Page 26 of Feel Me

He pauses, dissecting each word. “You’re not talking about kids with special needs, are you?”

I shake my head. “No.”

Considering I was ready to come clean about why I do what I do, I almost immediately clam up. Probably because I’m about to add another layer of imperfection. “Did you know I was adopted?”

His eyes widen slightly. It’s a subtle gesture, and if I wasn’t watching him closely, I might have missed it.

This news probably wouldn’t be a big deal to anyone else. But Declan is smart. He knows where I’m headed and that it’s not someplace especially good. “I guess not,” I answer for him.

“I never saw a family resemblance,” he replies. “But I never gave it much thought, assuming you took after your mother.”

“Maybe, I do. I don’t remember much about her,” I confess. “I could be Latina or Caucasian, maybe both or something entirely different. I really don’t know or have anyone to ask.”

“It doesn’t say on your birth certificate?”

“There’s no father listed and no mention of my mother’s ethnicity,” I answer. I take him in, curious about what he’s thinking and maybe what he thought before now. “What did you think my childhood was like?”

“Before I realized you were adopted?”

When I nod, he stares back at me like a man who’s been given a test he can’t possibly pass. “It’s okay,” I add, smiling. “There’s no wrong answer.”

I’m not sure if he believes me, but he tells me anyway. “I figured Miles had a wife, your mother, and that she died when you were young.”

“You assumed a lot of negative things,” I say, quietly. “I’m not offended, but may I ask why you thought Dad was widower rather than a divorced man?”

“If you want to know, I’ll tell you,” he answers, his tone serious. “But you’re not going to like what I have to say.”

“Tell me anyway,” I reply.

He lowers his arms so his elbows fall against the armrests. “You both always seemed a little sad, like you lost someone important to you.”

I try not to react, but I’m stunned by what he says and how he easily summed up our lives in a few simple words. Declan is insightful and sensitive, too. In a way, it scares me. It’s not a side I expected to see.

He’s right, though. My father and I did lose something precious. Dad lost his opportunity to fall in love with someone and have children of his own, and I lost the opportunity to have a real mother I could cherish.

The mother I did have, wasn’t warm or compassionate. There were no gentle touches, no kind gestures, nothing I could recall that demonstrated any semblance of love. I knew only harshness and fear in her hands. I only knew pain.

Is it a wonder why it’s so hard for me to trust, when the person who was supposed to love me most did nothing but harm me?

The pain . . . it’s still raw in a way. Not just because of how I was treated, but because I’ve never understood how people could be so heartless. Yet as much as I’m feeling, and as deeply as it haunts me, I don’t dare admit as much to Declan.

What I do reveal is the truth. “My birth mother was an addict. She tried to sell me when I was little to maintain her habit.”

Declan stops moving. “What do you mean she tried to sell you? For adoption?”

It’s what he asks, but the darkness shadowing his features reveals he knows better. Part of me wants to spare him, worried what he might think of me. But I take a risk and trust him a little further, even though a more vulnerable side of me warns I’m making a mistake. “Not for adoption,” I admit quietly.

Disgust spreads along his handsome face and I’m certain he’s stopped breathing. When he speaks, I almost expect him to change the subject. “How old were you?” he asks, instead, his tone harsh.

“Almost six, I think.”

Anger overtakes his features, making it hard for me to hold his stare. “Tell me what happened,” he says.

I cross my legs and place my hands over my knee, speaking carefully so he hears me and because a part of me knows there’s no going back. “There was this man . . . I’m not sure if he’d seen me before and asked for me, or if my mother simply offered to get what she needed. Regardless, he came to our apartment one morning while I was watching cartoons.”

“Jesus,” he says, already anticipating what was coming next.

I want to stop, and end the story. Somehow, I keep going. “I felt his footsteps marching toward the bedroom before my mother grabbed me and yanked me out of my clothes. I didn’t know what she was doing. But I was scared by how rough she was and tried to resist. She slapped me, trying to subdue me. When I was finally naked, she shoved me into the room where the man was waiting.”

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