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It was as if Derek had known what we were planning to do and orchestrated the whole thing just to get back at me.
The smug look on his face as Anthony announced I was leaving the Freeman group home two weeks before Penny turned seventeen. I promised her the world, and now she was all alone in that hell. And I had no fucking idea if she knew the real reason I had left.
I had begged for a chance to explain things to Penny, to visit her or at least, call her. But, of course, Uncle Anthony wouldn’t hear of it. So I did the only thing I could. I wrote her a letter.
I’m sorry.
Wait for me.
It’s only a year until you get out.
I’ll come find you.
I love you.
B xo
One page of scrawl that promised her we would find our way back to each other.
That one way or another, we would be together.
Uncle Anthony promised that he would make sure it arrived at the Freemans’; he was probably sending Max, his driver.
I still couldn’t get my head around the fact that growing up with Mom, we couldn’t afford groceries, and he had someone to drive him. But as long as the letter got there, I didn’t care who delivered it.
Anthony had to pull a lot of strings to get guardianship of me and wasn’t prepared to have me jeopardize his sacrifices.
His sacrifices.
I scoffed. I didn’t know why he’d bothered—the man despised me. He had shown me nothing but contempt since taking me out of the group home. I’d only been here two weeks, and it was already as if I owed him the world. I didn’t ask him to come and get me; I didn’t want to be here.
Couldn’t he see that?
I wanted to be with Penny. With Gabriel and Peter, even Ben. They were my friends, my family. Not the emotionally devoid robot back in the house.
I didn’t know him, and he sure as fuck didn’t know anything about me, about what I’d survived.
Where was he when Mom was strung out on her latest cocktail of drugs while Dad was out on the streets of Lancaster pushing that shit to kids looking to get a quick high?
Penny, tell me what to do?
What do I do?
A pained cry burst from my lungs.
I closed my eyes and fought back the tears building. I couldn’t cry. Men didn’t cry, and I was a man now. Something told me that in my uncle’s world, I would need to grow the hell up.
He hadn’t saved me from hell; he’d just replaced my prison.
* * *
“Disrespect mealtime again, and you can eat in your room like an animal.” My uncle dropped his knife and fork onto his plate and rose from the table. He paused at the door and turned back to me. “You register at Wellington in a week. I suggest you adjust your attitude before then.”
With that bombshell, he left.
Wellington?The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them down.
Aunt Miranda sighed deeply. “He’ll come around.”
