Page 50 of Finding London

She shrugs her shoulder. “I have no clue, but you’ll figure it out.”

“That’s not remotely helpful,” I protest with a pout.

Georgia laughs. “I gotta go. We’ll chat later.”

“Fine,” I huff. “Go be with Fabio.” I wave my hand while sayingFabiowith the best Spanish accent I can offer.

“Keep me posted on your Loïc dilemma.”

“I will. Love you. Be safe.”

“Love you, too. And aren’t I always?” She winks and blows me a kiss.

Before I can respond, she closes out of Skype, and I’m left with a blank screen.

What a little brat. I just love her.

Loïc

Age Seventeen

Phoenix, Arizona

“One person can only lose so much before he starts to realize that he’s not strong enough to lose any more. ”

—Loïc Berkeley

I spy one of the most beautiful creatures I’ve ever had the privilege to love.

Her thick, silky hair appears light blonde in the dim light, but I know, if we were in the sunlight, it would take on a reddish tint. With her recent haircut, it’s shorter than I’ve ever seen it, but thankfully, it still covers her breasts as she leans forward on my lap, naked from the waist up.

I spy someone who breaks my heart every day, someone I don’t know how to help.

“Sarah, what did you take?”

“Oh, just a little something to take the edge off. You don’t need to worry about me,” she says in a slurred voice, barely able to keep her eyes open. “Let me worry about you. Let me make you feel good, Loïc. Let me love you. I’ll suck you, baby. I’ll ride you, or you can go in from behind. Whatever you want. Fuck me, Loïc. I promise, it will feel good.” Her words are desperate. They always are.

And, like always, I turn her down. “Stop it. You know you don’t need to do that with me.” I gently lift her off of me and set her down on the cheap hotel bed.

Lately, I’ve been lucky enough to secure some under-the-table odd jobs that pay a decent rate. We’ve been able to stay in this run-down motel for the past several months. It’s nice, having a roof over our head along with a shower and a bed. The motel is located in a shady part of Phoenix, but Sarah and I are no strangers to bad areas. She can find drugs anywhere we go, if she wants them bad enough. More often than not, she does.

I don’t know what to do to help her. She begs me not to turn her in. She swears that she wouldn’t make it in another home, and I believe her. Sarah has been destroyed by all the monsters in her past—men who have abused her, scarred her, and left her with nothing but demons that invade her mind. She tries to fight them. I know she does. She doesn’t like being like this, but she hurts, and I don’t know how to make her better.

Over the past couple of years, Sarah has offered me sexual favors more times than I can count. But she only does it because she doesn’t know how to show me that she cares for me in another way. She hasn’t had healthy relationships in her life to use as examples. Being used by men is all she knows. She thinks she owes me some sort of payment. She can’t grasp the fact that, because I love her, I could never take a piece of her. I would never accept payment in any form. She doesn’t owe me anything.

And I do love her more than anything else in this world. She’s all I have. I would do anything to save her.

Sarah and I panhandled and did various work around Texas until we eventually made it to Arizona. We never set out to come here. Honestly, we didn’t really care where we ended up as long as we were together and not put back into foster care. Once we got here, we decided to stay. Under-the-table jobs are easy to get here, which is helpful. The fact that we don’t freeze our asses off outside in the winter is also a strong check in the positives category. Sure, the hot-as-hell summers suck, but on the deathly hot days, we can find somewhere with air-conditioning to hang out. Even on the scorching days, the nights are manageable. But the biggest positive, especially for Sarah, is that it’s not Texas. We’ll never go back there.

I love Sarah like a sister. I always have. It’s not that I don’t find her attractive because I do. She is the most beautiful person I’ve known, inside and out. But neither of us is emotionally stable enough to be lovers. That’s not what we need. What we both need is a friend, a confidant, someone to have our backs, someone who truly loves us…family. Sarah is my family, plain and simple. It’s her and me against the world.

Unfortunately, Sarah doesn’t do well when she’s left alone, even when she promises me that she’ll be fine. I try to be with her as much as I can. I try to find jobs that we can do together. But it doesn’t always work out that way. She tells me that she’s going to go panhandle or shop for food or anything else that sounds reasonable. But, more often than not, when I come back, she’s crying and wasted. She doesn’t tell me how she pays for the drugs, but deep down, I already know.

I know she’s in pain and that sex and drugs are her methods of numbness, but it kills me a little more every time it happens.

I’ve spent countless days at the public library, researching ways to help her, both with her addiction and her mental well-being. But nothing I’ve tried works. I’ve been tempted to turn her in, so she can get help, but she told me that if I ever did that or left her, then she would kill herself, and I believe her. I can’t lose her. The world can’t lose her. She’s good. She’s pure. She’s special. And when she figures out how to see all of that in herself and get better, she’s going to make this world a better place. She has so much to give. I just have to figure out how to make her see that.

“Come on.” I reach my hand out to her, and she takes it. “Let’s get you in a nice warm bath.”

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