Chapter 9
Reid
Past
“Are you going to come back and visit?” Penny sits cross-legged on my bed, braiding her hair into two pigtails while watching me pack. Her big eyes are sad as each item of clothing disappears into one of my two bags I have to my name.
“No,” I say as gently as I can. I’m never coming back here. Will never step foot in this city again. Not unless one day we have a sold-out show here and it’s contracted for me to be here.
“What about your mom?”
“I don’t have a mom,” I say cooly.
“But everyone has a mom.”
And that’s why you’re here, Penny? I choke down the retort. She’s been holding out hope that her mom would one day swoop in here, pick her up, and take her back home.
But from what I’ve overheard from Gina and Patrick, Penny wasn’t even living with her biological mom before she was brought here. She was with her aunt and uncle, who then got pregnant with another one of their own children, and decided they didn’t have room for Penny anymore.
Shitheads. All of them. And if she’s still holding out hope that her mom’s going to come back for her, then I’m just sorry I won’t be here to help pick up the pieces for her fragile, child’s hope.
“Well, I don’t,” I tell her. My mother was dead to me the moment she went to prison and I got sent here.
Her bottom lip wobbles a bit as she says, “What about me? Are you going to come back and visit me?”
I drop the folded shirt in my hands on the floor and walk over to kneel in front of her. My chest squeezes at the look on her face. I don’t want to lie, never have and certainly not to her, but maybe now’s a good time to start.
“Not for a while, but maybe once I’m settled out there.” The lie tastes like ash for someone like me who never shies away from the truth.
She perks up a little at that. “Really?”
I squeeze her blue pajama-covered knee. “Really, Penny.”
She beams at the nickname. A lucky penny. I have to admit, at first the nickname was snarky and kind of shitty of me, since she didn’t understand the joke. There’s nothing lucky about either of us or how we ended up here in this fucking house.
But over the last year, she and my music are the only things that make me feel like I have any sense of that elusive concept.
She wraps her thin arms around me, too damn thin for her age, and I make a mental note to run out tonight for some snacks to sneak in here for her before I leave tomorrow morning.
Hayden’s parents are dropping us all at the airport.
Walker and Nikolai are sleeping over at his house tonight in anticipation of our big move tomorrow, but I decided to stay one last night in this shithole.
Not because I’m not ready to leave it behind, but because I didn’t want to leave Penny just yet.
In the year that she’s been here, we’ve grown close, and the thought of leaving her here to fend for herself makes my stomach turn. But I can’t…I can’t stay here one more day. I need to get away, to get this fresh start, to get going on our music.
I quickly pack the last of my things and set the two bags by my door so they’re ready to go in the morning. Penny yawns and rubs her eyes, up way past her bedtime. Not that anyone in this house but me would notice.
“C’mon,” I say and motion for her, “bedtime.”
She climbs off my bed and we head next door into her room. I flick her nightlight on and she burrows herself under the covers.
“Am I going to see you when I wake up?” she asks quietly, and the hope in her question makes my teeth ache.
I sit on the edge of her bed. “I don’t think so. My plane leaves really early, way before your sleepy head will be up.”
She giggles before sadness creeps in again. “I don’t want you to go.”
I look down at her, at the only person besides my best friends that gives a shit about me, and know that I’m going to be leaving her behind. It cracks at the stone I’ve filled myself with.
“I know. But one day, when you’re older, maybe you can come live by me.” The words start tumbling out before I can stop them, before I can shut down the false hope I’m feeding her that we’ll ever see each other again. “I’m going to go live by the beach. You’d like to see the beach, wouldn’t you?”
She nods, her hair stark against the white pillowcase.
“I’m going to go out there so I can make music. I need a bigger audience than just you.”
“But I like hearing you sing!”
“And you still will. When you listen to the radio one day, you’ll be able to hear me sing again. Won’t that be cool?”
“I guess.” She picks at the blanket. “I wish I could come with you.”
“You need to stay and finish school. You like school, right?”
She never stops talking about how much she loves her teacher this year and all the new friends she’s made in her class.
“Yes…” she mumbles and yawns again. Good. I want her to fall asleep so this goodbye doesn’t get dragged out. I don’t want to do it. Don’t want to feel the rising feelings.
“You better get to sleep,” I say and stand up. “It’s already past your bedtime.”
“You’re the only one who gives me a bedtime. I’m never going to go to sleep now that you’re not here.” The stubborn frown on her face makes me smile.
I chuckle and say, “Okay, you see how long that lasts.” The laughter is good. Distraction is good. If she’s thinking about her bedtime, then she’s not thinking about me leaving…
“Wait!” She throws her covers off and bounds across the room as I’m walking toward her door. Her arms are thrown around my waist as she barrels into me. “You didn’t hug me. You need to hug when you say goodbye.”
My throat is tight as I gently pat the top of her head with one hand while holding her shoulder with the other. “I’m sorry. I almost forgot.”
“That’s why I reminded you,” she says, her words muffled by my chest. “I love you.”
The words I’ve barely ever heard in my entire life, but I believe she means them wholeheartedly. And I mean it too when I say, “I love you, too.”
“See you later, Reid.”
I wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole as I lie. “See you later, Penny. Good night.”
“Holy shit, guys! Do you see this?” Walker holds the slip of paper like it’s a precious crystal heirloom.
A quick glance around our small circle and he’s not the only one.
Nikolai and Hayden also look at their own checks with a similar awe that I’m sure I’d find on my own face if there was a mirror in front of me.
The number in front of me doesn’t seem real. Even split between the four of us, it’s more money than I’d ever thought I’d see in my whole lifetime.
“I’m buying a mansion! Indoor pool party at my place,” Nikolai announces.
“You can’t buy a mansion with this,” Hayden chuckles. “Not yet at least.”
Nikolai grins. “Then I’m buying a motorcycle.”
The check trembles slightly in my unsteady hands. My fingertips turn white with how hard I’m holding it, like the faintest breeze in this stuffy office will whisk it out of my hands and take it out of reach.
“What are you gonna do with it?” Walker beams at me and grips my shoulder excitedly. I sling my arm around his shoulders and pull him close while we both look at our first big paychecks since we moved out here and got our record deal, overwhelmed by the amount of money I hold.
Words tumble around in my brain like a bowl of wet noodles, and I can’t sort through them. For all of us, it’s a lot of money. But for me particularly, with no stable family life, coming from a foster home where I got nothing, it’s staggering.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “Put it in the fucking bank so they can’t snatch it back, that’s for damn sure.”
Walker lets out one of those bellowy laughs of his and slaps my back. “Let’s go do it!”
Later that night, I sit in the dark living room of our shared apartment while the other three sleep. The city lights shine through the open curtains, twinkling just how I dreamed they would all those nights when I laid in that creaky small bed in the foster house.
This is real. You’re here.
I haven’t allowed myself to think about my mother, my foster parents, Penny, any of it. Blocking it out is the only way to move on.
But as I think about the money sitting in my bank account, I can’t help but think about Penny, the foster sister I didn’t know I needed. How’s she doing? Is she getting enough to eat? Is she back to crying herself to sleep at night?
I got out of there, and I want her to be able to do so too when she’s old enough.
The brightness of my phone screen against the black of night hurts my eyes as I turn it on and pull up my bank account.
I may not want to look back, but I know what I need to do.