Page 33 of Cash

Female number two I needed to apologize to. Somehow this one was easier, even though arguably I’d been a bigger prick to her.

“So, about the ‘not interested’ comment.” I flashed my best cocky smile. “Good to know I’m not attracted to my sister. That would’ve been awkward.”

I watched her lips twitch and tears well in her eyes.

“Stella was right, I didn’t handle that well.”

She didn’t. But was there a good way to announce that you were the long-lost sister of an abandoned and left-for-dead baby.

“Good to know we have that in common seeing as I handled it like shit.”

“Stella didn’t mean you harm⁠—”

Christ, I couldn’t go there.

“I’m not interested in what Lore meant or didn’t mean. I’m more interested in knowing how you found me.”

That was a lie. I was interested in Lore’s reason for not telling me, but I’d forfeited the right to that explanation when I called her a cold-hearted bitch.

“Should we sit?” Penny motioned to the edge of the elevated porch.

I eyed the faded wood decking planks like I was waiting for them to grow teeth and bite me.

I fought against my hand rubbing one of Lore’s bite marks from last night—I had plenty of places to choose from—neck, chest, shoulder. The woman had been vicious in her exploration.

Fuck.

As soon as my ass hit the wood next to her, Penny launched in.

“Eden left me, too,” Penny gently told me.

Eden.

The woman whose uterus grew me was named Eden.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about knowing that other than it was a piece of information.

“I was twelve when CPS started coming around when I couldn’t hide the bruises from my teachers anymore. I guess she knew they were going to take me and she’d be in trouble, so before that could happen, she bailed. One night I went to sleep and the next morning she was gone.”

Christ, I hated that for Penny.

At least I didn’t have memories of Eden or her abandonment. I wasn’t sure which was worse, being discarded as a baby or left after years of enduring abuse.

I didn’t ask. There was no good answer.

“I’m sorry she left you, Penny.”

“I’m not. I can’t say foster care was a sunshiny walk in the park, but I was no longer beaten, and I didn’t have to witness her outbursts. And then I finally got to see a therapist to help me with my recurring nightmare. And it was then the therapist explained I wasn’t crazy, that I did have a brother and Eden had spent years gaslighting me into thinking I didn’t know what I knew—that you were born. That I held you. That it was me who fixed bottles and changed diapers.” She stopped and tipped her head, giving me a sheepish smile. “I sucked at diaper changes. Most of the time they were wonky and I didn’t tighten them enough. And you peed on me a lot.”

I tried to hold my laughter back but lost the battle.

Seriously, this was fucked up. I had gallows humor. I’d spent a lot of time in the military in really shitty situations but laughing about pissing on my five-year-old sister because she was too young to properly put on a diaper was a whole nother level of crazy.

“And while we’re here I should probably also apologize for making you really crappy bottles. But in my defense Eden wasn’t a great teacher and I couldn’t read the directions, so your bottles were cold and there might’ve been a lot of powder in them. But you drank them and stopped crying.”

No, a five-year-old trying to make a bottle for her infant brother who needed to be fed was a whole different level of fucked up.

“As you can see, you didn’t stunt my growth so it’s all good.”