Page 92 of Wicked Promises (Fallen Royals 3)
How did we get talking about this? Instead of thinking about the answer—a painful consideration—I shake my head. “You don’t want to know about me being kidnapped?”
“We can talk about it.”
I regard her. “I feel bad,” I finally say. “About it.”
“Why?”
“Lenora, my foster mom, shouldn’t have had to deal with that.” I rub my wrist. “Her daughter died in a car accident. And then I just imagine what she had to go through with her husband… Robert was in the car with me.”
“How is he doing?”
I brighten. “Good. He’s going home today, which means I get to go home, too. It’ll be nice to be back in a routine.”
“You’re staying with a family friend?” Dr. Sayer clarifies. “Your social worker mentioned they had been registered as a respite home a few years ago, so they were eligible. And your boyfriend lives there.”
I slowly nod. “Yes. Is that bad?”
“Perhaps he offered you a bit of stability that a different respite home wouldn’t have been able to.”
“Right.”
“So, you feel guilty because Lenora was going through all of that alone.”
“Right,” I repeat. “I shouldn’t have gone to see my dad. That was where we were coming back from… The prison. It’s my fault we were out on that street in the first place.”
“But you were taken?”
“I was, but I don’t remember a lot of it. I was drugged with something, and… I don’t know. I think the detective has brushed my case off.”
I wait for her to say something like, And how do you feel about that? For once, I have an answer: angry. Angry that I’m forgotten about yet again, tossed to the side. We’re well on our way to figuring this out ourselves—shouldn’t a detective, with more resources, be able to do far better?
She doesn’t ask. She instead stands, crossing to her desk. “Have you talked to your foster parents about how you feel?”
I frown. “No. There’s been a lot going on.”
“Understandable.” She comes back with a composition notebook in her hand. She extends it toward me, and I reluctantly take it. “Maybe you feel like people don’t listen.”
“It isn’t that they don’t listen, it’s that they won’t.”
“Can you try something for me?”
I lean back, setting the notebook beside me and folding my arms over my chest.
“Hear me out,” she says, smiling. “I’ve found it’s easier to be heard when the words can’t be ignored. When it’s in black and white in front of them.”
“You want me to write down my feelings.” I should’ve known.
“Maybe put it in a letter,” she suggests.
“To who?”
Mom? Lenora and Robert? Dad?
“Whoever you want.”
I chew on that request for a moment. Bounce it around. Are there people who I could write a letter to, get the emotions off my chest, and move on from it? Sure.
But right now, that’s at the bottom of my list of priorities.