Page 10 of Forbidden Flame

Cole sighed.

I busied myself plating food to give him time to gather his thoughts. I had a feeling this wasn’t easy for him.

“Things at my house were more volatile. My dad was an alcoholic. He thought he was functional because he could hold down a job, but he was absent from our after-school activities and life in our house. He’d park himself in front of the TV and drink all night.”

My heart broke for him. “Was it just you?”

“My younger sister and my mom. I wished Mom would leave him, but she never did. She loved him and wanted to support him. Thankfully, she’d send me to the Monroes’ during the summer and on school breaks. She said I needed to work, and I was all too happy for the escape.”

“You were okay with that?”

“I was lucky I had somewhere to go that I loved. Lori and Larry were like second parents to me. I felt a little bad that I left Charlotte there, but she was younger and needed our mom more.

He’d literally wanted to be adopted into the Monroe family. I wondered if they realized how deep his feelings ran. “Did they know about your dad?”

“They never mentioned it, and I wasn’t going to say anything about it. I was embarrassed by him.”

I reached over and touched his hand. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

Cole shrugged. “It was fine, and I turned out okay.”

He still hurt over it. “I’m glad that the Monroes were there for you.”

“Staying here was a reprieve from my life. But I always knew I’d need to go back, and I hated that. I’d get so angry with my mom for staying, for not pushing harder for him to go to rehab.” He hung his head, the food on his plate untouched. “I know now what an impossible task that is if the person doesn’t want the help, and my father never believed he needed it. But on some level, I couldn’t help but think I wasn’t enough for him to get better.”

“I’m sorry, Cole.” My heart ached for the boy he had been.

He smiled, brushing off my words. “I got through it.”

“Do you see your parents now?” I asked, popping a grape into my mouth.

“I don’t like to go back there and see the same things I did back then. It hurts too much. It makes me angry that my mom is still in that situation, and she doesn’t need that from me.”

I wasn’t sure about that. Maybe she did need it. But I didn’t know enough about living with alcoholics to give any advice. My life felt idyllic compared to that.

Cole took a bite of chicken, chewed, then drank some water before he changed the subject. “What was it like growing up with a ton of brothers?”

My heart was still heavy for him, but I respected his desire to move away from the subject. It was nice to get to know him, but it didn’t matter long-term. This thing wasn’t the start of something. It was a break from our reality, just like the Monroes had always been to Cole. “Being the youngest meant always trying to keep up with my older siblings. Fiona was so smart and athletic. There was nothing she couldn’t do. She played volleyball and ran track. Yet she excelled in school too. My brothers were physical, always fighting each other, throwing a football, or organizing a pickup game of baseball. I wanted to fit in, but it was tough. They didn’t want the youngest hanging around, and I couldn’t keep up. I wasn’t athletic or particularly smart in school.” Those differences only increased after Mom died. “Fiona went to college, and I was so much younger than her; it was like I was the only girl for a long time. The boys didn’t want me bothering them. So I was alone a lot.”

“I bet that was tough.” Cole’s expression filled with sympathy.

I smiled fondly at the memory of sharing the kitchen with my mother. “Mom taught me how to bake, and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen.”

“That’s great that you had that relationship with her.”

“I spent as much time with her as I could, especially when she got sick.” It felt good to talk about her. My brothers usually avoided mentioning her name. It was too hard for them. They preferred to bottle up their feelings.

“Was it cancer?” Cole asked gently.

I nodded, used to the lump in my throat when I talked about her. “After she died, I helped cook and keep things together, but it was a little crazy. My Mom was the glue holding us together, and when she died everything came off the rails. I was the youngest; I could only do so much. And Fiona was already gone at that point.” I was a little resentful that she hadn’t returned, but Dad said she needed to finish school. “Teddy was the one who ended up transferring schools so that he could be closer.”

“Is Izzy’s father around?”

“Trent was going to med school, and having a child would ruin his chances of realizing his dream,” I repeated the sentence he’d said so often that it was imbedded in my brain.

Cole sucked in a breath. “He didn’t support you.”

“He told me having a baby at our age would ruin our lives,” I said bitterly.

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