Lust (Vegas Nights 2)

I didn’t sleep a lot. I didn’t pair socks before I put them back in the drawer. I didn’t dust as often as I probably should.

I didn’t visit the graves of my mother and sister.

In fact, I blocked them out completely. Those few years of my life where Penelope had overdosed and my mom had hung herself were little more than a blur to me. Their actions had set the course for my own, but to an extent, it felt like my destiny to be left alone was always written in the stars.

I was an accident, after all. The product of a risky affair that was never meant to be serious.

My biological father had been the first person to leave me, happily signing over all parental rights if my mom paid his legal bills.

She did.

Penelope was next. My perfect baby sister let the drugs take over, and eventually, they took her.

Then Mom. The only reason I was even a part of that rich, obnoxious family took her life because she couldn’t bear to live in a world that Penelope wasn’t a part of.

Then it was Dennis. Two weeks after I said the two magic words to him—“I’m pregnant”—he decided it was a good idea to get in his car when he was drunk as all get out and wrapped the shitty little Honda around a tree.

Right about the time my father and brother told me I should abort my baby because I couldn’t do it alone.

There was a strange sense of pride and self-righteousness about the fact I’d proved them wrong. Lola was the only person I had in this world, and it’d always been that way. Just the two of us, always.

Now, sitting in front of the headstones that marked the final resting places of my mom and sister, I understood something.

I hadn’t tried to find a real job as hard as I should have. I’d been abandoned by everyone in my life I’d ever loved. Pushed aside and forgotten or doubted. How was I supposed to get a real job when I knew I’d eventually be fired because I wasn’t good enough?

I couldn’t live easily because the money that was mine, that Mom had left me as my share of the business, was inaccessible.

Selling myself was the only job that made me worthless, that fit into the way I viewed myself every time I looked in the mirror. I was used and discarded like the shit I’d always thought myself to be, with nobody to lean on except my precious girl who I never wanted to be subjected to that side of her mom.

I took a deep breath and perched on the edge of the wall. There were footprints in the dusty area before me, and two small bouquets of flowers brightened their graves. My gut told me my brother was the person responsible for those, and although I’d wanted to bring some, I was glad I hadn’t.

He might know I was here if I had.

Wrapping my arms around my stomach, my gaze flitted from stone to stone. It’d been years, literally, since I’d dragged myself to this side of town and made any form of connection with my family.

Granted, making a connection with a living member was probably a smarter idea, but not everything I did was smart. As evidenced by my current work situation.

Adrian seemed surprised when I’d mentioned that I had a dead sister. In turn, that had surprised me. I’d assumed he’d looked up everything he could find about the Fox family in the police archives. He wouldn’t have to look far. The fight my parents had put up for the coroner to label Penny’s death a homicide or accidental homicide was well-documented.

It was probably used in crime classes. How to deal with parents who won’t let go, or something like that.

I slowly exhaled. Their names were etched so perfectly in the stones, and I traced the letters over and over and over with my eyes. Every time, the memory of them cut a little deeper. The pain of losing them sliced a little harder.

The way I missed them twisted a little more violently.

Tears burned, but there was no way I was letting them go. I’d cried enough when they’d died.

The flowers on their graves were bright and colorful.

The tears stung at the sight of those.

If I’d have come before, would I have met my brother in passing? Would I have stayed or ran? Would I have wanted to?

My conversation with Dahlia swirled around and around in my mind.

Why had she contacted me? Had he really told her everything? The idea that this stranger knew more about me than I did about her threw me. Why had he told her, if he had? Who was she to him? She was in love with him, but was he with her?