Ruthless Love (Ash and Innocence 1)

Kennedy had firmly opposed that idea. She wanted to be done with the pills and refused to take another one of them. I didn’t blame her and promised the doctor I’d keep a close eye on her and let him know if her fever got any worse or if new symptoms came.

The next two days were the worst. She threw up anything she ate and could barely keep water down, which meant I’d had to call the doctor again. I took her to the ER after the call and got them to put her on fluids. Once they saw the state she was in, they suggested she simply stay at the hospital, but Kennedy wanted to be back home.

They let me take her back the following morning.

By the third day, she was still clearly miserable, but she was able to talk, which was an improvement.

“Any news on my mom?” She asked when I showed up a little after sunrise. I hadn’t been to school in days, but that felt like a lost cause at this point, anyway, so I wasn’t particularly worried. Chances were, I’d end up homeless and kicked out of school in the next couple weeks. I could worry about it now, or I could just let things play out and deal with it when it came.

I decided to make sure I took care of what was important, which was currently propped up in bed and watching me through red-rimmed eyes.

“She has a lawyer now,” I said. “They are going to plead some form of insanity, most likely. And from the people I talked to, it sounds like you have some power to decide which way it goes. Maybe you can help land her in psychiatric treatment, if that’s what you want.”

“It is,” Kennedy said. “What she did was horrible—to both of us. But she’s all I have. The thought of her in prison is just—”

I nodded. She didn’t need to explain it to me. For all the hatred I harbored toward my parents, I didn’t doubt I’d surprise myself with a capacity for forgiveness if they ever showed a hint of wanting it. The difference was that my folks were happy to keep me in exile and keep me cut off from my sister. I was pretty sure they never gave her any of my letters, and they had changed her phone number almost immediately after they moved. It was easier not to think about it.

“Do we need to worry about your father?” I asked. “You mentioned you guys have been trying to stay away from him, right? What if this trial catches his attention?”

Kennedy sagged. “I hadn’t even thought of that. I mean, maybe?”

“Do you know anything about him? If I had some information, I could maybe try to find where he is. It’d be easier to keep an eye out for him if we knew more.”

“Martin Stills,” she said. “My mom never really told me much more than that. I mean, I know I was born in Tennessee, too. If that helps.”

“It might,” I said. “Kennedy… I don’t know the best way to say this, so I’m just going to blurt it out.”

“Okay,” she said carefully.

“I was a nightmare to you. This summer. The last few weeks. I’m not going to pretend a few good deeds here and there erase all that. So I want you to know I don’t have any expectation about all this. Helping you out, I mean. Once you’re better, I’ll get back out of your life.” The words spilled out of me, and I hated that I knew I was telling the truth. I really would. Even if walking away from Kennedy again would feel like torture. Even if the idea of her moving on down the line and finding some other guy made me want to break something.

“If you’re asking me for permission to leave when this is done, you’re not going to get it. Like it or not, I want you around. I don’t care if that makes me stupid.”

“It probably does make you stupid, for the record,” I said.

She swatted at me. “Asshole.”

“Guilty.”43KennedyIt was nearly a week after I stopped my medicine before I was well enough to go back to school. Tristan was at my house every day of it, bringing me food and taking care of whatever I needed. It felt like when I’d been sick before and he’d snuck me takeout through the window every time, except this had a different note to it.

I didn’t think either of us quite knew how to proceed. He still seemed to blame himself for everything that happened. It was like he was too mad at himself to let things between us creep back to where they had been.

I still felt a slight, lingering resistance in my own heart. I’d given it to him and felt how much it hurt to have it broken. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for, but I wasn’t completely ready to dive back down that path again.