it’s okay.
“I talk to them when I’m lying in bed at night.
I tell my mom how I miss her cupcakes, the chocolate ones with sprinkles.
” Her eyes are so full of tears I almost break.
I want more than anything to scoop her up and hold her close.
The way she lost her parents really hits home, it’s so close to my story it shakes me to my center.
“She puts this white cream in the middle, kind of like those cakes you can buy from the store in a box. Only my mom’s were so much better.
” She gets quiet for a few seconds looking down at the second picture she still holds in her hand.
“This is my dad.” She passes it to me. “He gave the best hugs.” Camryn’s lower lip trembles and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying.
We talk for the remainder of our time, and when we are done I feel stripped raw. Like my insides have been scraped clean and there is nothing left. My heart is left aching, my throat on fire and as she walks to the door, looking back over her shoulder offering me a little wave, I break.
The second the door closes I turn in my chair and cry for the little girl who lost everything. No other family member willing to take her in, she lost the only two people that ever made her feel safe.
I am destroyed and I do something I never thought I would ever do.
Spinning around to my computer I open up a tab and start typing out an email. Without a second thought I hit send and instantly joy and anxiety rush through me all at the same time.
“I’m doing this!” I say to myself.
Picking up my phone I dial Sutton’s number and the second she says hello I rush to say the words.
“I applied to foster Camryn.” I don’t feel fear or regret, just pure excitement at the idea.
“Hello,” she says, “and who is Camryn?”
For the next ten minutes I tell her all about the sweet girl that has captured my heart.
I tell her a little about her story and by the end of the call, Sutton is also in tears.
She knew my mom, we’ve been best friends since daycare and were both in diapers.
Our mothers were friends, when I lost her, so did Sutton.
“I don’t know if I’ll get approved, and I know if I do I will have to move.
Adley will probably be mad, but I want her, Sutton.
She needs me, she needs to feel like there is hope.
Right now she’s in a group home and I can’t stand it.
She goes there, feeling lost and hopeless.
Everything she talks to me about, I’ve been there.
I felt it, hell I still talk to my mom.”
“First of all, nothing about this surprises me. You are always taking care of everyone. You have the biggest heart, Lex. Second, no one including Adley is going to be mad at you. It’s so honorable, and amazing.”
I smile as I lean back in my chair and let out the breath I’d been holding.
I knew calling Sutton would make me feel better.
She always does, she never tells me what I want to hear just to make me feel good about it.
She tells me the truth and whether it is good or bad, I always feel centered after.
“So what do you need from me?” she asks and it hits me.
“Honestly, I have no idea what I’ll need to do. I’m licensed through the state already so that part should be simple. But the rest, oh my God, Sutton I don’t even know where to start.”
“Well, then I guess we have some things to figure out, don’t we.”