Change of Heart (Fostering Love 2)

I got to my feet quickly, but before I could go to her, she started shaking her head and lifted one finger to ask me for a minute. When I nodded, she left the room.

I dropped back down to my knees and started wiping down the floor again. I had to make sure that all the dust was completely gone before we could put the finish on, or the entire floor would look like shit and we’d have to start over. My arms still felt numb from pushing that vibrating machine around the room, and I sure as fuck wasn’t planning on doing that again anytime in the near future…at least not until Ani was ready to do the hallway and bedrooms.

Twenty minutes went by, and then thirty, and by the time Ani got back to the living room, I’d gone through three rags, and the floor was almost wiped clean.

“What’s up?” I asked slowly, coming to my feet as she paused in the middle of the room.

“Uh.” Her eyes searched blindly around the room, then finally came to rest on me. “My sister’s having a baby,” she said, shaking her head.

“What? Kate?” I asked in confusion.

“No, my real sister.”

I almost argued about that statement but decided that was a conversation for a different time. “You have a sister?”

“Yeah.” She reached up and scratched at her hair with both hands, making it stand straight up in some places. “She’s fifteen.”

My stomach rolled. “Oh, fuck.”

“I have two little brothers too,” she went on. “All still live with my mom. She got her act together, at least enough that CPS didn’t step in with them.”

“Jesus Christ.” That had to fucking kill her. Alex and I had never dealt with that kind of family shit. Our mom had died when we were little, hit by a car when she was walking to work one day. It sucked big time, but we hadn’t been taken from her, she’d been taken from us.

“So yeah, fifteen and having a baby. Mom’s doing a fucking bang-up job. Obviously.”

I took a step toward her but froze when she held up a hand to stop me.

“I need a shower,” Ani muttered after a minute, looking down at her clothes. “So do you.”

She turned and left the room, peeling off the tank top she was wearing as she hit the hallway. “You coming?” she called over her shoulder as she paused to shove her jeans down over her ass.

“You wanna talk about it?” I asked after I’d stripped and climbed into the shower behind her.

“Not especially.” She wasn’t crying, but her eyes seemed almost blank as she grabbed a bar of soap and lathered her hands.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, it is what it is,” she said, reaching forward to run her soapy hands over my forearms.

“I didn’t know you had siblings,” I said quietly as her hands moved to my chest.

“Yeah, I found my mom when I turned eighteen. It was stupid to even look for her nasty ass—but I found out then that she’d had more kids. I keep in touch with Bethy and the boys, but they live in Seattle.”

My breath caught as her fingers moved farther down my chest, and I reached out to push her wet hair out of her face. I didn’t say anything because I had no fucking idea what I was supposed to say to that.

“They have B names,” she scoffed, lifting her hands from my chest and turning to face the spray. “I’m Anita, and they’re Bethy, Ben, and Brayden.” She shook her head, her shoulders so tight they were practically pressed up against her ears. “The second wave. Her second goddamn chance—and she still fucked it up.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore. She looked so small with her arms crossed over her chest in the spray of water, her back curved inward enough that I could count every vertebra up her back. I reached around her and pressed my hand to her smooth belly, pulling her back against me.

“It’s a good thing you got out then, yeah?” I whispered into her ear, wrapping my other arm around her chest. “She didn’t get any better. You’re the lucky one.”

“Yeah,” she replied hoarsely, resting her chin on my arm as her body relaxed into mine. “But if I had been there, I could have watched out for them—”

“You were a kid, Ani—you couldn’t have done shit,” I said flatly.

“She’s fifteen, Bram.” Ani sniffled, her whole body shuddering. “Jesus.”

“Come here,” I ordered, turning her in my arms so I could see her face.

Her eyes were red and so was her nose, but she wasn’t crying. She was keeping it together for some reason, even though I’d seen her bawling her eyes out before.

“You got out, baby,” I said gently, watching as her eyes closed and her chin dropped. “You’re feeling guilty for something you couldn’t control. You know how many kids wanna go back to their piece-of-shit parents? But it’s not up to them and it wasn’t up to you. That wasn’t your choice to make.”