Page 103 of Crash

“Protect me?” I got nose to nose with her now, close enough to see the tears clinging to her lashes. “By throwing me out? By taking away the best and probably only chance I have at getting my sister back? You’re doing that to protect me?”

“Blake, I’m sick.”

“So you say.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“At least the other foster parents were honest about why they rejected me.”

“I’m not rejecting you!”

“Move.”

“Blake!”

I moved around her, taking the extra second to grab the picture frame—the one where Sarah had writtenFamily Foreveracross the bottom in her loopy handwriting, the one that had me and her at the beach, smiling, thinking I’d foundmy happily ever after—and threw it across the room. The shattered glass rained down onto the carpet.

God, I was so fucking angry. How dare she do this to me? How dare she lead me on and promise me, repeatedly, that she would never turn her back on me? That she’d get me my sister back? How dare she pretend to care about the hell I’d gone through, only to do worse to me than anyone else had?

The pain was unbearable. The betrayal.

But beneath my anger at Sarah and the hurt, I was angry at myself. I should have known better. I let her in. I let her get my hopes up. I let myself smile again. And then I gave her the knife to cut my happily ever after to shreds.

Part of me wanted to turn around, to let her explain, to believe one more time. But I’d learned my lesson. Hope was just another word for poison.

“Blake!” Sarah cried.

I slammed the door behind me, leaving behind the scent of chocolate chip cookies and broken promises.

“Did you ever hear from her again?” Tessa’s question yanked me back to the present.

I’d gotten so lost in telling her about Sarah that the memory had felt real all over again.

The clinical tone returned to my voice. “She tried to reach out. But I refused to talk to her.”

I swirled my wineglass, watching the rim of red as it carried out its predictable pattern.

“I replayed every interaction, searching for the real reason she gave up on us. Was I too expensive to feed? Did I forget some crucial chore?”

Tessa reached up, her palm warm against my cheek. Her eyes were glassy, the tip of her nose slightly red.

“And now,” Tess whispered, “do you believe she was sick?”

I considered this. “That day I slammed the door, I never looked back. Couldn’t bear to. But thinking about it now, in hindsight … what if I’d been wrong? What if she really had been sick?” The thought slammed into my ribs. “What if I didn’t believe her, just like all those doctors who’d dismissed you?”

“Maybe you should reach out to her.”

“Maybe I should.”

Maybe itwastime. Assuming she was still alive, that was. Fuck, what if I was too late?

“And Faith? Did you and she ever get fostered together again?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“So, that’s why I never met her?”

“Faith’s home was in a different school district. And while I worked to save money to fight for her when I turned eighteen, Ryker’s family, your family, became my only taste of normalcy. Playing video games, shooting hoops, having dinner conversations that didn’t revolve around foster-care hell. They never pried, and I was grateful.”