Page 5 of The Complete Truth Duet
She glanced around at the other girls. “Uh…because it’s the only way you can get him to fix anything.”
I blinked at them, completely and utterly shocked.
They all blinked back, completely and utterly shocked that I was shocked.
Shit. They thought I knew. And worse: that I’d actually allowed it to happen.
The air in my lungs turned toxic, and my head began to pound.
Every day.
Every night.
That was my life.
The stress, the responsibility, the failure.
The weight of being everything for everyone was suffocating. The desperate desire to give up taunted me with every sunrise. But this wasn’t a life I could just walk away from. Trust me. I’d tried.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I stared up at the concrete breezeway, pleading for help that was never going to come.
At least not for me.
“Cora?”
My eyes snapped open and I found River standing on the stairs, a mug of coffee stretched out in my direction.
“Water’s coming through the wall in our kitchen,” she said nonchalantly. “I threw some towels down. But you might want to get Hugo up there soon.”
I searched her eyes for any clue that she knew that Hugo’s preferred currency was a blow job. Thankfully, I found none.
I’d done what I could to keep her in school and away from the rest of the bullshit, but she was far from innocent. Her brown hair was tied up in messy bun, and she was wearing a backpack over a pair of stylishly tattered jeans and a loose T-shirt that read I really don’t care. That young, sweet girl was being raised by what most of America would call the dregs of society. Whores. Hookers. Prostitutes. Whatever the new term of the week was. But we were all just people stuck in a shitty situation with no one else to lean on.
Except they all leaned on me.
Suddenly, I remembered why I sacrificed my soul on a daily basis.
Because I hoped like hell they wouldn’t have to.
After drawing in a deep breath that rejuvenated not only my burning lungs, but also my resolve, I took the coffee from her hand and announced, “Savannah’s fine.”
“I heard.” Her gaze drifted over my shoulder to the women who were starting to disperse. Their problems were still mostly unresolved, but more often than not, that was their constant state of being.
I jerked my chin to the stairs. “Come on. I’ll walk you down.”
She quirked a dark eyebrow. “The kitchen?”
“Oh, please. It will take at least five minutes for Hugo to haul his ass up the stairs. I’ve got time.”
She aimed pursed lips down at her black Chucks and started toward the stairs. “Why are you bleeding?”
I touched my nose with my free hand, thankfully finding it dry. “You want the truth or a lie?”
“Truth.”
“I ran into the door. But if you’d asked me for a lie, I would have said I got elbowed in the nose while wrestling Chrissy to the ground, just before hog-tying her and then using her hair as a mop to clean that disgusting apartment.”
She laughed quietly as we walked side by side to the front of the brick building. We stopped at the end of the concrete that divided our hell from the rest of the world. When she tipped her head back to catch my gaze, her smile faltered. I could almost see the anxiety crawling across the smooth curves of her olive complexion.
“Hey,” I soothed, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “What’s wrong?”
“You know Chrissy isn’t going to stop,” she whispered. “The others, they don’t put up with Savannah. But Chrissy—”
The vise in my chest threatened to crack my ribs. She shouldn’t have to worry about people like Chrissy. But that was her reality, regardless of how much I hated it.
“I’m going to take care of it.”
Her face paled. “Please don’t call Marcos.”
I rolled my eyes. “Relax. I didn’t say anything about Marcos.”
Her big doe eyes searched my face for the lie. She wouldn’t find it, but it was definitely there, skillfully hidden beneath the surface right beside a mountain of my fears and regrets.
Looping my arm around her shoulders, I gave her a side hug that wasn’t nearly long enough—for either of us. It was all I could give her though. “Go. Get out of here before you miss the bus. I’ll take care of Chrissy. You take care of geometry.”
“Corrrra,” she drawled in warning.
“Riiiiver,” I mocked, giving her a gentle shove toward the dirt parking lot.
She walked backward, keeping her brown eyes locked on my blues. “You’ll be here when I get home, right?”
I scoffed. “Aren’t I always?”
“So far, anyway,” she mumbled.
Guilt burned like an inferno in my chest, but I smiled through the pain. “I’ll see ya at three.”
She stared at me.
I stared back.
A million words were spoken during that moment of silence: promises, pleas, apologies, explanations, and everything in between.
