Page 50 of Hearts at War

“They weren’t parents. They didn’t nurture or care. They most attention they gave me was in telling me how to fake an injury or sob story so they could get a discount or benefit they didn’t deserve. Free shit. Coupons. Waived meals.”

“Whoa,” Janelle said.

“They were Burton’s mooches. Liars. Cheats. And they complained, nonstop.” I winced as I dared to worsen their opinions of me by sharing this, but like I’d come to understand, it was what it was. “Being associated with them was the stain I had to deal with. Through no fault of my own.”

“Damn,” Nance said, “that’s a crappy way to live.”

“It was. They’re both gone, and it took me a while to realize I wasn’t a cruel or bad person not to grieve them. They weren’t Mom or Dad to me. They never were.”

“Did they neglect you?” Janelle asked. “Like children services could’ve been called?”

“No. No way. They wouldn’t consider giving me up. I was their excuse, their prop, to ask for money. To solicit for cash to ‘pay for my food.’ To bribe people into giving them breaks.” I sat up, feeling freer to unload all of this. It was possibly the first time I ever had to strangers, or to people who hadn’t lived here forever. I was in charge of telling this narrative, and that had power.

“They fed me. They did the bare, bare basic to make sure I was alive, right? But past that, nothing. No love. No support. When I was really young, I noticed how people treated them in town. Like they expected the worst of them, and that was what they gave them. They complained without cause. They schemed how to take things that wasn’t theirs. They looked for loopholes, usually at the cost of making up a woe-is-me tale about me.”

“Damn,” Nance said.

“When I was five, I realized that when people talked about my parents, they were right. It never occurred to me to feel defensive when someone called them cheats. Because I saw how they were. I never wanted to argue with someone when they said they were lowlifes. Because I saw how they were. They were mean, talking about everyone behind their backs. They were lazy, strategizing how to get handouts just to avoid getting a job.” I shrugged. “When I was six, I wrote a letter to Santa asking for a new family. When I was ten, I blew out a candle on the cake I made for myself, wishing I could run away.”

“No wonder you couldn’t wait to get out of town,” Nance said.

I nodded.

“Didn’t anyone in town intervene?” Janelle asked. “Someone had to notice.”

“Oh, they noticed,” I said.

“And no one cared to help?” she asked.

“No one wanted to deal with my parents, besides, I learned to just not attract attention. To be quiet and mind my own business until I could leave.”

Janelle shook her head.

“And because I was their kid, they assumed the worst of me, just through association. When I was in sixth grade, I offered to tutor younger kids at the library, and they said no, because I clearly had to expect something in return for volunteering. When I was a freshman, I tried to babysit at a neighbors’ house because they had a death in the family, and they said no, I had to be trying to sneak into their house to steal stuff for my parents.”

“Wow,” Fergus said.

“When there’s election years, the parties and candidates always fight, right? Criticizing the others. Being petty. You know? Then when someone targets a candidate’s child, there’s an uproar. When everyone says, oh no, kids are off-limits. It’s not their fault they were born into that family.”

All three nodded.

“Yeah, that logic never applied to me. I was judged through association, no matter how helpful, obedient, or nice I tried to be. So I gave up. I read a lot to escape. I became a loner. I studied my ass off to get scholarships, and I just gave up on trying to make anyone in Burton like me.”

“But you’re back,” Fergus pointed out.

I nodded, sighing with the satisfaction of unloading like that. It was cathartic, and with the sympathetic looks these three gave me, I felt good, confident that they wouldn’t be suckered into Burton’s collective opinion of me.

“Why?” Fergus asked.

“Ooookay,” I said. “Enough about me.” While if felt good to tell them about my past so they wouldn’t be curious about why townsfolk disliked me, I wasn’t ready to talk about what made me leave Chicago. I wasn’t in the mood to relive the horror of what David did to me.

Nance nodded. “Yeah. No more badgering her. She explained.” Patting my hand, she smiled. “And you’re not alone, kid. You’ve got us now.”

I smiled. That truly meant a lot, and I wasn’t nervous to take stock in what she said.

“It doesn’t bother me as much anymore,” I admitted. “Hard lesson in life to learn, but I’m getting better at ignoring all of it.”

Roarke, though, was the outlier. He was the one person in town, or out of it, that I struggled to dismiss. I’d calmed down from the shock of how I’d woken up with him, but I couldn’t shake off these thoughts of what-if. What if I hadn’t run, what if I’d stayed like that, in his bed, for even just a few more minutes.