“And Ricky was not your real father?” Cristian’s voice was delicate as though he thought his questions might break me.
“No, he was her pimp. We don’t know who our fathers were. I don’t even know if my mom knew.”
Another silence. It hurt to admit my truth, and I didn’t know why. It shouldn’t hurt so much anymore. I was an adult now. I’d made it through the worst of my life. It was stupid that I came here and confessed these things. They weren’t important, but Cristian seemed to disagree.
“Sometimes it helps just to say things out loud,” he acknowledged gently.
“Yeah, I guess.” I nodded. “But that’s why. My schooling wasn’t a priority when I had to take care of my sister. I never resented it, but now I don’t know what else to be. I don’t know how to be anything else.”
“It’s never too late to change,” he said. “You are still young. You have your life ahead of you. Perhaps you should set your fears aside and just take it one day at a time instead of looking at the big picture.”
It was good advice, but I still didn’t know how I was going to handle it. The whole idea was terrifying. “Do you ever wish you could change something, Cristian?”
He cleared his throat, and when he answered, his voice was filled with torment.
“Yes, I do.”
SINCEIENROLLED IN SCHOOL, Lucian had relaxed the leash a little. He was at work for the rest of the day, and I finally had the house to myself. A golden opportunity to snoop through everything.
And snoop I did.
But as it turned out, Lucian didn’t have anything of significance in this house. If he did, it was probably in the safe I found in the bedroom closet, but unfortunately for me, I didn’t know how to access whatever was in there.
Apart from that, I searched the house high and low but came up empty in the end. Even the desk key I thought might be my golden ticket turned up nothing but a bunch of office supplies. The only certainty I’d gleaned was that Lucian was a minimalist to the extreme. There wasn’t a single family photo in his home. Not a birth certificate. A birthday card. Literally zero evidence that he even had a life outside his office.
It only created more questions about him, and in the end, my Google search wasn’t any better. Page after page turned up endless articles about the controversial cases he’d worked, and there were simply too many to sift through them all. The ones I did manage to read reflected the same scathing opinions of his character. He didn’t do himself any favors by forgoing the opportunity to defend himself in interviews either. The persisting evidence suggested he declined any questions not relating to his clients. His standoffishness and permanent scowl only furthered the agenda of the media firing squad.
Admittedly, I had the same sour sentiments when he blew into my life with all the delicacy of a hurricane. But now, reading such awful accounts of him was somewhat sickening. It wasn’t that I had bonded to him, but I’d come to know a few things about Lucian in our time together, and I didn’t really believe he was quite the monster he was painted to be.
I decided it was probably best if I stopped reading those articles altogether and pushed my feelings aside, because at that moment, it was difficult to make sense of them.
Lucian had given me a set of rules for my time, and I knew at any given moment he could be tracking me. But he’d returned my phone and my car keys and even purchased a laptop for my studies.
Typically, I’d spend my days shopping or lunching or visiting the spa, but when I thought about doing any of that, it wasn’t as appealing as it used to be. So I called Birdie instead.
“Hey,” she answered. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I squinted up at the bedroom ceiling. “Are you settling into Washington all right?”
There was a pause, some shuffling around, and I heard someone in the background before Birdie answered. “Uh-huh, I’m fine.”
She sounded distracted, and it worried me. “Who’s with you?”
“I’m having lunch with Trouble.”
“She went with you?” I knew Birdie would get defensive if I poked too much, but this was news to me.
“Yes,” she answered. “I figured that it would be better if we stuck together.”
I choked down the jealousy her words provoked. I wanted Birdie to have a life and friends, but for so long, it had just been me and her. I couldn’t help the childish notion that I’d been replaced so easily. That was until she spoke again.
“I miss you,” she said. “It isn’t the same without you here to boss me around all the time.”
I laughed, and it felt good. “I miss you too, B. Are you staying out of mischief?”
“Yes, Gyps. I’m being good, I promise.”
Some of the tension in my body melted away as I fell back on the bed and wiggled my toes. “Lucian enrolled me in school.”