“Retired to Florida a couple of years ago.”
I don’t know why that makes me laugh. At least he isn’t mad, the twitch of his lip in a very un-Rebel-like smile tells me he will not tear into me.
“She waited until we didn’t need her anymore.”
I don’t ask, ‘Do we ever stop needing our parents?’
He clears his throat. “What about you?”
“Similar,” I look back at the easel and pick up the charcoal to work on the soldiers’ shadows again, even though I planned to stop. It helps me with what I’m about to say.
“How is it similar?”
Just because he has been open and honest doesn’t mean I have to be. I can count on one hand how many people know my actual history.
Rebel fully turns on the stool, so I no longer see the tattoo. It’s seared into my brain, I could draw it from memory. He won’t let me stay silent, his steady gaze waiting for me to answer.
“My dad OD’d. A neighbor found him. He’d been dead about two hours, there was no saving him.”
Rebel’s brow creases, and I’m grateful he doesn’t delve deeper.
“Your mom?”
“She didn’t retire to Florida,” I huff, setting down the charcoal and dusting my hands on my pants. “Or maybe she did. I don’t know. She left when I was eleven. She was an even worse junkie than Dad.”
“What happened to you?”
My eyes shoot away from him and my nose stings. This is the part most people don’t know, and I never talk about it.
“I didn’t have anywhere to go that I knew of. I just stayed there.”
“Alone?” he asks.
I shrug, grabbing a cloth to get the charcoal stains out of my nail beds. “Only for four days.”
Rebel shifts as if he is going to blow up, but I scowl enough that he stops.
“I knew how to look after myself, had done it long enough. I still went to school. It was the only place that made me happy.”
“No one noticed an eleven year old child was alone for four days?” he asks, his anger clear.
“eventually, of course they did. The cops were called, then Colt’s parents. They didn’t know how bad things were…”
I gloss over how bad the whole mess was at the time with the law, CPS and all the shit that goes along with a child being abandoned.
“They took care of me like I was their own daughter. Colt watched out for me. He’s always been a do-gooder,” I add, trying to make light of my story, but Rebel’s expression is anything but calm. He looks like he wants to hunt down my mother and do her harm.
Talking about this with him bare-chested makes me uncomfortable. When I hand him his shirt, he stares at it for a moment, eyeing the dark smudge of charcoal now mingled with the bloodstains.
“I can wash it.”
“Where are your aunt and uncle now?”
He will not stop, and I’ve started now, might as well finish.
“My aunt died in a car accident and my uncle is… He’s ill.”
Metaphorically cutting open my veins and spilling my past is messing with my head.
