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“She was dangerous, Ford. She killed a man.”
“Like Beast killed Trevor?” he says, eying him warily like he wasn’t just wrapped up in his arms.
“He was a cunt and he hurt you,” Beast says shrugging. “He got what he deserved.”
“And the man my mum killed, was he a cunt too?”
“Yes,” I admit.
“So what’s the difference? Why does Beast get to live and my mum gets to die? They both killed people.”
“Because Beast did what he did to protect you.Idid what I did to protect you. I won’t apologise for that.”
“And mum, why did she kill that man?” he asks.
“That ain’t important,” Beast says.
“It is to me,” he counters.
I sigh. “She killed him because she thought he was going to kill me.”
“And you repaid her by putting a bullet in her brain?” His skin pales further and he gags. “I’m going to be sick.”
Ford turns on his heel and runs towards the kitchen, hurling up the contents of his stomach into the rubbish bin. He chokes and sputters, heaving as he clutches his stomach.
“Here, take this,” I say, offering him a bottle of water from the fridge when he wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. He snatches it from me, swallowing the whole lot before dumping the empty bottle into the bin.
“She was my mum. She wasyourmum,” he accuses, stabbing his finger in the air between us. “She barely even knew I existed after I was taken into care, and before that she was so hung up on you that all I became was an inconvenience, a nuisance, someone to hate because she couldn’t haveyouto love. Did you know that she kept a photo of you in her wallet? I asked her once who the baby was and do you know what she did?”
“No, what?” I ask.
“She beat me with her belt. Told me that’s whatbad boysget for asking questions they have no business knowing the answers to.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry! You’resorry! You weren’t there when I needed you!” he yells, his face red with anger, with pain and disappointment. “You weren’t there to stop her. You weren’t there for her to love so she didn’t have to hatemeso much!”
“That’s not her fault, kid,” Beast coaxes.
“I KNOW THAT!” he shouts. “But itisher fault that she’s dead. Mum might’ve loved me if she’d had you back in her life. She might’ve loved me if I was the one who brought you back to her!”
“Is that why you came to me?” I say, hurting even more now that I understand the real reason he sought me out.
Fuck, that hurts, not because I need him to want me, but because he truly believed that his mum would love him if he was the one to find me. The thing is, Iknowit wouldn’t have made a difference with how she felt about and treated him. How unutterably cruel was that woman to make him believe that he was so unloveable? “I thought if I could give her you, she’d love me for it,” he admits.
“How did you find out about Kate?” Beast asks for me, understanding that right now I’m too fucking overwhelmed to ask that question myself.
Swiping the back of his hand over his face, Ford roughly wipes away his tears that started falling again. “I dug around in her personal stuff one day a few weeks ago when she was out of it on drugs. I just had this feeling she was hiding something important. So imagine my surprise when I found a birth certificate with your name on it,Kate Davidson, daughter of Carter Davidson. Everyone knows who he is. He’s practically a celebrity around here.Wasa celebrity,” Ford says, correcting himself. “So I came to find you. I was going to tell you who I was. I was going to introduce you to mum.”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” I say softly, getting what he was trying to do and feeling so fucking bad for him. “She wanted to hurt you, Ford. I couldn’t risk that. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let her go and she finished what she started.”
“What do you mean, she wanted to hurt me? Apart from me breaking into her flat, I haven’t seen her in months.”
“This isn’t going to be easy to hear,” I say, trying to prepare him, hating that he needs to know the extent of her loathing towards him, but knowing it’s the only way he might truly understand my actions, so that he might begin to heal.
“Do you honestly think that anything you’ve said today has been easy to hear?” he questions angrily.
“No, but thiswillhurt, and I’m sorry for it,” I say, reaching for him. He takes a step back.
