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She gave me another smile, went through what would happen in the next few days then left me alone with my angry, worried alpha.
He did not give me any respite, unfortunately.
“What the fuck, cupcake?” Rowan demanded softly but with a pinched expression the second the door shut behind her. “The nurses said you had to have been in agony for hours. Days.” He clutched my hands more firmly. “Not pain. Not something niggling but easy to ignore. Fucking agony. They couldn’t believe that you were on your feet fucking working when you collapsed.”
Rowan’s concern was palpable, even if he was trying to disguise it with the usual masculine, over the top protectiveness.
“I have a high pain tolerance. I burn and cut myself regularly. Plus, I trip over anything and everything,” I said, going for a joking tone despite my raspy, thin voice.
Rowan’s expression didn’t waver. “No one has that high of a fucking pain tolerance, Nora. Why in the fuck didn’t you tell me that you were in that much pain?”
I sighed, knowing that Rowan was not going to let this go. It seemed hiding my crazy was pretty much impossible at that point.
“Because I don’t know how to trust my body, and it tells me I’m dying on a biweekly basis,” I admitted in a shameful voice.
Rowan’s brows furrowed in confusion.
“I’m a mess,” I groaned. “Not in a way that’s obvious. Because I’m excellent at hiding it. But I’m fucked-up, Rowan.” I chewed my lip. “It’s something you should know. Granted, it should’ve been a little earlier than now and not a conversation I relish having in a hospital bed… no matter how ironic it is,” I chuckled mirthlessly.
Rowan was not finding anything funny, his mouth curled into a grimace and his shoulders stiff.
I’d have to go all the way to satisfy him, tell him everything in order for him to understand at least a little.
“I did not have the same childhood you did,” I began. “I don’t have a mother who will send me care packages.”
I thought fondly of Rowan’s mother… the way he talked about her and his entire family, so glad that people like that existed. That they existed for him.
“We were born poor,” I continued. “I don’t remember my dad. But that makes sense since he died of an overdose when Ansel and I were two months old.”
I didn’t know what the man looked like, what his name was. Mom didn’t keep pictures, and I never searched for them. I didn’t need to know who he was. Ansel did. He was all about our ancestry, wanting to know the man our father was and might’ve been.
“He was supposed to be looking after us,” I pictured two, dark-haired infants in a crib. “My mom was out with her boyfriend. The one she was planning on leaving my dad for. She didn’t come home till the next day. I only know that because of the police records. A neighbor called the cops when they heard babies who wouldn’t stop crying. Cops came. We got taken to the hospital for some malnutrition, nothing serious.”
“Jesus Christ,” Rowan muttered in horror.
“Yeah, the start to our life pretty much dictated where the rest went.” I shrugged. “I have no idea how we weren’t taken from my mother right then and there. But she has a way about her. A charisma that she turns on that will fool anyone. Charm anyone.”
I’d seen that charm in action many times. With cops. Bill collectors. Men. Anyone she could get something from.
It was impressive.
“All that charm went outward, though. She didn’t have any left over for us.” Memories rushed through my mind, but I pushed them down. “I honestly don’t know why she bothered to fight for us then. She didn’t like us. We were nothing but a burden. Except for the benefit checks we provided for her.” I shrugged, or at least tried to. In addition to my incision pain, my entire body felt weak and achy. “Anyway, I’m not gonna bore you with the details of our upbringing. Suffice it to say, she wasn’t around much.” I picked at the hospital sheets with my free hand. “We were left on our own most of the time. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have something to worry about. If we were going to have food. If our clothes were clean, if they would fit us. If the heat was going to stay on. If our next stepdad was gonna hate us or like us a little too much.”
Rowan jolted upright in his seat, his expression thunderous. I could feel it, his fury, leaching into the air.
“It never went that far,” I rushed to assure him. “Not with me anyway.” My stomach roiled, and pain speared through my abdomen, pain that had nothing to do with my injuries and everything to do with the scars my brother lived with.
