Page 41 of Fighting Chance

Kieran’s excitement winks out like a fire that’s had water thrown on it. “That’s nowhere near as dirty as I thought it was going to be.”

I shrug innocently. “You never said I had to give you one of the dirty ones.”

His eyes flash. “So therearedirty ones.”

Scoffing, I push him away, my heart leaping as my hand connects with his warm chest.

I swear he pouts.

“Should have been more specific with your deal, Ashford. Cough it up, what’s your secret? How do you always know what someone is thinking?”

If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought the topic sucked out all the air in the room. Tension lines his shoulders before he seems to force himself to relax.

“The foster home I grew up in.” A muscle ticks in his jaw. “The one I picked Emmy up from, they were…the lesser of evils compared to some of the foster homes I was sent to, but it was still evil nonetheless.”

My heart drops.

I expect him to avoid my eyes but instead he lifts his chin, locking those blues on me and holding as he rips his chest open and bears his emotional scars. “You had to be on high alert, at all times, and I guess I just never stopped watching for signs.”

“Signs?” I find myself asking.

He shrugs. “A pinch of a lip here, a tightness around the eye there, a change in tone, tightening shoulders…You know, signs.”

“Of?” I whisper, dreading the answer that I already know is coming.

Kieran holds onto our eye contact like it’s a lifeline. “A fist soon to come…or a belt.” He inhales deeply, only for the breath to leave him in a rush. “A cigarette to the arm, a kick in the ribs, a slap to the cheek, food withheld for a day or two, a night spent outside like a dog…”

My eyes burn.

My chin quivers.

And my heart…

My heart shatters at our feet.

I bite my lip to try and stop my tears, to try and be strong when he’s standing here with his chin held high as he relives the most horrific crimes you could ever commit to a child, but I can’t stop the flow, the picture he’s painting…

He lifts his hand and gently brushes away the tears I’m trying so desperately to hold in.

“Don’t cry for me,” he whispers. “It ended a long time ago.”

“It should have never happened,” I swear vehemently.

“No, it shouldn’t have,” he agrees softly.

“So let me cry for you, Kieran. No one deserves that, let alone an innocent little boy.”

Kieran falls quiet for so long we’re left standing in the thick of his admission, the revelation that the man before me not only didn’t experience the love of a parent but the foster home that was meant to care for him and keep him safe utterly terrorized him shatters something in my chest.

The system failed him.

The foster home failed him.

Child protective services failed him.

His mother failed him.

Everyone failed him.