“I’m sorry,” Melanie says in a tiny voice.

“Yeah,” I say. “You should be. And what really fucking sucks is to find out that the woman who gave birth to you was released from prison two years ago and never cared to see what happened to her son. That...” I lean forward. “That is what really blows.”

Melanie goes dead-person-white, and her hands tremble as she touches her cheeks. “I can explain.”

And I don’t want to hear it. I stand. “I’ve got to take a piss. Where’s the fucking bathroom?”

“Down the hall.” Courtney massages her temples. “On the left.”

I tear out of the room and the door bangs against the wall. From their safe, tidy cubicles, several people gape at me. I ram my hand against the bathroom door and slam it shut, locking it behind me.

With my palms flat against the door, I suck in deep breaths and swallow the lump in my throat. My mom. My mom. My fucking mother.

I want to go back and tell her that I still love her—so time can unwind and she can hold me like she did when I was six. I yearn for her to tell me that everything is going to be okay. But all of it is lies. My entire life is one big fucking lie. A strange wounded sound escapes my lips as my body shakes. Every part of me begs to cry and that’s just too damn sad.

* * *

I open the bathroom door to find Courtney waiting on the other side. “She left.”

Good. “Yeah, that’s her specialty.”

Courtney has lost her enthusiasm and part of me hates it. “I learned my lesson,” she says. “I won’t force this again. I thought...I thought...”

“That if you could throw us in the same room we’d make up and live happily-ever-after?”

She releases a loud, pathetic sigh. “Actually, no. Look, I know this is the last thing you want to hear, but you should give her another shot.”

Hell... “No.”

“Consider it, and if you change your mind I’ll schedule another meeting.”

“Are we done?”

“Yes. Next time it’ll be just you and me. I’ll buy ice cream.”

I blink. “Do I look five?”

She shrugs and almost smiles. “Sometimes you act five.”

And I almost crack my own smile. Did she just joke at my expense? “Funny.” I head for the exit, and when I glance back, I see her smile has grown.

The gray clouds hang low in the sky. I heard last night that the rest of the winter will be mild. I sure as hell hope so. The track will only stay open if it’s warm. As I approach my car, I spot a woman with short brown hair and a blue jean jacket. I quicken my pace.

“Isaiah,” she calls out and walks toward me.

Is this lady a damn masochist? “Maybe I was too subtle in there, so I’ll make it clear. Fuck off.”

“Please,” she says. “Please, wait.”

With keys in hand, I point at her. “Even I know you don’t have permission to see me without one of those crazy people inside near us. In case you don’t know, because let’s face it, you wouldn’t, I’m seventeen and their ward. You are on parole, so step back.”

I could give a fuck if she breaks rules and returns to prison, but I’ll use those laws to keep her from me. She doesn’t stop her advance. “I want to see you again. Promise you’ll let Courtney schedule another meeting. I’ll do anything for the opportunity.”

With my key in the lock, I freeze. “Anything?”

Too much hope floods her face. “Anything.”

“One hundred dollars in cash for each visit. Courtney never knows about the money.”

Melanie blinks as the hope fades. She doesn’t have it. I know she doesn’t have it. It’s why I made the demand. “Why do you need the money? Are you using drugs?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m a junkie. Are you paying or not?”

She brushes her hair from her face. “I’ll pay.”

Chapter 36

Rachel

IT’S A PAINFUL PULSE BENEATH my skull and above my brain. It radiates down from my forehead to wrap around my temples, my cheeks and my nose. Light makes the pain worse. Sound nearly kills me. This is the aftermath of my panic attack.

All off at some important meeting or game or social life event, my family is missing from the house. My lights are on, and my iPod plays softly next to the closed door of my room on the off chance someone does return home before their curfew of eleven—the boys, as sexist as it is, get an hour later than me.

The goal is to appear normal so I can cover up the migraine. That leaves me lying in bed with a pillow over my head and praying for the pain to cease.

After vomiting in my father’s bathroom at work, I cleaned myself up and returned to the conference room. Eleven pairs of eyes watched as I stood at the front, beside my mother, and announced how honored I was to speak on Colleen’s behalf.

My phone rings and the sound echoes violently in my head, yet at the same time a rush of adrenaline hits me. Isaiah is the only person who would call. I adjust the pillow so I can check the caller ID. My lips lift at the sight of his name. “Hello?”

“Rachel?” There is major question in his voice.

“It’s me.” Just me, my painful migraine and my sensitivity to light and sound.

“You sound off.”

I clear my throat. “I was resting.”

“I can let you go.”

Anxiety shoots through my bloodstream at the thought. “No. I’m glad you called.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I wanted to hear your voice.”

