There were always people around to care for him, watch television with him, especially his mom.
He shut down his thoughts before the memories became too much. His brothers called him emotionless. But after that day—after he’dbroken—he’d learned to keep a part of himself held back.
The loss of his parents had impacted him more than the others in a lot of ways. He’d been left alone with his sickness, left to fend for himself in a house with too many needs.
Locking his emotions down was the only way he could go on existing without the people who’d loved him. As the always sick kid, his parents were his best friends because they were the ones caring for him, loving him, proving to him that no matter how ill he got or how bad he felt, they were there for him.
Until they weren’t.
“Tell me,” Quinley said softly. “Whatever you’re thinking… Tell me.”
He schooled his features and ignored the request. The memories had washed over him, though, taken him back to a time he hated because of how strongly it made him feel. How scared and vulnerable and helpless.
“Elias? What is it?”
He cleared his throat and shook his head to clear it, but the images kept coming, bombarding him. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Bull,” she said, the blunt word short and full of challenge as she sat forward. “Something’s going on in that thick head of yours, and it’s not good. I saw that expression. I thought— I thought after everything, we were friends?”
He lifted his chin but couldn’t quite meet her gaze. “It’s nothing, Quinley.”
Her nose wrinkled as if in distaste, and she stared at him without blinking. “You’ve seen me at my absolute worst. Rock freakingbottom,” she stressed, “and you’ve been here for me when I needed a friend. What kind of person am I if I can’t be that kind of friend to you?”
She’d lost her snarky attitude and looked so sincere and heartfelt, so sweet and genuine and mama bearish, that he felt his walls crumble a bit. “You’ve got enough to deal with. I doubt you have room for my dysfunctions, too.”
Her expression narrowed even more, and despite the shadows beneath her eyes and the fact she looked nothing like the doll in a wedding dress he’d driven to the mountains—had it only been yesterday?—he felt the moment he gave over to her demand for more.
He took a breath and exhaled before leaning back in the chair where he sat. He held a puzzle piece in his hand, twisting it between his fingers. “What you said about being sick and the housekeeper…”
“What about it?
“It made me think of my mom. Of being home sick with her all those times, all those years.”
“She took care of you.”
“Always. No matter how sick I got, she was there. And they’re good memories until…she wasn’t there, and I was still sick.”
He noted the way her body softened.
“I’mso sorry, Elias. I can’t even imagine. That must have been so scary for you.”
His gaze shifted to the fireplace when the mechanism controlling the propane heat clicked before fire flamed to life, the glass shards gleaming inside of it. “She was my best friend. They both were, but my mom— She was the one who was there for me, twenty-four seven. But then she was gone, and there were too many kids in that house for me to need special care. Too many mouths to feed and clothes to wash and my aunt— God bless her, she did her best, but she wasn’t our mother.”
Aunt Rose had baby Isla to tend along with Hudson who hadn’t started school yet due to his age. Finn’s childhood speech issues had also reappeared with a vengeance after the accident due to the trauma, so to say there were others who needed Aunt Rose’s attention as much or more than he did, though he certainly did, was an understatement. “I couldn’t be that sick kid anymore. Everyone was super stressed because CPS was always hovering, checking in, and ready to split us up.”
“That’s terrifying.”
He wiped a hand over his face, trying to ease the tension and shake off the bad memories. “It was, but I was smart. And even though we couldn’t afford allergy testing, a kid at school had an episode with peanut butter. He wound up with an EpiPen, and for whatever reason, it dawned on me that if peanut butter could make him sick, maybe what I was eating was makingmesick. So I started researching as best I could. And one of the first things the articles I found said to do was an elimination diet and fast. Basically take everything out of my system and let my body reset itself before adding food back in one at a time to see how I reacted. So that’s what I did.”
“That’s amazing,” she breathed. “And so smart. How old were you?”
“Thirteen. That was a rough time,” he said with a wry shake of his head. “Roughyears. Like you, I had favorite junk food. Comfort food. Dishes my mom and aunt both made that I loved but… Turns out they were the problem. On top of losing my parents, I had to break addictions to foods I desperately wanted because they held memories—again, good ones—and teach myself how to eat so that my body didn’t attack itself.”
“And yet you bought me junk food,” she said, her hands pressed to her cheeks, her voice low and thick with emotion. “That must have made you crazed.”
He chuckled, unable to temper the sound and more than a little surprised at the same time. “It wasn’t my favorite moment; that’s for sure.”
“But you did it anyway to support my need to binge. That was sweet of you, Elias.”
