Page 77 of Until Ace

"Me."

"Who will be there when I need someone?"

"Me."

"But that's not the same."

"Why not?"

"Because you're not my family," she argues.

"Who says?" I fire back.

Fuck that, I’m her family now, and she’s mine.

If she wants a family so desperately that she’ll risk her life for it, I’ll go to any lengths to give her one. Hell, she already has one, but she’s too blinded by the shit that’s been drilled into her brain over and over, how only blood matters, that she can’t see she already has us.

She has Beverly, Ida, and the rest of the old ladies. She has Mia, Ken, and the rest of the staff at her work that are finally starting to see the real her.

And she has me.

I just need her to open her eyes and see all the beauty she has.

"What?" A look of wonder appears on her face.

"Who says I'm not your family?"

When she keeps looking at me like she can’t understand the words I’m saying, I keep at her. "Don’t you consider Beverly your family? What about her crew?"

Her face softens, but she stays silent.

And that’s my answer. She loves them like her family. Maybe even more.

"You have to give up," I tell her.

"I can't," she wails. She’s pleading with her eyes, trying to get me to understand.

But I can’t and never will.

How can she go to such lengths to put her life in danger for someone who won’t do the same for her?

God, to have such love in your life—and they just throw it away like trash?

Like Mandy’s trash?

"Why?" I shake her lightly.

"Because...” She licks her lips. "Because he's family, and you don’t leave family behind," she recites the words her mother threw at her. They don’t mean anything, not the way they’re used by that woman. Like they’re a weapon. Something to get Mandy in line and to get her to do whatever needs to be done. Usually at her expense.

"Family isn't just blood,” I tell her.

I know she loves her brother. Hell, she even loves her mother—not that the woman has ever been one to her. Not in the real sense of the word.

But she can’t go on like she has. She has to think about herself.

She has to think about me. About us.

Frustration eats at me, and I let her go, taking a step back. Mandy flinches as if I slapped her.