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“Okay.” I nodded.
As soon as the door closed, I flew to the closet where I stored my stash. I dropped to my knees next to clothes discarded in an unkempt pile on the floor. I started casting them aside, but Rachel’s voice stopped me cold.
“It’s here,” she said bleakly. “And it’s empty.”
“No.” Tears pricking my eyes, I rose and grabbed the door frame. My legs were shaking. Badly.
Slowly, I turned around. My sister held the metal box I’d been searching for. It was dented, as if our mother had smashed it with something to get it open.
“Your entire savings and mine.” Rachel drew in a shuddery breath, tears that mirrored mine swimming in her eyes. “What are we going to do?” she whispered, glancing at the door. “It’s all gone.”
“I don’t know.” My eyes burned.
“Are you really going to call Dad?” she asked.
“Fuck no,” I said in a hushed rasp, shaking my head. “I don’t know where he is.”
“They’ll find out you lied.”
“Maybe.”
But hopefully not right away. The Southside Police were overworked and underpaid. If there was any mercy for us in this shitty situation, our case would fall through the bureaucratic cracks like so many others did. At least long enough for me to turn eighteen.
“So, what’s the plan?” Rachel asked.
I didn’t have a plan, except that my sister was my priority. I would do anything to keep her safe and secure.
“We’re going to do whatever is necessary,” I said grimly.
Huddled in Collin’s small bed at his house, I clutched the sheet to my chest and wished I couldn’t hear his parents’ hushed angry voices out in the hall.
“She needs to go to the police station this morning,” Tom said. “She never should have lied to them.”
“She could get in a lot of trouble.” Carol sounded worried.
About as low as I’d ever been, I stared at the ceiling in the grainy light of dawn, feeling like it was the end of a new day, not the beginning. Even wrapped in Collin’s strong arms, I’d been awake all night and scared. It hurt, cut something deep inside me that he’d told his parents I lied to the cops. He’d broken a confidence. Oblivious, Rachel slept peacefully on her pallet on the floor.
“I love her, Mom,” Collin said, and the pieces of my heart that he’d broken stirred, but they couldn’t go back together. Not after his betrayal. “She’s suffered a terrible loss and is alone. She has no savings, nowhere else to go. She doesn’t want to go to foster care.”
“I feel for her, honey. I really do. Her mother was a wretched person, but she was her mother. That loss is going to affect her, affect both of them, especially with their father completely out of the picture.” Carol sniffed. “Poor Addy and Rachel.”
“Given the late hour and the circumstances, we allowed them to stay in your room last night,” Tom said, his words clipped. “But they can’t stay permanently.”
“Why not?” Collin asked, and more tears pricked my eyes. “At least until she turns eighteen?”
“The answer’s no, son.”
“It wouldn’t be right.” Carol said firmly.
“What’s wrong with it?” Collin exhaled loudly. “We’re having sex. You and Dad got married at eighteen.”
“You saying you’re going to ask Addy to marry you?” his dad asked.
My hand went to my mouth. I held my breath, waiting for Collin’s answer.
“No, but we can get an apartment,” Collin said. “Move in together.”
“The three of you, you mean.” Tom huffed out a breath. “You know Rachel will have to live with you.”
