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“No.” Her lips tip up at the corners. “Not at all.”
She blows out a breath, the air gusting over my chest. “We can’t wait so long until the next time. If I have to forgo this another week, I might combust.”
“I know.”
She props her chin on the back of her hand, her fingers brushing my chest as she meets my eyes. “How long is your family in town?”
“Until Monday. Paul and Moira are making a quick trip to Niagara Falls for their anniversary, and they’ll be back next week. My cousins are heading back to Boston. They have summer jobs to get back to before the next term starts.”
She smiles. “Then I’ll be the one sneaking out to see you. You know, it would be easier if you were living in one of the counselor cabins. Although Finley mentioned the housing costs for people who stay on site come out of the stipend, so I guess living rent-free is a plus.”
“I pay rent.”
She frowns. “What? Why?”
I shrug. “I insist on it. ”
Her nose wrinkles. “But they’re family. And you’re housesitting for them, doing them a favor.”
I don’t know how to explain it. “I owe them everything. Without them, I would have been shuffled into the foster care system and who knows what would have become of me? I was sent to a temporary, emergency shelter while the state sorted out the next of kin. I was only there a couple of days, and I was lucky for it. There were kids who were left there for months. Rent is the least I can do.”
One hand comes up to cup my cheek. “You think they did you a favor. And you want to repay them.” Her eyes search mine. “Atticus, you aren’t a burden. You weren’t a burden to them when you were a teen, and you aren’t now.”
I rub a strand of her hair between my fingers, unable to meet her soft gaze. “But I was.”
“How could you think that?”
I drop her hair, wrapping my arm around her back. “Six months after I moved in with them, I overheard them talking. They thought I was asleep, but I didn’t sleep well for a long time after my parents passed. I was growing a lot, eating a lot, outgrowing pants and shirts faster than they could buy them.” I sigh and avert my eyes from hers, staring up at the ceiling. “My parents were young. They didn’t have much life insurance, and the survivor’s benefits from the government were barely enough to cover my upkeep. Plus Paul and Moira had two other kids. They were stressed, and worried about paying for their college, let alone adding another kid to the mix.”
It was one of the reasons I did so well in school, and worked so hard. In part, it was an escape from my past, and it was also the need to not be an inconvenience to anyone. At least, not any more than I already was.”
“You were just a child. A child who had lost his parents. None of what happened was your fault.”
“But it was my fault. It was all my fault.”
Her brows furrow. “What do you mean?”
I’ve never told anyone what happened before my parents died, but for some reason, staring into Taylor’s warm eyes, the urge to confess overwhelms me.
I should be terrified to reveal my truths. It might send her running, but then she’s going to do that eventually anyway. And something inside me aches to tell her. She’s the only person I could trust with the bruised pieces of my past.
“My parents were separating. They planned on getting a divorce before they died.”
Her brows lift in surprise but she remains silent, waiting.
“They told me a week before they died. They weren’t in love anymore. It wasn’t a dramatic split. Things had just changed between them. But I was so angry and hurt. I didn’t understand. I lashed out. I told them I hated them. I was a complete little dick.”
Shame burns through me. At the time, the betrayal was all I could focus on. I was selfish. Spoiled. I wish I could go back in time and shake that kid and tell him to appreciate what he had before it was gone.
“You were only a child.”
“I was old enough.” I shut my eyes. “They went out to dinner to discuss some of the details of the separation without me there, and then they never came home.”
Her lips brush against the skin on my chest, gentle, soothing, a benediction.
“It was an accident. Mom was driving. She swerved and hit a tree. They think there might have been a deer or something in the road.” A lump builds in my throat and I swallow it down. “The last thing I said to them was ‘I don’t care.’” I blink my eyes open.
Taylor is watching me with eyes full of sympathy, not pity, not horror or judgment. Her fingers weave into my hair and she presses her lips against mine, a light, tender touch.
