Family Ties

by Debi V. Smith

  I kick my leg around her in an attempt to roll over and get on top, but she throws her weight against my leg.

  Hunter yanks her off of me and drags her to her car. “Later, Sara!”

  I lie still in the grass, breathing through the soreness. How does everything always go to shit just when it starts going right?

  “Sara,” Erica calls from the door. “Time for therapy.”

  Great. I get to spend the next hour in a stare down with Irving. Lucky me.

  Hunter tracks me down on campus between morning classes the next day.

  “Well?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there.” Erica was elated when I asked to go to the party. You would’ve thought I told her I was asked to prom.

  “Cool. Hey, want to go to a movie or something this weekend?”

  I stiffen and clutch the books in my arms, as if they’ll save me from certain death. I can’t go out with him. I just can’t.

  “Friends, Sara,” he says. “I know you’re with Jason.” He doesn’t know.

  Tears well up, waiting to be released. “I don’t know what it is anymore, Hunter.” Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

  He sets a hand on my arm. “I respect whatever it is. I know you miss him.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I know what it’s like being the new kid in school.”

  “I’m not the new kid anymore.”

  Hunter’s eyes widen and then someone or something rams into me from behind. I fall forward, dropping my books as I throw my arms out to catch myself. He catches me instead.

  “Bitch. Watch where you’re standing,” Nicole mutters as she passes.

  Hunter makes sure I’m all right, then gathers my books for me. He whips a pen out of his back pocket, writes something inside my notebook, and hands it back with the books. “Call me later, after you talk to your foster mom.” He grins, then rushes off to class.

  Why? Why does he have to be so nice? And why can’t I let myself enjoy making a new friend?

  When I ask Erica about going out with Hunter tomorrow, she’s more excited than when I asked about the party. I call and let Hunter know I can go. He goes through the movies playing and we choose one together.

  I am going out with a new friend.

  I am going out with a new friend.

  I am going out with a new friend.

  If I chant it long enough, it will be real and good.

  Manny answers the door when Hunter arrives and makes a failed attempt at being an imposing fatherly figure. Hunter is taller and not at all scared of Manny’s posturing. Manny skulks off after a few minutes and we leave.

  Hunter pays for the tickets, popcorn, and drinks. Refusing to take the money I try to give him; part of the allowance Erica gives me that she says comes from the state to care for me. The Lloyds never gave us an allowance, probably keeping the money for themselves.

  “It’s what I should’ve done when we first met,” he says as we take seats in the back.

  I’m not sure what this feeling is. Something between frustration and gratitude. “Thanks, Hunter.”

  “I know it’s not easy being new, especially since Nicole targeted you early on. I’m just sorry I didn’t talk to you sooner.”

  “We were both blackballed.”

  “Yeah, but can you imagine how much fun we would’ve had being blackballed together?” He grins and tosses a piece of popcorn in his mouth.

  I snicker. “Does this mean it’ll be just you and me at your party?”

  “Probably.” He shrugs. “I don’t care anymore. If my friends can’t be decent human beings, I don’t want them as friends.”

  Our shared social status and his friendliness puts me at ease. I find myself sharing my story with him while we wait for the movie to start. He doesn’t flinch, gape, or judge. He hugs me and keeps his arm around me during the movie. I don’t shrug away or ask him to remove his arm. I trust him.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Hunter and I talk at school daily before the first bell and during lunch. The looks from the other students go ignored. It doesn’t matter what they think. None of them know me anyway. They just assume they do.

  Tomorrow is the last day of school and I’m studying for my finals in the kitchen. My head is so far into my notes that I don’t hear Manny enter the kitchen.

  Thick hands grab my shoulders and knead at the knots. I go rigid under them and try to shrug him off. His hands remain firm.

  “Don’t,” I say, taking measured breaths to stay calm. Erica is running errands.

  “Relax, Sara.”

  “Get your hands off me, Manny.”

  I have nowhere to go. I’m pressed between the chair and table with Manny preventing me from pushing the chair back. A light thrumming of panic courses through me as my heart races like a thoroughbred running for the roses.

  This can’t happen again. I scan the area, calculating my options.

  “Shhh.” His hands run to my neck, light and caressing.

  “No!” I explode into motion, shoving the table away and jumping out of my seat.

  He heaves my chair aside and traps me, facing him, between his body and the table. He is short, but his thick muscles developed from years of heavy labor more than make up for his stature.

  My head turns away from the overpowering scent of dry dirt and salty sweat wafting off his skin and work clothes. “Stop it!” I have to get out.

  “I see you eyeing me every day, Sara. Don’t deny it.”

  I have to get out now. “Fuck you!” The heels of my hands drive into him to push him away, pushing myself onto the table instead. His jaw drops, giving me the opening to kick him with all my fear and rage.

  He stumbles back clutching his chest. “Fucking tease!”

  I scramble off the table and make a mad dash to a neighbor’s house. I pound furiously on the door until an elderly Japanese woman with a cane opens it, letting me in to use the phone. I call nine-one-one first, then the Jerichos. Andrew answers and I beg for him to come get me, giving him the neighbor’s address.

