Page 35

He cared so much when my own mother, my own flesh and blood, couldn’t care less.

I made a rough sound in the back of my throat as tears finally slid down my cheeks. Leaving him was going to hurt like a mother.

I stood there in the kitchen, unmoving while silent tears streamed down my face. Not because I was sad or upset. Oh no. It was the opposite. I cried because I finally had an adult in my life who gave a shit about me.

How sad was that?

I really hoped Mr. Cole’s brother didn’t die.

I opened my palm and unfolded the neat, crisp bills he’d placed there. He’d given me seven one hundred dollar bills. It made me curious to know how much money he’d put in the bank account he opened up for me. I’d never had so much money at one time before and all I wanted was to give it back to him.

Chapter Thirteen

I was alone. Completely and utterly alone. In a ginormous house I hadn’t even explored half of. I spent the majority of my time alone so I shouldn’t have minded it now. But I did.

I sat up in my bed with my back against the headboard, my knees to my chest, my arms wrapped tightly around my knees and I jumped at every tiny noise I heard. Something creaked deep in the house and I let out a small scream. I knew I was being ridiculous. I had activated the alarm as soon as Mr. Cole had pulled his white SUV out of the garage. There was no one in the house with me, that’s what being alone in the house meant. I knew this, all of it. But, still, I jumped at every small noise. Admittedly, the girly scream was embarrassing. The only upside to being alone was there being no one around to hear it.

I crawled out of bed and picked up my phone from where it sat on the window seat. There was an outlet in the wall right beside the window seat that made it the perfect place to charge my phone. I carried it back over to the bed with me and crawled under the covers, this time not placing my back against the headboard but laying down on my side instead.

I didn’t want to be alone.

Like, really, really, didn’t want to be alone. I thought about texting Tyson to see if he was awake but hesitated. It was after one in the morning and those boys were weird. Yeah, we were becoming friends, but still, they were weird. I wasn’t certain sure it was a good idea to invite one of them over in the middle of the night when I was all by myself in the house.

I held my phone close to my face and opened up my messages. There were several unread ones from Tyson.

Tyson: If it’s okay with you, I’d like to catch a ride to school with you tomorrow. My Uncle needs my car until he can pick his up from his friend’s house. I hope that’s okay. If not, I will ride in with the twins. Sweet dreams, sweetheart.

Tyson: Good morning.

Tyson: Come over. I ordered you pizza.

Tyson: Are you okay?

Holy crap. Now that I had more than my mother to text I really needed to pay attention and actually start looking at my phone. Tyson had been texting me and he probably thought I was an A-hole because I never responded to half of his messages.

Not caring about the time, I sent him off a quick text.

Ariel: Sorry. I hadn’t looked at my phone since I went to sleep last night. Thanks for asking if I’m alright. I’m going to be just fine.

He texted back not a minute after I hit send. I worried I had woke him up.

Tyson: What are you doing up?

I grinned at my phone.

Ariel: What are YOU doing up?

Tyson: I asked first.

He had and I felt compelled to be honest with him. Though, I didn’t know why.

Ariel: Mr. Cole’s brother got into a car accident and is in the hospital. It isn’t looking good. He and my mother left about half an hour ago for the airport.

Ariel: This house is big. And noisy.

I waited a minute and when there was no response I placed the phone down on the pillow on the empty side of the bed.

I closed my eyes and snuggled into my pillow. Maybe he’d fallen asleep. I couldn’t blame him if he did.