Page 27 of Fragile Hearts (Hibiscus Hearts #3)

I’m at a loss for words. Just seeing Owen’s face has me crying even harder. In the past, seeing my mother would have triggered me to hide, to run from my problems and not tell anyone how I was feeling. But here with Owen, he’s the first person I thought of when I saw her face.

I’ve thought it a million times, said it to myself, and even told Owen I love him, but it’s more than that.

He’s my safe space, the place where I feel no judgment, the person I want to run to when I have a good day or a bad day.

I want to share everything with him, and there’s something about it that feels so healing.

I stand and go to Owen, melting into his arms, the tears streaming down my face, desperate for him to just hold me, to tell me it’s all going to be okay. This overwhelming feeling moves through my body, a shudder gripping me as Owen lowers us to a chair.

My body is wrapped around him, seeking the solace he brings me, and I can’t seem to stop sobbing, and I tell myself that’s okay. That for once, I didn’t run. I came here, a place I call home, a place that will forever be mine.

“What’s going through your head?” Owen asks, his words like silk, soothing and soft. “You can tell me, babe. I know you’re scared, but you don’t need to be. I’m here.”

I take in a ragged breath, my lungs feeling like they can’t possibly get enough air to even speak.

My head is a mess, and I hate this feeling, something I haven’t felt in years.

But the second I saw her face, it all came rushing back.

Every shitty moment, every memory, every bit of anxiety, and nothing seems to ease despite my best efforts.

“I don’t even know,” I finally mutter. I have a million thoughts, and I want to share them all, but it just feels jumbled and disjointed, and I don’t even know where to begin.

I want to tell him about the first time I went into foster care, a time that I thought would be my last, a one-and-only thing.

That my mom would return to get me, and we’d have a life like the kids I went to school with did.

But the crazy thing is, after I was placed with a family, I didn’t want her to come back.

I was ten, and she was incarcerated for drugs, a six-month stint, and in those six months, that family I was placed with treated me better than I’d ever been treated in my life.

They were an older couple, Steve and Janet, whose children were grown and moved out, and I was the only thing in their life. It was wonderful.

Breakfasts were made every morning, and my lunch for school was packed with everything all the other kids had. I never had to go through the cafeteria line, waiting for my free lunch from the state with the bright red lunch card that told all the other kids I was poor.

Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to make the poor kids have a different lunch card from everyone else? Talk about demoralizing.

I had sandwiches and juice boxes, fruit and cookies. And dinner was never random things I could find in the fridge. I didn’t eat ketchup on an old slice of bread or mangoes I stole from the trees as I walked home from school.

It was the first time in my life that I had meatloaf. I literally thought it was the best thing in the world, and Janet made it every Thursday while I lived there. Something just for me, something that she thought about and intentionally did for me.

They even drove me to school and picked me up every day since the bus was not able to pick me up at their house. They didn’t want me to have to change schools, stating to my caseworker that my life had been uprooted enough.

What they didn’t know, or maybe they did, was that school was the third one I attended that year alone.

It’s not like I had any friends because I was dirty, and my clothes were messy.

I was that kid. And when I did end up back with my mom, we’d move in with her friends or that’s what she called them.

They were drug addicts just like her, and we’d bounce from house to house.

I loved it there with that foster family even more when I look back on it now. It was the only time I felt normal until I moved in with Alana and Daisy.

Their house was clean. I was clean and fed. I slept, and every night when I climbed into bed, I wished for my mom to never come back.

But she did. Like clockwork. Six months to the date, the caseworker came to get me, and my stuff was packed up, and I was shipped out like a sailor.

I didn’t cry, though. As much as I wanted to, I didn’t because I knew it would happen again. I had tried to convince myself that I would never end up in foster care again, that this would be the only time my mom left me, but I knew better.

And two years later, at twelve years old, I would become a permanent resident of the Hawaii foster care system. That system failed me time and time again.

I would run away from foster homes to avoid being abused. Sleeping on the porches of random houses because it felt safer than the place I was living. I’ve been picked up by the police more times than I can count, and not for doing anything other than running away.

This was all because my mother couldn’t get her life together.

I ask myself why she even had me over and over because she never wanted me in the first place. Abortions are legal in Hawaii, but they cost money, and she couldn’t possibly have had it. I knew what she did to get drugs, and it certainly wasn’t actually holding down a job.

Her proudest moment of her life, and something she held over my head, was that she was sober the nine months she was pregnant with me. Something I still doubt to this day.

“Babe,” Owen now says, his fingers moving to tuck my hair behind my ear. “What can I do to help you?”

I want to respond with the same answer I gave just a few minutes ago, but he’s trying so hard, and I need to not shut down.

“Tell me what to do, Owen,” I whisper, each word a stuttered gasp for air.

“What does she want?”

“I don’t know. She said she wanted nothing. Just to see me,” I tell him, and my chest aches with the thought. It can’t be true. After all this time, she’s shown up just looking to have a relationship with me? She had eighteen years that she pissed away.

He lets out a slow breath, and I can tell he’s processing what I’ve just said. Always diplomatic and understanding, the most compassionate man I’ve ever met.

“You came here,” he says. “You came to our house, our home. You didn’t run or hide or try to avoid it all. You’ve grown, Sloane. You’re a different person than you were a year ago. Hell, you’re a different person than when you moved in with me.”

I nod, taking in his words but not responding. Letting him talk helps me. Hearing his voice and every soothing word encourages me, telling me that I’m not that girl I used to be.