  Mrs. Tanaka serves me a cup of green tea. The warmth of the tea helps unjumble my nerves.

  The police arrive first. Relief floods through me when I spot Deputy Cohen at the door. A male, Deputy Nelson, is with her. They listen while I detail what happened with Manny.

  “Why aren’t you with the Jerichos?” Deputy Cohen asks, her brow pinched.

  “Gillian had the judge take me away from them. They said living across the street wasn’t safe.”

  Her lips round into a frown. “I’m sorry to hear that, Sara. We’ll be back when we’re done there.”

  Andrew and Rose arrive while the deputies are next door. I hug them hard and let the tears fall. Mrs. Tanaka leaves us alone as I explain my life since Gillian dropped me off with the Lloyds.

  Andrew wears the same angry expression he showed Gillian in the conference room. “Insurance shouldn’t have mattered,” he says. “We never took you off.”

  “But I’m not with you.”

  “We haven’t stopped fighting to get you back, sweetie,” Rose says, setting a hand on my arm. “Len called us looking for you and we put him in touch with Gloria when he called back after meeting with you.”

  Andrew rubs my back. “This might be what we need to get you back. You were safer with us.”

  Deputy Cohen returns with a man in a black shirt and jeans. Someone on-call for CPS. She informs me they arrested Manny. He denied touching me, but hadn’t cleaned up the mess. Erica came home while he was being questioned and sided with him.

  Of course she did. She loves him. I’m just a foster kid she can never adopt and call her own.

  Deputy Cohen also tells us investigators are coming to take evidence. On-Call Guy packed up my belongings and has them waiting in his car.

  “What about my books and notes?” I ask.

  “I’ll write you a note for school,” he answers.

  “You’re going to write a no
te telling my teachers that I can’t take my finals because my books and notes now evidence?”

  “Uh, yeah,” he says as if he realizes how ridiculous it sounds now.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Another foster home.”

  “I want to go home. Please,” I beg, tears brimming.

  Deputy Cohen turns away with her hand covering her face.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, folding his hands in front of him. “The Jerichos aren’t an approved foster home.”

  “A lot of good your ‘approved’ foster homes have done me,” I say, making air quotes and using all the cynicism at my disposal.

  “Sara,” Rose says with a frown.

  “I’m sorry, Rose, but it’s true. And Blake is no better, threatening me if I said anything.”

  On-Call Guy sucks in a breath. “Those are dangerous allegations.”

  “Why would I lie?” I ask, straightening my spine.

  “Sara,” Rose runs a soothing hand down my arm, “this isn’t you.”

  “This is what they made me, Rose.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  I wake up in a strange bed with a strange family in a strange home and get ready for school in a discombobulated haze. Three foster homes in three months will do that to a person. How many more homes will there be before I turn eighteen?

  I eat the cereal my new foster mother gives me, then watch the world pass by outside the window as she drives me and my new foster brother to school. What’s the point in learning their names if it won’t last?

  Hunter waits for me out front where he usually does before school starts.

  Crap.

  He bounces on the balls of his feet with a frown on his face. “That wasn’t Erica. Who was that?”

  “My new foster mother and foster brother.”

  His frown deepens. “Something happened.”

  A replay of Manny pinning me to the table and the struggle to get away runs through my head. I hadn’t fully processed it last night with the move. Fear courses through me, even though the immediacy of the moment is gone. Tears fall faster than I can hold them back. He wraps his arms around me and I let it all out. The hatred. The bitterness. The fear. The loneliness. The grief. I hold on to him tight.

  The first bell rings and forces us apart. He takes my hand and I don’t pull it away. I need the comfort right now.

  “Manny tried to rape me last night while Erica was out,” I tell him on the way to class.

  He squeezes my hand. He doesn’t have to say a word to give me solace.

  “I don’t know if my new foster parents will let me go to your party Saturday.”

  “It’s okay if they don’t.” He draws me into his embrace in front of my classroom. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

  The first half of my finals drag like I’m stuck in slow motion. Lunch with Hunter is subdued because I’m in a daze between reliving last night and trying to remember information for the tests I’ve yet to take. He doesn’t push for conversation, but provides reassuring touches, letting me know I have his support.

  The last three finals fly by. I don’t know how I did and I don’t care. I’m thankful for the end of the school year for once. I used to hate summer, because I had no reprieve from my family. Now I just want out of this flashpoint.

  I ride the bus home with my foster brother. It’s crowded, no one sits still, and the non-stop chatter in the confined space is so loud I feel like I’m drowning. I hunch over, covering my ears.

  I spot the sky blue Cadillac in front of the house from the bus stop and I run, bursting through the front door, searching. Andrew and Rose sit up on the sofa and smile.

  My new foster mother smiles too. It’s the first time I notice how bright she is, with kindness highlighting her eyes. I’ve ignored her since my arrival. She didn’t deserve that.

  My foster brother brushes by me and makes a beeline for the kitchen. I close the door, bracing myself for the worst. “Are you taking me home?”

  “Pack your things,” Andrew answers, widening his smile.

  I break into a grin. “I never unpacked!”

  I rush to my room, stuff my dirty clothes on top, and grab my toothbrush on my way back.

