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I think I know what she's referring to, but I want her to tell me. Need her to tell me.
“Which part exactly?”
She shakes her head, licking her lips before saying, “Just opening up. Letting anyone into our little world.”
I nod in understanding. I see their bond and know they've been tested, but as to how far, well, I'm about to find out.
“You have to understand, I haven’t had anyone to depend on but me. The situation Colin and I are in now is something I hold really close. It's been…” She pauses, trying to find the words. “Well, I guess I don't admit this often, but it's been really difficult.”
She fixes her gaze on me, and a look of confusion and pain overtakes her, as if she can't understand why she's telling me.
My heart aches at the thought. She doesn't admit how hard things are to anyone? Being strong is something Dylan knows, but being weak and admitting to that pain and sacrifice is clearly something unknown in her world, where she always has to be alert and aware.
“I went through a period where I hated Colin for being the way he was.”
I stiffen next to her on the couch at the statement that sounds so harsh.
“It's not what you're thinking,” she says immediately, her eyes needing to find mine. “It's just how it affected what happened to us.”
She sighs, and I feel all the air expelling from her lungs. All I can think about is how I want to breathe the life and hope that she’s lost back into her.
“It was because of his disability that we got pulled apart. I was just shy of fourteen and he had just turned seventeen when our parents died. I went to a group home, waiting for a foster family, and Colin went to a home where they were better equipped to care for him. A family who had been accepting kids with varying degrees of health issues and whatnot into their home for years.”
She lets go of my hand, needing to take a drink of water before running a hand through her long, honey-hair.
“It was only then I hated it. The first time I really hated Colin's disability. Before that, I'd never seen it as an issue. It was never a problem for me like it was for my parents, accepting that he was different. I loved him entirely, looked up to him, appreciated the fact that he could teach me new things I'd never known, all while showing me a different side to life. But when they pulled us apart, leaving me in a bunker with other kids waiting for homes to become available, I hated him for being different. It separated us.” Her jaw flexes, and I feel the tension and hatred she feels for herself.
“It's understandable to be upset—”
“No,” she interrupts, frowning. “It was horrible of me. I was childish and selfish, and hated him for something completely out of his control.” She runs her hands down her thighs again, a nervous tic perhaps.
“You were young, D,” I say, running my hands over hers, stopping her incessant movements. “You were a child yourself, going through something extremely traumatic. It's okay to have felt that hurt. That confusion.”
She stares at my hands over hers, calculating my words. I weave my fingers back into the one nearest to me, pulling it onto my thigh again. Where it should be.
She inhales a shaky breath, sitting in silence for a moment. Shaking her head, she says, “Years passed before I saw him again. Years, Lake.” Her lashes flutter before glancing back at me. The torture behind those eyes, something so gut-wrenching and agonizing, nearly destroys me. “A-all I wanted was to hug him. To know he was safe, to know he was being cared for, to know that his new family knew how to handle him the way I could. That they wouldn’t be like my parents. But I didn't. I didn't know.” Her voice cracks and tears reluctantly slip through her dark lashes, falling down her pink cheeks.
“Come here,” I whisper, pulling her hand further into my lap, effectively trying to pull her under my arm, but she stands her ground. She swallows, sitting up in her own seat and wiping away her own tears. The way she's done before. The way she's done for years.
“I knew if I didn't get my shit together and focus on getting him back to me, I'd succumb to my anger, letting it destroy me. I had to find a way.” She clears her throat, wiping her face clean of any evidence of vulnerability. “So I did.”
She continues to tell me how her counselor came to her with the attorneys to discuss the fact that her parents left their entire will, as small as it was, solely to her and not her brother. She explains with anger in her tone, the details of that will and the fact that she wouldn't be able to receive any of it until she was eighteen, knowing that the days ahead would be nothing but scratches off her calendar, counting the seconds until she could even attempt to fight for guardianship.
“I had a little money, I was building my future, finishing school in the foster care system without a family, because, who wants a seventeen-year-old with a chip on her shoulder, am I right?” She attempts to laugh at the sad joke that sends another shard of glass into my already wounded heart. “I started working odd jobs whenever I wasn't in school, using all of that free time to work towards one goal, solidifying myself into a stable enough environment so I stood a chance at gaining guardianship.”
“Jesus, D,” I whisper, shaking my head in disbelief.
At that age, most kids aren’t focused on anything that substantial or important. When I was that young, we were just looking to hook up or get drunk off our parents’ liquor. Not thinking about maintaining a future for guardianship of an older brother who was the only family she had, and who, unfortunately, was already in a stable foster home.
“It was hard. Fighting at such a young age for him when he was already established in a family with routines and whatnot. I’d been sucked into a few scams, losing thousands to lawyers who made broken promises, racking up debt. But, eventually, the day finally came, and with help from a close friend and a lawyer I couldn't afford, they awarded me legal guardianship.” She smiles to herself, her face suddenly mirroring that hope; remembering. “I felt like myself again for the first time in years. We slipped back into who we were, like we'd never been separated. Pickle and Collie were back.”
Pride pounds through my chest as if it had happened to me. Like I was just reunited with my family again. Just listening to her detail the events makes me feel like I was a part of it. She's so fucking incredible it almost hurts.
She continued to put herself through school with grants and loans that she's informed me she's still paying back to this day. She solidified a life and career while always making sure Colin was not only cared for but had the best life possible, filled with his own opportunities and interests.
Struggle upon struggle, she details their hardships while I listen intently, holding onto her the entire time. But she also tells me the good stuff. Stories of how Colin taught her how to draw when they were kids. He took apart and built tiny toy cars and taught her about all the parts, the names, and what their functions were. How they bonded over NASCAR. He loved his “Pickle” because she listened to him and understood him when no one else did.
She touches on how they have their own special way of connecting when he has his meltdowns, as she describes them. I'm understanding her story now—the bruises, the selfless dedication to someone she loves, endlessly supporting and caring for him, and not exactly receiving that in return. It reminds me of someone else I hold very close to my heart.
