Southern Secrets (Southern #7) - Natasha Madison Page 0,48
she was pregnant, he laughed at her."
"Asher," she says my name.
"That’s not even the worst part. She had me, and it wasn’t an easy delivery. The doctor gave her pain pills, and she got addicted." My voice goes softer. "Having me killed her." I admit one of my biggest secrets that I’ve never told a soul. Not even my foster brother.
"You can’t believe that." She takes a step forward.
"If she didn’t have me, who knows where she would be," I say. "She tried." I think back, and if I close my eyes and concentrate just hard enough, I can see her face. "She tried to kick the habit, but one thing after another kicked her back, and then she was hanging around with another guy who promised her the world." I look down. "I was in foster care for three days, and she was sitting in a morgue. I didn’t attend her funeral because there was no one to pay for one. They got me dressed up one day, and I thought I was going to be adopted. I didn’t even know what that meant, but I knew kids said when they dress you up, they take you to your new family. Not me, they got me dressed up to take me to court to officially say I was a ward of the state. My grandmother showed up for five seconds to sign her rights over. My mom looked so much like her when I saw her, I cried ‘mom’ after her."
"Oh my God," she says, putting her hand to her mouth, the tears staining her cheeks. I should stop. I should stop right now and not tell her the rest. But the flood gates have opened, and everything wants to come out.
"And that was the good part of my life," I say. "I was in and out of foster homes, never staying at one too long. I was treated like a waste of space. I was told time and time again that all I was, was a paycheck. Stay quiet and don’t mess this up for us." I swallow. "When you are told your whole life that no one wants you and that you aren’t worth anything, you start to believe it. Even if I didn’t want to believe it, the kids at school were good at telling me that I was nothing since I came from a foster house."
"You are worth so much," she says, and I just shake my head.
"I went five days with only eating a loaf of bread," I say. "My foster mother was in Mexico. She left a ten-year-old for five days with a loaf of bread. No one would have known had the apartment downstairs not flooded. You grow up fast, that’s for sure. When I was thirteen, my foster father climbed into bed with me." I watch her face. "Lucky for me, I always went to bed dressed in all my clothes. Also lucky for me, I learned to yell real loud. Then I met Ryan, and the two of us made a plan to take off. We lived on the streets for six months. We had each other’s back, and then he got sick. I worked my ass off to make sure he was okay, but it wasn’t good enough; nothing was good enough. I couldn’t even rent a room for him to die in a bed. Instead, he died in a crack house with people doing meth around him." She swallows as my own tears fall from my eyes. "You learn two things in foster care. One, no one is going to protect you like you, and two, only the strong will survive."
"You survived," she says. "You are the strongest person I know."
“I survived by running,” I tell her. “Survived by never staying in one place for too long. Living paycheck to paycheck by the skin of my teeth.” The weight of my past still presses on my shoulders. “That’s the man you just kissed,” I tell her, leaving out the fact I’m hiding the biggest secret not only from her but also her whole family, and it’s eating me up inside.
She wipes the tear that runs down her face, and I want to go to her so much, but I know it’s just prolonging the inevitable. "I’ll get my things."
Chapter 20
Amelia
"I’ll get my things," he says and turns to walk away, his shoulders slumped and his head down. This man who is worth so much yet doesn’t see it.