“You can set boundaries, and if you don’t want to see your mother, then that’s okay. But if you do, that’s okay too. You just need to find what you’re comfortable doing.”

Fuck, he really is perfect. Most guys would have bailed by now, not knowing what to do with a blubbering, needy mess. But not Owen. He jumped right in, fixing everything that is wrong in my world.

“It could be good for you to see her. Get some closure,” he now adds, and closure is probably what I need. “Or she could really just want to see you, Sloane. Get to know you as an adult. Maybe she’s realized how much she’s fucked up.”

I want to believe him, and he isn’t lying to me. He believes all of this could be true because he doesn’t know my mother. He doesn’t know the hell my life was with and without her. It wasn’t until I became an adult that things changed.

They changed because of me. She had nothing to do with that, and I’m not sure I want her to get to know this part of me.

“Closure,” I echo, the word catching on my tongue as an ache pulls at my stomach, tightening painfully. I do need closure. I do need to let her know that I can’t continue my life hating her, but I’m also not sure I want to know her either.

“Yeah, closure,” Owen says, repeating his own word, and again I find myself nodding. “No matter what you decide, I’ll be right here. I’ll always be here waiting for you.”

He says this, but the worry still lingers, fierce and loud. She ruins everything, and I can’t let her ruin this.

I snuggle into him, inhaling deeply, taking in his scent, the scent of calm and love, letting it remind me that I’m worthy of his love.

“I’m going to meet her,” I now say, sounding resolute, but even as the words leave my mouth, I’m still trying to convince myself.

“Do you want me to come with you? I’m here, Sloane, whatever you need.”

“I’m okay,” I tell him, needing to do this on my own. It’s my mother, and for once in my life, I need to address everything that happened growing up.

“Call me if you need me,” he responds, dropping a kiss to the top of my head. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

An hour later, I’m sitting outside Matt’s Shrimp Truck, waiting for her. She’s already late, and I tap my phone screen, seeing the time glowing brightly.

Fifteen minutes.

How long do I wait? Just waiting is triggering for me.

I used to wait for her when she had scheduled visits, and she’d never show. I can’t possibly explain the level of disappointment and how much that fucks a kid up.

And here I am, an adult, waiting for her, that fear eating away at me, that used feeling returning.

But I push it away.

She doesn’t get to create that in me anymore. This is my life now, and I’m in charge of who I allow in. I need to surround myself with supportive friends and people who make me smile.

She’s failing already. Something I knew she would do.

Nothing has changed.

Matt smiles at me from his truck, giving me a wave as I sit at a picnic table, the view of the water behind me.

I wave back just as an old, worn-out truck comes rumbling down the road, and I close my eyes, shaking my head.

It’s not because the truck is old. I have no place to judge. My car is old too. It’s because it fits with my mom, and there’s not a chance she’s even driving. Being dropped off by some random guy who she’ll claim is her boyfriend.

Fuck, nothing has changed.

“Sloanie,” she calls, stumbling as she climbs out of the truck. The driver barely stops to let her out before he’s spinning his tires, gravel flying up.

I look over at Matt, catching him watching me, and he gives me a sympathetic nod, almost a silent approval that it’s okay that I’m here with this mess of a woman.

“Sorry, my boyfriend was having car trouble,” she slurs, and it doesn’t take an idiot to know she’s high. She’s always high. This is her normal.

Her lids are heavy, and she can hardly focus on my face, her eyes darting anywhere but where they should be as she sits down across from me.

“You hungry?” she now asks, taking in Matt’s truck.

“No, I’m not.”

“What’s with the clipped answer, Sloanie?” she spits out, her body swaying as she tries to sit upright on the picnic table.

“I don’t want to do this with you.” I don’t call her mom. I don’t use her name. We aren’t family. We aren’t even friends.

“Oh my god, why do you always have to bring up the past? It’s over,” she barks, her words louder than they should be for a public place.

“I didn’t bring up the past, and I don’t want to. I have moved on. It’s you who hasn’t. Showing up here high. Telling me you just want to spend time with me. You’re full of shit. What do you want from me? Just tell me.”

She rolls her eyes, letting out a scoff as she folds her arms over her chest. “This is exactly how I thought you’d act. You’ve always been such a brat, treating me like shit. I’m your mother, for god’s sake.”

“I don’t have a mother,” I hiss, my teeth clenched at her demeanor, her words. “I lost my mother at twelve years old, but if I’m being honest, it was long before that.”

“You’re so dramatic. It wasn’t that bad. You just like to play the victim.”

It’s with these words that I nearly lose it right here. But I close my eyes, taking in a breath, letting it out slowly. I can’t embarrass Matt, and that’s the only thing keeping me from screaming at her.

How dare she.

“And with that, I’m going to leave. Don’t contact me again. Don’t call me. Don’t text me. Don’t show up at my work. Nothing. And if you do, I’m getting a restraining order.” It all comes out in a rushed demand, but there’s no way she misses the point of it all.

She might be high, but she isn’t stupid.

“What, you think because you met some rich guy that you’re better than me? That your life is better?” She’s yelling this as I rise from the picnic table, following me to my car. “You’re still the same piece of trash raised by me. Don’t fool yourself into thinking he doesn’t see you that way.”

Her words are like a dagger straight to my heart, and she knows this. She knows what to say, but she doesn’t get to win. Not this time.

“Goodbye,” I say as I close the car door, driving away and leaving her standing there.