Chapter 23 #3
I snorted. Leave it to Wynn to see Gianna as the victim.
She had been at one time. But I couldn’t afford to see her like that.
My past was too depressing as it was. “Being a mother was too much for her to handle.” I put my hand on her knee.
She rested her hand on top of mine. The contact grounded me.
“By the time I was ten, I was left alone for entire weekends. No supervision, and she never bought food. By then, she’d gotten into harder drugs.
The money was gone, and she was starting to do whatever it took to get more, usually hooking up with men to use them for as long as she could.
” Were any of them the fathers of my brothers?
Or did Gianna have kids after I’d aged out and left Montana? She would’ve been only thirty-three.
Wynn winced. “That’s awful.”
I nodded. “Yep. I was taken away when I was eleven, and I was so damn angry. I’d been taking care of myself for so long. Why did I have to suddenly listen to someone else?”
“Some of those homes weren’t better than what you left?”
“Only a few were truly bad, like the one I was in before I came to your house. The rest I ruined—with Gianna’s help.
” I let out a long breath and laid my head back on the couch.
“She would put ideas in my head during our visits. Even when the visits were supervised, there were still ways to fuck with my head. Sometimes she’d call or find me at school.
I’d tell no one. It was me and my mom against the world, and foster homes don’t really get trained adequately for kids like me.
Then when I was fifteen, she tried to convince me to steal from the family I was with.
I didn’t. I was sick of her taking what I had.
I was tired of giving it. Figured no one else should have to. ”
“You started to see that she wasn’t living for you but for herself?”
Wasn’t that the truth. “So she got close to the kid a year older than me. He had his own anger at life and was dabbling in drugs. Gianna wouldn’t have known where to find him if it hadn’t been for me.”
“Oh no.” Her wide eyes brimmed with anxiety. “She didn’t.”
“The only time she was generous in her life was giving him drugs.”
Her soft gasp tore at my heart. “Did he—”
“No. He’s alive and well for all I know.” The relief that he had survived an overdose was barely bigger than my resentment toward him. “But he said I gave the shit to him.”
“They believed him?”
“Didn’t matter. They couldn’t prove it. After that, they placed me farther from Bozeman—until eventually I ended up with the Baileys.” I rubbed her knee. “I could tell right away I didn’t want to fuck that up, but I almost did.”
“What changed your mind?”
I tipped my head forward to meet her gaze. “A little girl made me feel useful.”
Her lips parted. I had to look away.
“I kept my distance as much as I was allowed from Gianna. She behaved, too. I think she realized I had my limits. But the less I shared with her, the closer I got to aging out and becoming legally emancipated from the system, the more scared she got. She started making veiled threats…about you guys.”
Her eyes flared again. “No.”
“She did it again when she figured out I was at your dad’s funeral.”
“You left because of her?”
“I would’ve left anyway.”
“Myles.” She crawled onto my lap. I folded my arms around her, and she rested her head on my shoulder. “Are you going to her funeral?”
“God, no.” I didn’t know if there’d even be a funeral. “My brother, whatever the hell his name is, wasn’t very forthcoming. I think he’s under the impression I knew about him.” I let out a dry laugh. “As if he doesn’t know what she’s like at all.” I swallowed. “What she was like.”
“You miss her.”
“No.”
She sat up to face me. “It’s okay, you know. Your feelings are going to be complicated.”
I got lost in the warm depths of her eyes. “How can you be so understanding?”
“Having to figure out how to love and be furious with one set of parents while trying to love and accept another set of parents makes a girl need therapy. My birth parents were good people, but I was a scared and confused kid, and I was so furious with them. Angry at them for things they probably couldn’t help.
Upset that they hadn’t had cows like the Baileys or a house like the Baileys, and that they hadn’t had to deal with foster homes and adoptions.
Mostly my feelings stemmed from how they’d had the audacity to die and leave me and my sisters orphans.
” The corner of her mouth kicked up. “A tangle of feelings like that can mess anyone up, but I’ve had years to process.
Mama made a lot of runs to the counselors in town.
They helped in so many ways. Never could crack our fear of storms, though. ”
I wasn’t surprised all her sisters had issues with storms after what they’d been through. “She doesn’t deserve me at the funeral.”
“And your brothers?”
“I don’t know anything about them.”
She placed her hands on my shoulders. “I guess the real question is…how much do you want to know about them?”