I wake up when I notice the strained tone in his voice. Suddenly my head doesn’t hurt so bad, and I edge the pillow onto the bed and off my face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” A car honks. “Tell me how the thing with your mom went.”

“Good,” I say, and place the pillow back over my head. Every part of me flounders. I don’t want to lie to him, too. But if I tell him about my attacks then he’ll view me as weak, and that’ll mess up what’s between us. Maybe I don’t have to lie. I can leave some things out—just like Ethan does to me when he uses twin amnesty. “Actually, horrible.”

I hear a car door close. “What happened?”

“Maybe we can meet someplace and talk?”

“Yeah. Tell me where.”

I swing my legs off the bed to stand, but the headache hammers my head hard and fast. A sound of pain escapes my lips, and I wince because Isaiah had to hear it.

“What’s going on, Rachel?” Isaiah became very serious, very fast.

“Just a headache, I swear. So I was thinking we could meet at this coffee shop—”

He cuts me off. “You’re not driving if you’re hurting.”

I lie back down as my eyesight doubles. With a touch to my iPod, music stops playing from the speakers. I strain to listen for any sound, and all that comes back is glorious silence.

What I’m about to do is wrong. So wrong. The exact opposite of everything my parents expect from me, and for that reason alone it feels right. “Would you like to come over?”

Chapter 37

Isaiah

THE GUARD LEANS OUT OF his little boxed-in brick house at the entrance to Rachel’s neighborhood and assesses me like I’m a serial killer broken out of death row. “Who did you say you want to see?”

“Rachel Young.”

His hand falls to his hip as if he’s packing, but both the rent-a-cop and I know that the only thing he’s carrying is thirty additional pounds of beer and nachos in his stomach. “I think you have the wrong neighborhood, son.”

Not in the mood for his games, I push redial on my cell and Rachel immediately answers, “Are you here?”

“At the gate. Do you mind informing your militia that I’m not here to rape and pillage?”

She sighs. “Put Rick on.”

With his mouth set into a pissed-off line he takes my cell and turns his back to me. His whispered words have an edge to them and after a few seconds he hands me the phone back. The gate lifts in front of me, but my car remains idling next to him.

I glance at him from the corner of my eye. “Don’t tell her parents.”

“Or what?” he asks.

“Or what is right.” I place my foot on the clutch and shift into gear. It’s not a threat I’ll carry out, but it’s an empty one worth issuing to keep Rachel safe and happy.

Following the directions she texted, I wind my way past mansions the size of miniature castles with far more land between them than needed for a single family.

At the end of its very own road, Rachel’s house sits entirely illuminated against the night sky. It has white columns and white marble steps and what the fuck is she doing with me?

I drive around the front loop and kill the engine. Therapists, social workers, teachers...they’ve spent years looking down their noses at me, but they were hard-pressed to make me feel smaller than shit. Being here in front of Rachel’s, that’s accomplished what very few have been able to do.

I force myself out of the car, up the steps, and before I can ring the bell, the door swings open and Rachel greets me with a smile. “Hi.”

She’s in sweatpants, a T-shirt, and her hair’s pulled up on top of her head with loose pieces falling around her face. Not an ounce of makeup covers her face and she’s barefoot. Each toe painted a mild form of red. Except for the dark circles under her eyes, I’ve never seen something so gorgeous in my life. “Hey.”

Rachel sweeps her hand for me to enter, and I shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans when I step in. People have a fancy-ass name for this type of area of the house and because I’m not fancy-ass, I don’t know it. It’s a hallway that’s a room but is bigger than some of the foster homes I’ve lived in.

“I don’t think anyone will be home before eleven, but if you don’t mind, I think I’d like you to only stay an hour just in case.”

“Going gangster with boundaries. I like it.” The tease is there in my voice, but I can’t stop the sweep of the place. Huge-ass winding stairs. A skylight above me. Several double-doored rooms off to the sides and probably a whole other wing down that hallway straight in front of us.

Rachel tries to smooth out her hair, but the pieces only fall back to her shoulders. “Sorry about this. I know I should have tried to change, but...”

That’s when I notice how pale she is, how sick she looks, and a warning sensation crawls along my spine. Something’s wrong. “You’re beautiful.”

Rachel lowers her head, but I can tell she liked the compliment. “We can watch a movie or listen to music or—” She closes her eyes and goes from pale to drained of blood. Her forehead scrunches like she’s in pain, and I reach out to snatch her as she leans to the left.

“That’s no fucking headache,” I growl.

She sucks in air through her nose. “Migraine. I get them occasionally, but I’ll be okay.”

Fuck this. I bend my knees and have Rachel up in my arms before she can protest. “Where’s your bedroom?”