Page 52 of Passion in Bloom

“Well, it sounds like my uncle is coming to stay here too.”

I shrugged, not thinking far ahead enough to consider my hospitality exceeding my provisions.

“A little nap would help.” She yawned as she sat.

“Help yourself,” I said. “I’m going to shower and try to warm up.”

“Sucks that his pipes burst. The water had been acting up lately, too.”

I nodded. “Shit happens.”

She snorted in agreement. “You can say that again.”

While our conversation was short and simple, I wanted to get hooked on the idea that she could lower her guard with me even further. She clearly needed help of some kind. She was obviously down on her luck for a reason. It wasn’t my responsibility to worry about her, but it was damned hard not to.

I headed to the bathroom to shower, and as I did, taking my wet clothes off and stepping under the hot spray, I realized how I saw myself in Neveah.

A young woman down on her luck. Maybe she hadn’t been born into a great family like me. Or maybe she was simply judged and pushed aside, dismissed when someone should’ve cared.

Is that why I care?

It was possible that I was feeling pity and sympathy for this stranger because I had a hunch no one else—other than Roarke—had ever given a damn about her. I’d been there. I’d done that. I knew all too well how shitty it was to be the outcast no one wanted to deal with. Through no fault of my own, just being born to my parents, I’d been subjected to this town’s judgment and lack of welcome. No one ever wanted to help me, scorned by my parents always mooching, and with time, I learned not to ask for any help at all. It ingrained a deep need for independence in me, but on the outside looking in, seeing how Nevaeh had issues of some sort, I didn’t want her to suffer what I had.

Maybe it’s her fault though.

That had to be addressed too. She was rude. She stole. She expected things to be handed to her without any thought given to her paying back or working for what she wanted.

It could be entirely possible that she’d brought this crappy luck on herself through her actions, or lack of them.

But it won’t kill me to open up to her. In this way, I was in a unique position to really understand how alone and needy she might feel. I was the outcast, helping another outcast. It had a nice ring to it, and as I stood under the shower, I fell back to the memory of what my cousin told me.

When I last spoke to Eric, he’d encouraged me to not be so guarded. While it was my first instinct, to be guarded and defensive, he saw the merit in changing myself in that regard.

To let people in. To consider that Burton’s residents might be able to see me in a new light, distanced from the recall of my parents and their reputations around here.

With that simple, brief conversation we’d had, he’d hinted that I could try to let people in. To accept help and assistance with my abusive ex showing up again.

And now, I was living through a similar, yet more rewarding, experience in trying to give Nevaeh help too.

She was just here to nap on my couch. She was only staying here for a little while until she’d take off for wherever else she stayed to do whatever she did.

But it was something.

It felt like a start. Like a reversal of all the damage that had been to my life and all the lack of trust and faith that I’d had to deal with as a child and teen, then as a young adult.

My past didn’t have to set the course for all off my life.

I could change.

It wouldn’t be the end of the world if I opened my eyes and considered that my determination to be independent didn’t have to rule my existence.

As soon as I got out of the shower, before Roarke came, I’d try to do even better.

Whatever Nevaeh was struggling with, I’d ask her to know more.

I’d emphasize that I was willing to hear her out. To help however I could.

Because as Roarke, Eric, even Todd, were showing me, the world didn’t have to be a lonely, cold place just because of one bad apple like my ex.