Chapter 19 #2
And she could know exactly why she had been that way, and she could feel sorry about it. But it had been her.
“I just wish that I had been braver. Because I feel like I made the people around me suffer for it.”
“Well, we all do that, don’t we?”
He hesitated for a moment. “I told Cody. About my dad. I figure since I told you it wasn’t really that fair to not tell my brother.”
“Oh. That’s good. I mean, do you feel good about it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know that I feel anything about it.”
“Well, that’s fair, too. But it seems like it was a secret that you were keeping for a long time.”
“I’m made of secrets,” he said, giving her that wicked grin that made her insides melt. Yes, Walker was made of secrets. Because he seemed like he wasn’t, and that made it all the more apparent that there were deep ones.
At least, that was what she was discovering. “It must have felt like a betrayal. Finding out that he wasn’t your dad. Even though you didn’t love him. Because like you said, you were trying so hard not to be him, and then...”
“Yeah. Then it turns out I did have a dad that I was more like. And I felt betrayed, because I hadn’t known what to look out for.
So, if that’s what you’re getting at, yeah, you’re right.
I was pissed off. Because I felt like I had worked hard to avoid that, and then in the end, there was no point.
I think I might be like him. James Holland. ”
“Why do you think that?”
“He’s a handsome devil who clearly uses his charm against people.
I do that. I’m not bragging. But neither am I going to have any kind of false humility about the tools that I’ve used in life to get where I want to go.
I used to be able to get away with shoplifting from the store, because nobody believed that I would do such a thing.
They thought I was a cute little kid. I mean, eventually they figured it out, and then we got more of a reputation, us Grayson kids.
It was obvious that you had to keep an eye on us in the stores.
But everybody watched Cody closer than they did me.
Not the little blonde kid that was stuffing candy bars into his underwear. ”
“You didn’t.”
“Hell yeah, I did. People don’t check there. You put stuff in your pockets and you’re asking for trouble. I made one lady feel so bad that she had suspected me. Turned my pockets inside out. And the whole time I had a can of chicken soup in my underwear.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Baggy pants, tighty whiteys. It worked. But I’m just saying, I have that. That natural ability to get what I want by lying. Not only that, I never felt bad about it. I figured we needed it, and everybody could kick rocks. They weren’t hungry. I was.”
“I mean, to an extent, I agree with you. Or maybe I’m just sorry you were ever put in that position. What else were you supposed to do? You were kids who were left to your own devices.”
“Maybe other kids would have done different things. But for me, that was easy, made the most sense. We also used to put out fake donation jars.”
“You probably could have put out real donation jars. You were in need.”
“Yeah, we experimented with a few things. Found out you could make more money asking for money for cats and dogs than you could asking for money for people.”
“Why?”
“People figure cats and dogs are helpless, but they want people to fix their own situation. And I get that. I’m not saying sometimes it isn’t true.
Our mom could have done better by us.” He looked away.
“Maybe she couldn’t have, Addison, I don’t know.
But I’m really fucking angry with her, and she’s dead.
So there’s nowhere for it to go. Cody looks at her like she’s a saint.
This woman who was victimized by this relationship that she was in, but I don’t see that.
I mean, I see how it was that way when it started.
I really do. I feel for her. But at a certain point, the life you’re living is on you.
We were just kids, we couldn’t make better decisions for ourselves.
We couldn’t make better decisions for her either.
We were just at the mercy of it. She would leave us home and go out all night.
After working all day, or not working sometimes.
But we would just spend long days in that apartment.
And we had to get food somehow. It was pretty common for us to have nothing in the cupboards. ”
“That’s horrific,” she said, her stomach twisting.
This was the person that she had picked on.
She couldn’t help it. Her eyes started to sting, and then a tear slipped down her cheek.
“I’m just so sorry. I’m so sorry for the way that we all treated you.
I’m so sorry that nobody helped you. That all people did was judge, instead of reaching out and seeing if you needed help.
I just... I feel so awful about all of it. ”
“That doesn’t fix anything, Addison. Feeling awful doesn’t fix things. And like I already said. Those challenges, they made me who I am. It’s also a sobering reminder that I’m cut from the same cloth as my dad. And maybe my mom.”
There was something he left unsaid there that was meant to come after that comment about his mother. She wished that he had finished it. Wished that he would tell her. Whatever that deep fear was.
But he didn’t, so she didn’t push.
“It must seem ridiculous to you that I have any kind of trauma.”
“No. Being abandoned by your mom is pretty fucking legitimate trauma. Maybe she did have her reasons, but she still left you. You get to be upset about that.”
“I barely let myself be. Because I turned her into a villain. And you can’t make somebody into a villain and then miss them, can you?”
He closed his eyes. “I don’t know. I miss my mom a lot. And I can’t even explain to you why. Maybe just because she’s my mom.”
“My stepmom is really sweet.”
“It doesn’t erase what it taught you when your mom left.”
She shook her head. “No. And you know... I bet a lot of people would have worried they weren’t good enough.
Would have worried that that’s why their mom left them, but I knew that I was good.
She was the one who was bad. And I just needed to make sure that I stayed, really, really good.
” She laughed. “What a grab bag of disastrous issues.”
“No doubt,” he said, his gaze suddenly getting intense. “But no matter how many issues I have, I know I can make you come.”
And after that, there was no talking anymore. Her mouth was far too busy.