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“You never wanted to foster,” I snap. “You just used Natalie as an excuse to kick him out of here.”
Anger fills Dad’s face, darker than storm clouds. “Don’t you dare—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I interrupt, turning for the door. “Don’t call me.”
It feels as though I can’t get out of the house fast enough. Anger pounds through me, heating my blood as I get in my car and take off.
I don’t want to go see Shawn because I don’t want him to see how angry I truly am. I know how much rage could scare him, and I don’t want him to think I’d ever hurt him. So I drive aimlessly around town, too keyed up to even go to the cemetery and talk to Natalie.
For so long after Shawn left, I thought maybe I’d done something wrong, pushed him away. Dad had told us that Shawn most likely left because of Natalie’s diagnosis. And that’s the biggest piece I can’t forgive. Because she blamed herself for the fact that he was out alone in the world again.
How the hell am I supposed to forgive that?
Eleven
Shawn
When there’s a knock at my hotel room door, I hurry toward it, hoping it’s Lucas. The only other people who know where I’m staying are Mark and Shanna, and I don’t see them having any kind of reason for dropping by.
But when I check out the peephole in the door, I see Katharine Miller on the other side, nervously twisting her wedding ring around her finger.
I open the door and try to stop the nervous knots forming in my stomach. “Yes?”
“Hi, Shawn.” She tries to smile, but her bottom lip quivers.
“Are you okay?” I widen the door. “Come in.”
She steps over the threshold tentatively, like she’s not sure she should even be here. “I-I’m sorry to just drop by like this.”
“It’s okay.” I close the door. “You want a water or something?”
“No, I’m okay. Thank you.” She keeps twisting her ring, and a horribly awkward silence settles over us until she breaks it by saying, “I, um, found you through that little app on Lucas’s phone. I don’t think he even knows I put it on there. It’s a mom thing.”
She laughs a little, but it’s sad and watery, like she’s still struggling not to cry.
I let the silence stretch between us a little longer before asking, “Can I do something for you?”
“Oh, no.” She clears her throat, and when she talks again, her voice is a little stronger. “Lucas came over earlier this afternoon and told me what you overheard his father and I talking about the night you left.”
My stomach drops, and horror zips through me. “Are you serious? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean anything by telling him. We were arguing, and it just came out—”
She holds up a hand to stop my rambling. “I know, Shawn. I’m not upset with you about it. I wanted to come tell you that I’m sorry.”
That only makes everything worse. It’s not like she did anything wrong. “You don’t owe me an apology.”
“I do,” she says firmly. “I made a commitment to foster you, and I didn’t follow through on it. You ran away because of something that had happened in my house, the place I said you’d be safe in.”
I look away from her because the guilt in her eyes is twisting my stomach. “Natalie was—”
“Happier when you were there,” she cuts me off again. “It was my husband and I who were scared, and I’m so sorry that it caused you to leave.”
“It’s really fine,” I say. “It wasn’t the first home I left on my own. I was okay.”
“Shawn.” She waits to continue until I glance back at her. “Did you at least wind up in a good place afterwards?”
I think of the nights spent on park benches or rest stop bathrooms. The morning I woke up to find some guy pinning me to the ground and trying to pull my clothes off. The people I fucked in dirty alleys in exchange for money or a place to sleep.
“Yeah,” I say, though my voice sounds rusty. “The place I ended up in was good.”
