The Wall of Winnipeg and Me - Mariana Zapata Page 0,166
I was pretty sure she’d been sober when she did it—that’s probably why she was stealing money, to go get whatever it was she wanted. My mom wanted me to forgive her and move on, but… how could she ask me to do that? She knew what she’d been doing. Susie had stolen money from her too. She’d chosen to do it, you know? And even if she’d been high, it would still have been her choice to get high and steal shit from the people she was supposed to love. Her choice led her to that moment. I can’t feel bad for that.”
I couldn’t. Could I? Forgiveness was a virtue, or at least that’s what someone had told me, but I wasn’t feeling very virtuous.
“I went and stayed with my foster parents afterward. There was no way I was going to stay at Diana’s right next door. My foster dad had me do his accounting work, be his secretary, all kinds of things so I could at least earn my room and board because I didn’t want to freeload off of them. Then I went back to school once I was better.”
“What happened with your sister?” he asked.
“After she hit me, I didn’t see her again for years. You know what kills me the most though? She never apologized to me.” I shrugged. “Maybe it makes me a little coldblooded, but—”
“It doesn’t make you coldblooded, Van,” The Wall of Winnipeg interjected with a crisp tone. “Someone you should have been able to trust hurt you. No one can blame you for not wanting to give her a hug after that. I haven’t been able to forgive people for less.”
That made me snort bitterly. “You’d be surprised, Aiden. It’s still a sore subject. No one besides my little brother understands why I’m mad. Why I don’t just get over it. I get that they’ve never liked me for whatever reason, but it still feels like a betrayal that they’d be behind Susie instead of me. I don’t understand why. Or what I did to make them feel like I’m their enemy. What am I supposed to do?”
Aiden frowned. “You’re a good person and you’re talented, Vanessa. Look at you. I don’t know what your sisters are like, but I can’t believe they’re half of what you are.”
He listed the attributes so breezily they didn’t feel like compliments. They felt like statements, and I didn’t know what to do with it, especially because in the back of my head, I knew Aiden wouldn’t say those things to make me feel better. He just wasn’t the type to nurture, even if he felt obligated, unless he genuinely, really wanted to.
But before I could think about it anymore, he admitted something so out of the blue, I wasn’t remotely prepared for it. “I might not be the best person to give you family advice. I haven’t talked to my parents in twelve years.”
I jumped on that wagon the second I could, preferring to talk about him than me. “I thought you went to go live with your grandparents when you were fifteen?”
“I did, but my grandfather died when I was a senior in high school. They came to the funeral, found out he had left everything to my grandmother, and my mom told me to take care of myself. I’ve never seen them since then,” Aiden recounted.
“Your dad didn’t say anything?”
Aiden shifted in bed, almost as if he was lowering himself to be flatter on the mattress. “No. I was four inches taller than him by then, sixty pounds heavier. The only time he talked to me when I lived with them was when he wanted to yell at someone.”
“I’m sorry to talk about your dad, but he sounds like an asshole.”
“He was an asshole. I’m sure he still is.”
I wondered… “Is he why you don’t cuss?”
No-bullshit Aiden answered. “Yes.”
It was in that moment, that I realized how similar Aiden and I were. This intense sense of affection, okay maybe it was more than affection—I could be an adult and admit it—squeezed my heart.
Looking at Aiden, I held back the sympathy I felt and just kept a grip on the simmering anger as I eyed his scar. “How did he do that to you?”
“I was fourteen, right before I hit my big growth spurt.” He cleared his throat, his face aimed at the ceiling, confirming he knew that I knew. “He’d been drinking too much and he was mad at me for eating