Page 12 of Lost Truth
“It was hard, there’s no denying that. I’d like to say I handled it well, but I didn’t. I was angry and confused and conflicted.” He started walking again.
She released her grip on his arm and kept up with him. “Of course you were. The unthinkable happened to you.”
He waved a hand. “I have nothing to complain about. Not really. I was one of the lucky ones. I had excellent foster parents—patient, loving Christians. They didn’t push me beyond what I could handle, and they were always there for me when I screwed up.”
“I’m glad of that. You see horror stories in the news about terrible foster parents. I know there are more good ones than bad, but those stories aren’t sensational enough to make the news.”
“Yeah.” He grimaced in opposition to his response. “I wish I could say I was worthy of them. I wasn’t. Not at all. They tried their best to connect with me, but I put up a wall between us. I was too angry to see reason, and I wouldn’t let it go. So when I aged out of the system, I walked away and never looked back. They didn’t deserve such a callous response from me. They deserved so much more.”
She hated hearing how he suffered and about his sincere guilt for how he treated his foster parents, but he was just a teen and should cut himself some slack. “I’m sure they understood.”
“Maybe. Probably, anyway.” He shrugged. “They’d been foster parents for a long time before I came to stay with them and had likely seen a lot of different reactions in kids they took in. Especially since they only fostered teenagers.”
She gave him what she hoped was an empathetic smile. “Losing your parents would be a good reason for wanting to be protective tonight.”
“Nah, that’s not it. There’s more. There was this foster girl in the same house as me. Lexi.” He stared over Cady’s shoulders. “I was supposed to walk her home from school, but one of my teachers kept me after class to talk about a project. It only took five minutes, and I figured Lexi would wait for me, but when I got out front, she was gone.”
Cady could only imagine where this story was going. She was already sympathetic to his past trouble and the effect it still had on him.
He swiped a hand over his face. “By the time I caught up with her, three guys were dragging her toward an alley. I charged them in the alley. One guy held onto her. The other two beat the crud out of me, and I lost consciousness. When I came to, I found one of the guys on top of her. She was sobbing hard. I mean crazy hard. I somehow got up and ripped the guy off her, then started pummeling him. He ran.”
He stopped talking and blinked a few times. “By the time I turned back to Lexi, she’d gotten her clothes back on and was trying to stand. I helped her up and told her we were going to the police. She refused and begged me to take her home.” He looked at Cady then, his mouth pinched. “She was my responsibility, and I failed her. I won’t let something like that happen again. Ever!”
He took her hand and started walking, this time at a fast clip as if this difficult memory made him more eager to get her off the street. She enjoyed holding his hand but wished it were under a different circumstance, like when he really wanted to be holding her hand, not dragging her to her dad’s house.
They reached his small bungalow overlooking the ocean, and she stopped at the walkway to stare at the cute home she’d helped him purchase. Seemed like just yesterday when they’d laughingly walked up the brick sidewalk arm in arm for him to open the door to his new home. Such wonderful possibilities had been written all over his face. Possibilities that could only occur to him before his dementia struck.
But now? Now all possibilities had come abruptly to an end earlier than she’d imagined. Sure, his dementia had quickly ended life as they had known it together—robbing him of his identity and his ability to recognize her—but at least he’d been alive and lucid at times. Times she’d learned to cherish more than any other memories of their lives.
Now he was gone. Her rock. Her mentor.
Pain gutted her, and she blinked back mounting tears. She’d been inside only once since he died. Just for a moment when she arrived in town and put her suitcase in the entryway. She’d wanted to go in and unpack, but she hadn’t been able to step any deeper.
Could she now?
She took a long breath and swallowed hard to get the words out. “What time should we meet in the morning and where?”
He watched her carefully like a circling hawk, alert to every flicker of emotion on her face. “I’ll pick you up at eight. We’ll head straight to Kai’s cottage, then we’ll search the surf shop.”
“Then good night, and thanks for all your help.” She dredged up a smile and hoped it looked sincere because she really was thankful for his help. “And thank you for walking me home.”
“Of course.” He didn’t make any moves to leave.
“You can go now.”
“You don’t want me to come with you in case it’s harder than you thought?”
“I’ll wait for daylight before searching through his things and let you know if I need your help then.”
“Okay.” He widened his stance. “But I’ll wait to leave until you get inside with the door locked behind you.”
She dug out her keys and sifted through them one by one to locate the right one. She was stalling. No question about that. Not because she didn’t want Hayden to leave, but because she couldn’t bring herself to move even a fraction of an inch toward the house.
C’mon, Cady. Move. You have to go inside at some point.
She turned. Tried to force her foot one brick forward. Froze.
Hayden was right behind her in a flash, his hand on her elbow. “What’s wrong?”
