mouth.
I snicker. “Does this mean it’ll be just you and me at your party?”
“Probably.” He shrugs. “I don’t care anymore. If my friends can’t be decent human beings, I don’t want them as friends.”
Our shared social status and his friendliness puts me at ease. I find myself sharing my story with him while we wait for the movie to start. He doesn’t flinch, gape, or judge. He hugs me and keeps his arm around me during the movie. I don’t shrug away or ask him to remove his arm. I trust him.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Hunter and I talk at school daily before the first bell and during lunch. The looks from the other students go ignored. It doesn’t matter what they think. None of them know me anyway. They just assume they do.
Tomorrow is the last day of school and I’m studying for my finals in the kitchen. My head is so far into my notes that I don’t hear Manny enter the kitchen.
Thick hands grab my shoulders and knead at the knots. I go rigid under them and try to shrug him off. His hands remain firm.
“Don’t,” I say, taking measured breaths to stay calm. Erica is running errands.
“Relax, Sara.”
“Get your hands off me, Manny.”
I have nowhere to go. I’m pressed between the chair and table with Manny preventing me from pushing the chair back. A light thrumming of panic courses through me as my heart races like a thoroughbred running for the roses.
This can’t happen again. I scan the area, calculating my options.
“Shhh.” His hands run to my neck, light and caressing.
“No!” I explode into motion, shoving the table away and jumping out of my seat.
He heaves my chair aside and traps me, facing him, between his body and the table. He is short, but his thick muscles developed from years of heavy labor more than make up for his stature.
My head turns away from the overpowering scent of dry dirt and salty sweat wafting off his skin and work clothes. “Stop it!” I have to get out.
“I see you eyeing me every day, Sara. Don’t deny it.”
I have to get out now. “Fuck you!” The heels of my hands drive into him to push him away, pushing myself onto the table instead. His jaw drops, giving me the opening to kick him with all my fear and rage.
He stumbles back clutching his chest. “Fucking tease!”
I scramble off the table and make a mad dash to a neighbor’s house. I pound furiously on the door until an elderly Japanese woman with a cane opens it, letting me in to use the phone. I call nine-one-one first, then the Jerichos. Andrew answers and I beg for him to come get me, giving him the neighbor’s address.
Mrs. Tanaka serves me a cup of green tea. The warmth of the tea helps unjumble my nerves.
The police arrive first. Relief floods through me when I spot Deputy Cohen at the door. A male, Deputy Nelson, is with her. They listen while I detail what happened with Manny.
“Why aren’t you with the Jerichos?” Deputy Cohen asks, her brow pinched.
“Gillian had the judge take me away from them. They said living across the street wasn’t safe.”
Her lips round into a frown. “I’m sorry to hear that, Sara. We’ll be back when we’re done there.”
Andrew and Rose arrive while the deputies are next door. I hug them hard and let the tears fall. Mrs. Tanaka leaves us alone as I explain my life since Gillian dropped me off with the Lloyds.
Andrew wears the same angry expression he showed Gillian in the conference room. “Insurance shouldn’t have mattered,” he says. “We never took you off.”
“But I’m not with you.”
“We haven’t stopped fighting to get you back, sweetie,” Rose says, setting a hand on my arm. “Len called us looking for you and we put him in touch with Gloria when he called back after meeting with you.”
Andrew rubs my back. “This might be what we need to get you back. You were safer with us.”
Deputy Cohen returns with a man in a black shirt and jeans. Someone on-call for CPS. She informs me they arrested Manny. He denied touching me, but hadn’t cleaned up the mess. Erica came home while he was being questioned and sided with him.
Of course she did. She loves him. I’m just a foster kid she can never adopt and call her own.
Deputy Cohen also tells us investigators are coming to take evidence. On-Call Guy packed up my belongings and has them waiting in