get the legal documents done and your money sorted. You want it now? Don’t you?”
“Oh, for sure.” He grins. Now he’s grinning. “Let’s get going. The sooner, the better.”
Ronnie looks like he has won a fucking lottery. Little does he know that to me Aisha and Travis are worth more than a million dollars. They are worth more than anything in the world to me.
24
Aisha
January 24th
“Argh!” I cry out as I bang my palm against my forehead in frustration. “Why am I getting nowhere? Why aren’t they giving me anything? This is so annoying…”
Admittedly, I do know that Travis isn’t with Ronnie, but CPS hasn’t told me where exactly he is which is driving me mental. All I want is to put my hands on him, to hug him, to hold him close to my chest. I don’t want them to act like I don’t have a right to know about him. He’s my son. I’m the one who has cared for him since he was born, not them.
All of a sudden, the door clicks open and I leap up from my seat. Thank God Marc is back. He has been gone for far too long. I haven’t really coped without him here. Plus, it’s given me a lot of anxiety about what he’s been doing. How long does it take to get things sorted? I really have no idea about anything legal, but it’s really worrying.
“Marc.” I fly into his chest and hold him. My head bangs against his chest and I listen to the sound of his heart pounding wildly. It hammers against his rib cage, almost as if he is anxious about something. I get the terrible, heart stopping sensation that the police are back here and about to put me back in that fucking cell again. I can’t go back there. “What’s going on? Where have you been? You just said that you had a meeting to sort things out…”
I tilt my head back and stare at him, trying to gain something from his expression, but I’m not totally sure what I get. He doesn’t exactly look like he’s happy, but I don’t know if it’s some terrible bad news either. I can’t quite work it out.
“I… I did have a meeting. I think maybe we should sit down and talk.”
He tries to push past me to head into the kitchen, but I remain standing exactly where I am, frozen to the spot to try and work out exactly what’s happening here… only that leaves me in an incredibly vulnerable position as the people standing behind Marc are revealed.
Oh my God. My heart sinks. I blink a few times, trying to wake myself up. This has to be me sleeping, there is no way in hell that this can be real. I don’t buy it. Of all the things that have happened in my life, and I include the last few crazy days in that, this is the weirdest.
“M… Mom?” No way. There is no way. What the hell is she doing here? “Dad?”
My brain races, I can’t even begin to fathom what has brought me in front of them. Especially after the way that they talked to me before. This is too much, now it’s my hearts turn to race like crazy. I understand now why Marc was acting so weird.
“Marc!” I turn around to face him with what I presume is horror in my face. “What the hell have you done? I trusted you. I told you things about me and you betrayed me. I am at the lowest point in my life right now and this is what you do to me? You pile on…”
I shake my hand away from his and stalk off into the kitchen. All I want to do now is storm off, but I really don’t have anywhere else to go. I will never ever get Travis back if I don’t have a place to live. Fucking Marc has me stuck here. Stuck here to betray me.
“Why would you do this to me?” I toss my hands in the air. “Why would you invite them here knowing what they have done to me, Marc?” I don’t even care that my parents can hear me. Let them listen and know how they have completely twisted my opinion of them. They should know what they have done to me. “Why would you let them anywhere near me?”
“Please,” Marc says pleadingly. “Please just listen to them. Hear them out.”
“Wait… wait…” I slide