  On the way home, I ask, “How did you do it?”

  “It was all Gloria,” Andrew answers. “Between what you reported to Len and your foster father being arrested, she had enough to file a motion to restore our guardianship immediately. I have a feeling some people are going to be out of jobs.”

  “They deserve it.”

  Damian’s car sits in the driveway when we arrive home. Andrew carries my bag and backpack and I follow him and Rose inside. A giant, painted WELCOME HOME, SARA banner hangs over the fireplace in the living room. Balloons litter the floor.

  “Sara!” Arissa squeals, running out of the TV room.

  “Riss!” She barrels into me, squeezing the air from my lungs like a python. “Oomph! Too much,” I squeak, wrapping my arms around her.

  She slackens her hold enough for me to breathe easy. “I’ve missed you.” Her voice trembles from trying not to cry.

  “I missed you so much, Riss.” Tears surface and fall. Surface and fall. Surface and fall.

  “Stop crying. You’re making me cry.”

  “You were crying first. You stop.”

  We break apart and our tears morph into laughter.

  “Do I get a hug?” Damian asks.

  “Of course you do,” I answer, smiling.

  He picks me up in a bear hug. “Glad you’re back,” he whispers. He sets me down and Arissa elbows me, then nods towards the hallway.

  Familiar dark hazel eyes gaze back at me. Jason’s hands hide in the pockets of his cargo shorts.

  This should be where I run into his embrace like they do in romance novels, TV shows, and movies. But I don’t belong in those mediums. My life isn’t printed in black across ivory pages. My life isn’t the new number one show on television or summer’s hottest blockbuster. I’m not the heroine. I’m the heroine’s friend you see on the side. No one cares about my story.

  “You’re here,” I exhale.

  “Where else would I be, Parker?” he asks, furrowing his brow.

  I watch hurt drawing its way over bewilderment. “I thought…” This boy carried me away from my abusive father. He didn’t abandon me when I told him the whole truth.

  Arissa and Damian sneak back to the TV room, leaving us alone. He closes in, waiting.

  “What about Becky?” I ask.

  “You saw me break up with her a long time ago. Why are you bringing her up?”

  “Blake told me…oh, God.” Becky knows Blake somehow and she told him about her and Jason, all to get to me.

  “Told you what?” he asks, still waiting.

  “That you were back with Becky.”

  “How would a guy I never met know that?”

  “He said Andrew and Rose told him.” The tears return, burning hot trails down my cheeks. “You don’t understand, J.”

  “What don’t I understand? Because I want to. Because no matter how many times Andrew and Rose explained it to me, I didn’t understand how they could rip you out of our lives.” His eyes darken and glisten. “I felt like they crushed my heart. Now you’re finally back and I discover you had so little faith in me.”

  Stabbing pain hits me in the gut. I fall to my knees, covering my face with my hands. “This is all wrong.” He waited for me and I didn’t believe him. Everything good was taken from me and I lost hope.

  “I didn’t get to say goodbye and had no idea when I’d see any of you again. They wouldn’t let me call you. They wouldn’t let me see Sam,” I explain. “I only managed to leave you that message because I was in a room at school alone after meeting with Len.”

  “If you had let me be there with you...”

  I tip my head up to him, still on his feet. “What were you going to do? Andrew and Rose were there and they couldn’t do anything. Gillian blindsided us.”


  He kneels in front of me. “I don’t know, but at least I would’ve been with you.”

  I don’t deserve him.

  “You have that look on your face,” he says.

  “What look?”

  “The one you wear when you tell me you’re not the girl for me.”

  “I’m not.” Fresh tears surface and wait their turn for release.

  “Parker.” His hands cup my face. “It killed me when you left that message. I can’t undo all the shitty things your father did to you. Or your social workers. Or your foster parents. But, I’m here. For you. Don’t make me fight for you again.”

  I choke down the tears.

  His lips engage mine, parting them open. His warm lemon sugar tongue plays with mine, reminding me of his unwavering patience.

  It’s overwhelming, realizing Jason means what he says and being back home. The tears I thought I swallowed, escape. He brushes them away with his thumbs while we kiss, as if they are insignificant and unworthy of attention.

  He pulls away, leaving warmth on my lips like fresh cotton laundry right out of the dryer. I need more of it. I was denied it for too long. By my parents, by the state, and by my foster parents. I nearly denied myself.

  I throw my arms around him, drawing his heat until I’m sated, knowing this is real.

  I fill everyone in on life in Foster Hell while we pass the food around the table and assemble tacos.

  “What does you testifying mean for all of us?” Arissa asks.

  Andrew sets down the taco he was about to bite into and splays his hands on either side of his plate. “It means Sara may need extra therapy to help her deal with the stress. Or she may not. It means reporters may be calling or waiting outside for us. It means our life may be laid out publicly in court.”

  “Will we have to testify?”

  “Your mother and I, yes. You, maybe. We asked Len not to call you, since your mother and I will already be testifying. Jason, he might ask you, I don’t know.”

  Everyone quiets for a few minutes and busies themselves with their food.

  I catch Damian watching me, his expression serious. “Sara, I’ll be there with you for the trial.”