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“Not to anyone but you.” I shook my head sadly. “I keep trying to get you to listen. To go away.”
“So you can give up?” Her brows rose, and I nodded. “No way. Then Martin wins.”
I scoffed. “He already won. His parents have my daughter.”
She pursed her lips at me. “You aren’t my hero giving up like this.”
I was no one’s hero, not even my own.
“But fine.” She exited the bedroom with the soup in hand. The savory aroma of the chicken stock drifted back to me, making my empty stomach grumble. “If you’re going to be like this and not listen to me,” she said loudly from the other room, “then maybe you’ll listen to your sister.”
“No.”
I sat up. My head spinning, I pressed my hands to the mattress. I threw my feet over the side of the bed and made my way on shaky legs into the other room. Weak from being bedridden so long without eating, I leaned heavily against the doorjamb.
“Rachel can’t come here.” Not with Martin probably lurking around, though at a distance since his daddy had given him a big slap on the wrist.
“I know that.” Teresa was standing beside a card table on the other side of the galley kitchen. “Sit.” She pointed to the soup. “Eat. But you’re going to talk to her. You forced my hand with thiswithdrawing from the worldbullshit. I already have her on the line. Here.” She thrust her phone in my hand.
I’d told Teresa everything after the hospital, sobbed out my whole sad story when she first brought me here. I even told her about Rachel and Barry, my reasons for enduring Martin’s abuse. I hadn’t held anything back.
“Addy, are you there?” Rachel asked.
I dropped the phone. Just hearing my sister’s voice after all this time, I began to sob so hard that I couldn’t speak.
“Just a minute, Rachel,” Teresa said after picking up the phone. “I need to hold her.”
Teresa wrapped her arms around me. Her arms weren’t Barry’s, of course. But with my sister on the line and Teresa here, I wasn’t completely alone.
I blinked my eyes. Focusing, it was like coming awake after a long sleep.
The world was dimmer without Ella, lonelier without her growing inside me. I didn’t want to accept what I had. I was broken and hurting, but as Teresa held me, I acknowledged that having a friend who knew everything and cared wasn’t nothing. It was more than a lot of people had.
“I can talk to her now,” I said after exhaling a shuddery sigh.
“Okay, honey.” Teresa kissed the top of my head and released me.
“Thank you.” I gave her a grateful look and sank into a chair.
“For nothing.” She waved off my gratitude and took a seat opposite me in front of her own bowl of soup. “Someday I might need you to scrape me off the pavement. I believe in you.” She slid the phone toward me, picked up her spoon, and pointed at me with it. “You just need to believe in you again too.”
I didn’t think that was possible. But I could try.
“Hey,” I said after scooping up the abandoned phone. “Sorry about that.”
“About leaving me hanging just now,” Rachel spat out, “or about doing it for nearly an entire year?”
Oops.My sister was pissed, and she had many reasons to be.
I hadn’t been supportive of her relationship with Daniel. Refusing to sign the paperwork so she could marry him, I’d pushed her away. I could tell her why I’d done what I did, but that would just make her feel responsible when the responsibility was all mine.
“I’m sorry. I made a lot of bad choices, Rach. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
“Martin hurt you. I know he hurt you.” She started to cry softly.
I glanced at Teresa, but she shook her head.
“Who told you?” I whispered.
