Yes. She’s right. My problem with Scott isn’t that he picked me up or broke up the fights or made me apologize or make amends.
It was that he wasn’t harder on me.
And that…he was too hard on me.
I swallow. “It’s complicated.”
“Tell me why. You’re a grown man now. Thirty-something. You’re a law enforcement officer. Tell me what’s complicated between you and my dad.”
I can see that she’s changed positions again. She’s now sitting cross-legged in the middle of the cushions.
Fuck.
I’m going to have to do this.
I like her.
I really like her.
And she thinks we’re becoming friends.
That’s a fair assumption. After tonight, I’d be friends with anyone else. So, I have to be honest with her here. I’m a good guy. Now. I am a grown man, and I know what’s going on in my head and heart. And I can’t have this woman thinking I’m a dick.
“Delaney and Tucker, my mom and dad, are actually my aunt and uncle,” I tell her. “I mean…they were. They’re my mom and dad now. Just not, biologically.” Though they’ve been my parents longer than the people who gave birth to me were.
“I knew that you and your brothers were adopted,” she says. “I mean, I’ve heard about that.”
“Yeah. My mom was Delaney’s sister. She, uh…” I clear my throat. Jesus, it’s been twenty-nine years, but this is still hard to talk about. “My mom was killed in a shooting at a convenience store when I was eight.”
I sense that Mia goes completely still.
“Then my dad died a couple of months later. Of, um…” I clear my throat again. “Brain cancer. That one was more expected, of course. But I lost one parent really suddenly and one very slowly and…well, that all really sucked.”
“Oh my God, David,” she says quietly. “I didn’t know the details. I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head. “Thanks. We had Delaney, though. Through all of that. She was there. And she was the one who brought us here. We’d spent summers here because my dad was from here and he and Tucker were best friends. We came here that summer after they died and…never left. Delaney and Tucker fell in love and adopted us, and this has been home.”
Mia’s quiet for several long moments.
These moments don’t feel as awkward as the others.
“I came here to stay with Scott and Peyton the first time when I was eight,” she says, her voice quiet and a little rough now. “They were my foster home at first.”
I frown. I knew she was adopted but I’d never asked about the details. I stay quiet. I know she’ll keep talking. And I want to hear this.
“My parents were alcoholics. Not abusive, exactly, but neglectful.” She stops and swallows. “I was left alone a lot. I had to feed myself. Get myself to school. Things like that. One of my teachers finally connected the dots and called CPS. I was removed from the home, and my parents went to rehab. I stayed with Scott and Peyton. And…I loved it.” She stops. “They were amazing. I was shy and quiet, and I didn’t want to get comfortable because I didn’t think it would last, but I couldn’t help it. They made me feel loved and safe and…happy.”
She stops and I feel every muscle in my body tense. I can feel something bad coming.
“After their rehab, I went back home. And it was so hard. I missed my parents, but I didn’t want to leave Scott and Peyton and Harlow and Austin. I couldn’t stop crying for days. I felt so bad because I knew I should be happy to be home with my mom and dad. But I kept hoping something would happen so I could go back to Scott and Peyton’s.” She swallows. “I thought—and wished, honestly—that Scott would show up every single day. I remember how he looked the day they took me away from him. I’ve never seen anyone look that torn up.”
Holy shit. I scrub a hand over my face.
She keeps going. “My parents relapsed about six months later, and one night, they were driving drunk with me in the car and got pulled over. I was taken back to Scott and Peyton’s. I was…so relieved to be there. And I felt so guilty about that. I remember Scott crying when they picked me up.” She stops and takes a deep breath. “Every night after that, I wished that I could just stay with them. That they could convince my parents to let me stay. Or that my parents would just want to give me up.”
I hear her sniff and my chest tightens.
“And then, a week later, Scott and Peyton came into my room in the middle of the night, woke me up, and told me that my parents had been killed in a car accident. They’d been…” Her voice cracks. “They’d been driving drunk. Wrapped the car around a pole.” She takes another breath. “And I felt…sad, of course. But also relieved again. Because that meant I didn’t have to leave Scott and Peyton again for sure. I have never gotten over that guilt.”
