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“At what price? That I never stepped foot in Lancaster again?”
“You’re overreacting, son.”
“I AM NOT YOUR SON,” I yelled, balling my hands into fists.
Anthony snapped. He marched up to me and stared me down, fury rolling off him. “Your father was a drug-abusing son of a bitch who ruined my sister. Imogen was a good girl headed for great things before he came along and stole her from us. He poisoned her with empty promises and look how they ended up. Look how you ended up.
“Without me, you have nothing, Blake, nothing. What can you possibly offer Miss Wilson? Dreams and young love don’t pay the bills. They don’t secure your future.”
I gawked at him as I stood there, unable to speak. He thought he was saving me from a similar fate? It was crazy. Penny wasn’t a drug dealer. She’d never even smoked, not even the time Gabriel had dared everyone.
“I can get a job,” I ground out. “I can work. I don’t expect life to be easy, but you don’t know what it was like for us there and what it’s still like for Penny. She needs me.”
My uncle’s hard eyes softened, and he shook his head regretfully. “I will not see you end up like your mother. I won’t do it. Even if you hate me for the rest of your life, I will not let you give up your chance at life for her. You’re just children.”
An idea crossed my mind, and I said, “She could come here when she’s eighteen. We can take her in, right? There’s more than enough room, and we cou—”
“No.”
Just like that. He wasn’t even prepared to hear me out.
“Why not?”
“Blake, please do not be unreasonable. We can’t just take in some girl…”
Some girl?
I closed my eyes in an attempt to calm the anger pulsing through me. When I opened them again, I said quietly. “I love her, Uncle Anthony. She only has me.”
“Blake, you’re seventeen. What do you know of love? Of relationships? Love is fickle, so—” he coughed, covering up his mistake. “Blake. How do you think she’s going to react when she realizes you’re from money? When she sees that you’ll never have to worry about anything ever again.”
It wouldn’t matter, would it? I wasn’t from money; I just happened to have a rich family. Penny knew me. The real me. Not the me I was forced to pretend to be here.
But the more my uncle’s words played in my mind, the more I questioned it. We’d already spent so long apart. What if she really had moved on? Met someone? What if she had plans when she turned eighteen? And then I turned up offering her what? A shitty apartment and dead-end jobs? Penny’s grades were good; she could go to college and be anything she wanted to be. Without you holding her back. Or, if Anthony did agree, I could offer the world. Would she come freely? Or would she look at me as if she no longer recognized me?
A firm hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Blake, you know this is the right thing to do. You both have your whole lives ahead of you. Young love comes and goes, but family doesn’t. I can see to it that Miss Wilson is given more than enough when she ages out. She’ll have everything she needs to start a life for herself.”
Tears pooled in my eyes. Was this the right thing to do? Every cell of my body was screaming no, but all I wanted was for her to be okay. I would give up everything in a second for her to be okay.
I don’t know what hurt more—that Penny had moved on, or that Uncle Anthony had been right.
A knock on my door startled me, and I groaned. “What?”
The door clicked open and blonde hair appeared in the crack. “Hey, it’s just me.”
“Hey.”
“Can I come in?” Brittany said, peering around the door.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, smothering another groan. This had my uncle written all over it. He seemed to think our getting together would be a good way for me to move on.
There was one huge fucking flaw in his plan: Brittany wasn’t Penny.
Not even close.
“I’m not really in the mood for company, Brit.”
“Oh, don’t be like that, birthday boy.” She smiled. “You can’t celebrate all alone.”
