Page 19 of Mending Fate

Mai was sitting at the table when I entered, but before the door even shut behind me, she was up and hugging me. I leaned into her, accepting the comfort and strength she offered. I didn’t think I could stay on my feet without it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mai asked as she let me go.

I shook my head. “It was…bad.”

“I’m scheduled to work, and then Hob and I were going to spend the whole night together, but I can call off and tell him we’ll do it another time.” She walked with me to the kitchen and set water on to boil before going into the cupboard to get a tea bag.

The fact that she knew I’d want tea made tears well up. I might not have had a family growing up, but I had one now. No matter how alone I felt, I wasn’t going through this by myself. I needed to take my own advice and stop acting as if I had to carry the weight of the world all alone.

Still, what I needed right now wasn’t Mai’s companionship, but rather a shower and a nap. She didn’t need to be home for that.

“I’m going to clean up, get something to eat, then sleep for twenty hours.” I leaned against the counter. “So be prepared for tomorrow night to be a girls’ night in.”

She smiled. “I’ll pick up some Rocky Road on my way home tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” I said, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “It means a lot to me that you’re willing to change your plans.”

“Of course.” She poured the now-boiling water into a mug and dropped the tea bag in. “It’s what family does.”

I was starting to see that.

She stayed long enough for me to drink my tea before leaving, making me promise to call if I needed her. When the door shut behind her, the apartment was completely quiet. It wouldn’t be long before the neighboring apartments filled up with people coming back from work and kids coming home from school, but for right now, the silence was a relief.

Sort of.

Without anything to distract me and being too tired to fight, thoughts started popping up in my mind. Soleil was safe, and all I could do was wait to see what she decided to do. We had reached a point where I had done all I could. That meant another worry had room to creep up on me.

Evanne.

I hadn’t really expected Alec to keep me in the loop, not with how we’d left things between us, but that didn’t mean I no longer cared what was going on with Evanne. She meant a lot to me, no matter what was going on with Alec and me, and I wanted to know that she was safe.

Maybe if I’d been a little more awake, I would’ve overthought things or come up with valid reasons why this wasn’t a good idea, but I had been functioning on too little sleep for too many days. I dug my phone out of my purse and typed out a message to Alec.

I was just wondering if Keli had brought Evanne back yet. I wasn’t in school today to see if Evanne was back or not.

It might’ve been abrupt, but I wasn’t going to get into anything else with him, especially over text when I was this tired. I just wanted to know that Evanne was okay. As for everything else, that was a problem for a different day. Today’s problem was done, and I needed to sleep.

As tempting as it was to linger in the shower, I knew if I did that, I risked falling asleep and not waking up until I used up all the hot water in the building. That would definitelynotmake my day any better. Or anyone else’s, for that matter. Still, the hot water helped relax me some.

I went for a simple meal, not having the energy to make much of anything else. After nothing but shit food for the past couple days, even my grilled cheese sandwich tasted gourmet. I barely finished it before my eyelids got too heavy to keep up. I curled up, pulling an afghan over me even as I fell asleep.

Sand and pebbles shifted under my thin-soled shoes as I walked, and the sound of the waves against the shore rolled over me. I liked it out here. The smell of the saltwater. The birds overhead. Kids laughing.

It was a treat, they’d said. A trip to the beach before school started as a reward for behaving so well over the summer. They’d been promising it since school let out, and I knew I wasn’t the only one who saw the trip for what it was. A bribe. But it was one they at least followed through with, which made them more honest than a lot of other foster parents I’d had in the last four years.

We weren’t the only ones out today. It was a rare day weather-wise, with the sun out and the temperature actually warm enough for us to go into the water. Some of the others were here alone or with groups of friends, but at least half a dozen were families.

Parents with little kids, older kids, teenagers. All different colors and sizes. Some of them were yelling and some were laughing and some were just talking. Even the ones who didn’t look happy, I envied. Because they were together.

The parents wanted their kids. They chose to spend the time and money – little as it may have cost them – to have a day at the beach together rather than choosing something selfish.

Like my parents had.

I liked watching the parents with the kids. How they talked to each other. How they played together. A Frisbee between three of them. A football for Monkey in the Middle. Sandcastles and digging holes. Picking up shells and rocks worn smooth by the tides.

I stooped to pick one up, carried it with me, but I knew it wouldn’t be coming back with me. Small as it was, I didn’t need to add something else to drag along with me the next time I moved.

People didn’t understand that most of the time. They didn’t understand that, for kids like me, going to a new foster home wasn’t like when a family moved. We didn’t get suitcases and boxes to pack up all our clothes and toys and books and other worldly possessions. We got a trash bag and a reminder that we didn’t know how much space we’d have wherever we were going. Better to take as little as possible. Less to have to choose between and less to lose.