Her eyes still burned with unshed tears, and she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to meet his gaze without breaking down. She held her iced tea in both hands, staring down into the glass.
“I was with another family before them, the first time that the state took me away from my mother. There were no other kids. Just the married couple. The Bogens. They were kind.”
Laurie’s voice broke. She paused to take a sip of her tea, sweet and tart and cold. She rarely thought of the Bogens anymore, but it was still hard to talk about them. She wasn’t sure she ever had, not really.
Kekoa sat perfectly still, giving her his full attention.
“I was there for a whole year,” she continued. “I was young, but I still remember. It was scary at first – but before long, it felt like home. It was so peaceful there. Nothing like the places that I had lived with my mother. I still saw her. Every week, I think. Supervised visits. She was still trying to get me back. So I knew that these people weren’t my real parents… but I still thought that they were my family. I didn’t want to go back to my birth mother. I felt safe with them. I called them Mom and Dad.
“Eventually, they had a baby of their own. I remember being so excited. I thought I would have a baby sister. I still remember meeting her. She was so tiny. So precious.
“Then one day, a stranger came to pick me up. She was my social worker, but I don’t think she was the same one who had placed me there. I can’t remember. By then, it felt like I had been there forever. I could hardly remember my life before.”
Her voice stalled out, and she didn’t know what else to say.
Gently, Kekoa took the tea from her hands. He set it down, then took her hands in both his own. They were so warm and dry after the cold glass.
“And then you went to the Kalamas?” he asked.
“No. I went someplace else. Respite care, I guess. And then back with my mom for a while. And then someplace else when she relapsed. It’s a blur. I was still so little.”
“I’m sorry, Laurie.”
“They were just practicing on me.” She met his eyes as tears spilled from hers. “The Bogens. Then they had a baby of their own, and they tossed me out like a dog.”
He squeezed her fingers.
“I know it’s not the same.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and more tears fell. “I know that. I just, I don’t want people coming and going from Mia’s life. Or ‘Io’s for that matter. He already lost one mother.”
Kekoa put one hand on her face, fingertips barely grazing the side of her jaw, and waited for her to open her eyes. When she did, he pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket, and she used it to blow her nose.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he said. “But that’s not me. I’m not going anywhere.”
“What–” Laurie started, and then took a sharp breath in. She could hardly get the words out. “What if you get tired of me?”
Kekoa looked stunned for a moment. Then a smile crept over his face, and he looked at her like she had just said something completely ridiculous.
“You think thatI’mgoing to get tired ofyou?” he asked incredulously.
Laurie leaned back and wiped her eyes.
“Why would you think that?”
She took a deep breath and waited a moment to gather her thoughts before speaking.
“Kekoa, men always put me on a pedestal. They’re attracted to me because of the way that I look. Everything they don’t know, they just fill in the blanks. Then the real person is more complicated than anything they could imagine. I don’t fit the picture they had in their head, and they lose interest. Or worse.”
“You must not think very much of me, if you expect me to lose interest so easily.”
“I think the world of you,” she told him, her voice breaking.
He took her hands again, and another sob escaped her chest as her deepest fears came to the surface.
“I’m damaged, Kekoa. I’m broken.”
“You’re not broken. You’re human. You think I would want anything less than the full, glorious mess of you?”
“You think I’m a mess?” Laurie asked. She was laughing and crying at the same time.
