Her eyes search mine before going soft. “You could be happier.”
She might be right, but I learned at a very early age to never put my trust in a man, and to never expect a man to be the one to make me happy. I don’t want to be so cynical, but I gave up on the opposite sex a long time ago. I’m twenty-eight years old, and the only guy I have ever really trusted is Kenyon. It took me years to get to that point with him, because all the other men I know have been druggies, liars, and cheaters. My dad, the first man to ever be a fixture in my life, was all three of those things.
“I love you and totally understand that you want good things for me, but I really can’t talk about this right now. I need to go.”
“Tonight, dinner with me and Kenyon. We’ll talk about it then.”
“Brie—”
“Hadley, I’m worried about you,” she whispers, sliding her hand down my arm, taking my hand, and giving it a squeeze. “You just went through something traumatic, and like always, you’re pretending like nothing happened, like nothing has changed. As your best friend, I need to know you’re really okay. Please give me that.”
I swallow and bite my bottom lip before nodding. I know she worries about me; she always has. She just doesn’t understand that sometimes it’s easier to pretend like everything is perfect than to acknowledge how messed up things really are. I don’t like going into the past. I don’t want to relive everything I have been through, because at the end of the day it’s a waste of time to constantly look back. And I know firsthand that it takes more courage to keep moving forward.
“I’ll see you tonight,” she says, and I nod once more.
I hurry out of my office, out of the building, and call a cab. When I get my car, it’s just like Cobi said—dented up but still drivable. Thank God.
_______________
“You fucking bitch. You think you can fucking judge me? You think you can come in here and from a five-minute look around decide it’s the right thing to do to take my kids away from me?”
“Mr. Shelp, please calm down,” I urge softly, keeping my distance from the man who is standing a few feet away in the open door to his home. “If you clean things up, and—”
“Fuck you,” he cuts me off, pointing at me, my words doing nothing but pissing him off more. “You’re going to get what’s coming to you, bitch. Be prepared. You took something from me, so I’m going to take something from you.” He walks into his house, slamming the door. I close my eyes for a moment, pulling in a deep breath before getting into my car, which is parked on the street.
I sit, staring at the house, but not really seeing it at all, because tears fill my eyes, making it blurry. This is the part of my job I hate, the part I wish I didn’t have to do. I always knew from the time I was young that I wanted to be a social worker. I didn’t know exactly what the job entailed; I just knew I wanted to be a voice for the kids who were too young to speak up for themselves. Growing up the child of two people who were more concerned with getting drunk or high than me, I needed someone to step in for me, but no one ever did. No one ever cared that my parents spent all their money on drugs and booze. Not one person took a second to make sure I had food in my stomach or a safe place to rest my head at night.
I don’t know how my life would have turned out if someone did care enough to make a call to social services to let them know they had concerns about my well-being. All I know is that now, I’m the person who has to go into people’s homes to check on children those around them have concerns about. Children like Mr. Shelp’s ten-year-old daughter Lisa and twelve-year-old son Eric, whose school called wanting to make sure the kids were okay when they were at home with their father. The report we received told us that both kids regularly showed up at school in dirty clothes, often telling their teachers they hadn’t eaten or that their dad hadn’t been around in days.
Even with the information provided to me in that first report, I didn’t make any assumptions. I know better than to go into a situation assuming the worst. Things happen. Life happens. People have bad days or bad weeks, and families often struggle to put food on the table. I, for one, never want to be the reason a child is taken from the only home they know, the only people they know, without having a valid reason.