Heart Bones - Colleen Hoover Page 0,91
didn’t take pay from.
Every day for the past seven months is accounted for. Every item of food he ate from someone’s refrigerator without their permission. Every repair he made to someone’s house. He’s been keeping track of all of it.
But why? Did he feel like repairing these properties for free was balancing out the fact that he was staying in them without permission?
Could this possibly be the proof the court needs to know he doesn’t deserve all the charges being brought against him?
I rush downstairs and find my father and Alana on the living room sofa. Sara and Marcos are together on the loveseat. They’re all watching Wheel of Fortune, but my father mutes it when he sees I’ve come downstairs for the first time today.
I hand the notebook to my father. “This belongs to Samson.” He takes the notebook from me and begins flipping through it. “It’s a detailed list of every place he’s stayed and how he repaid them.”
My father stands up, still flipping through the notebook.
“This could help him.” My voice is full of hope for the first time since he was arrested. “If we can prove he was trying to do the right thing, it could help his defense.”
My father sighs before he even makes it a few pages into the book. He closes it and hands it back to me. “It’s a detailed list of everything he’s done wrong. It’ll hurt him, not help him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Beyah, he’s only being charged on two counts of breaking and entering. If you take that to the police and show them how many more houses he broke into, they’re going to use it to add to his charges, not take away from them.” He looks frustrated as he takes a step closer to me. “Please let this go. You’re too young to let a guy you barely know consume your life like this. He messed up and he has to pay the consequences for that.”
Alana is standing now. She grips my father’s arm in support and says, “Your father is right, Beyah. There’s nothing you can do but move forward.”
Sara and Marcos are still seated on the loveseat, looking at me in a way that makes me feel pathetic.
All of them think I’m pathetic.
None of them care what happens to Samson. And none of them believe in what we had. For once in my life, I had someone who actually cared about me, and all four of them think I’m incapable of knowing what true love is.
I know what love is, because I spent my whole life knowing what it isn’t.
“My mother died.” It feels like all the air in the room is sucked out after I say that.
Alana’s hand goes over her mouth.
My father shakes his head in disbelief. “What? When?”
“The night I called you and asked if I could come here. She overdosed because she’s been an addict for as long as I can remember. I have had no one in my corner. Not you. Not my mother. No one. I have been all alone my whole goddamn life. Samson is the first person who ever showed up and cheered for me.”
My father walks over to me, his face contorted into both confusion and sympathy. “Why would you not tell me something like this?” He runs a hand down his face and mutters, “Christ, Beyah.”
He tries to pull me in for a hug, but I back away.
I turn around to head toward the stairs, but my father calls after me. “Wait. We need to discuss this.”
Now that my rage has surfaced, I feel like I’m drowning in it. I need to get it all out while I have the chance. I spin around and face my father again.
“Discuss what? Everything else I kept from you? Do you want to know about how I lied when I met you at the airport? The airline didn’t lose my luggage. I never had anything at all, because every penny you ever sent Janean, she kept for herself. I had to start fucking a guy for money when I was fifteen just so I would have food to eat. So fuck you, Brian. You aren’t my father. You never have been, and you never will be!”
I don’t bother to wait for any of their reactions. I stomp up the stairs and slam my bedroom door.
My father opens it about thirty seconds later.
“Please leave,” I say, my voice completely devoid of emotion now.
“We need to talk about this.”
“I want to