Chapter 14
Fourteen
Colin
22 years Old
Eden Wallace’s office was not an office at all. Instead, she was crammed into a cubicle at the back corner of a room beside several other social workers, with a mess of paperwork on her desk. As she guided Colin back to her space, he could feel her eyes on him like a sniper’s laser, tracking his every move and clearly none too thrilled by his presence. Every member of Scarlett’s family was privy to the worst mistake of his life because of course they were. They had been there to pick up the pieces when he wasn’t.
There wasn’t much conversation when Colin first arrived at the advocacy center, but he had never been there before, so he figured that might be why. Either that, or the office was still in a food coma after Thanksgiving. He hadn’t expected when signing up for the mentorship program that he would actually have to speak with Scarlett’s aunt. Since the second she had assigned herself to him, Colin had been paying for his past.
“Break any windows lately?” Eden asked, taking a seat behind her tiny desk scattered with loose papers and manila folders.
Colin had almost forgotten about a different mistake he had made back in high school that probably would have been a fun story to tell at his and Scarlett’s wedding if they’d never broken up. Now, however, Eden brought the memory up with clear malicious intent.
“Only ever the one,” he said.
“Good to hear,” Eden replied coolly. “Scarlett warned me that you’d be signing up for the program. If that’s why you’re here, then we need to fill out the application and background test forms. And you need to get CPR and First Aid certified.”
Colin nodded and reached for his leather satchel bag, riffling through it to find his wallet and subsequently his CPR and First Aid certification card. “I had to get this for work.” He slid the card across the desk, and Eden gave him a curt nod.
“Then just the applications and background check information. I’ll need to scan your ID as well.” He obliged, sliding over his driver’s license. “Do you have a certain age bracket you’re looking at?”
“No preference, except I can’t do small children or really screechy kids.”
“Right.” Eden’s voice softened a bit. “I remember from when Lindy was little.”
“Lindy.” Colin smiled hesitantly, remembering Scarlett’s baby cousin. “She’s what, six now?”
“Mm-hmm,” Eden said, pointing to the frame on the corner of her desk, where Scarlett’s Uncle Marty was beaming up at a small girl sitting on his shoulders.
“She’s beautiful.” He meant it, too. Lindy had the classic Wallace green eyes, just like Scarlett’s.
“Thank you.” Eden reached down and pulled a few forms out from her desk drawer, passing them over. “Any other concerns?”
“I, um…” He paused, fiddling with his hands. “I don’t know if this matters or if it disqualifies me, but I’m formally diagnosed with autism.”
Eden blinked in surprise for a second then quickly recovered, shaking her head. “No. I wouldn’t think that would be a problem.”
“Okay. Then I’ll just fill this out and get it back to you?”
“Yes, I actually—we have a child who has ASD. Do you think that would be a good fit? We’ve had trouble with him connecting to anyone. It might help him to get to know someone with his same diagnosis who is… thriving.” Eden looked somewhat uncomfortable, and he assumed it was probably the same odd response he always got from people when he simply stated his brain didn’t work the same until she spoke again. “I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think it would be good for him. He spends most of his time painting in Scarlett’s art program, and as much as I don’t think she’d want to see you around there, I think she’d agree with me that Theodore deserves a role model, and her art studio is where he’s the most comfortable.”
Colin’s heart hammered in his chest, eyes wide as the painting Scarlett sold to him flashed in his mind along with the neat signature at the bottom. “Theodore Whitlock?”
“Yes. You’ve met?” Eden’s eyebrows rose.
“No, but I own one of his paintings,” he explained. His mind was whirring with the new information and all the possible outcomes. If Theodore was in the program and Colin became his mentor, then he’d get to see Scarlett frequently. It was a loophole of sorts because although Scarlett had told him she didn’t want to see him, this was a valid reason to see her anyway without crossing a boundary. Rocking in his seat from the small amount of hope that gave him, he bobbed his head. “I’d love to be partnered with him.”
“Perfect. I’ll set it up, but I need to be certain that you will be committed. He has enough trouble with the lack of routine from being a foster kid that bounces around from house to house. To be frank, Colin, I don’t want to partner him up with you if you’re planning on leaving any time soon.”
It wasn’t a subtle dig at his character, but Colin appreciated her being forthright. “I’m permanently in Archwood. As long as I have it on my calendar and in my own routine, I’ll be at every meeting provided that I’m not sick or injured.”
“It’ll probably end up being sometime after the New Year because background checks are always backed up from Thanksgiving and by the time they’re caught up again, Christmas rolls around,” Eden explained.
It was further out than he would have liked, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, so Colin just bobbed his head in acknowledgment. Luck was a fickle thing he wasn’t even sure he believed in, but he thought, for once in life, he might have hit the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There was just one small problem. “Can you not mention this to Scarlett?”
“I wouldn’t normally disclose work matters to my niece in general,” Eden said. “But I don’t enjoy blindsiding her, either.”
“Not that.” He shook off the idea. “Don’t tell her that I’m autistic.”
“You don’t want her to know?” Eden drew out the words slowly, like she was trying and failing to understand the significance.
“I’m not embarrassed by it, but I don’t want to use my diagnosis as an excuse. Everything she thinks of me now, she should think of me with or without that knowledge,” Colin explained. “I’ll tell her myself.”
Something seemed to pass through Eden’s eyes, her mouth opening and closing several times before she finally said, “Can I ask when you were diagnosed, Colin?”
“The summer before I left for college,” he replied. Eden sat back in her chair, a spark of understanding washing over her facial features.
“Then it’s your story to tell.” Eden nodded. “I won’t mention it.”