Page 64 of Vows In Corruption

“Is there anyone else you’d like to tell besides your sister?” He asks once his beautiful smile finally fades.

There is no need to think about his question, because there isn’t anyone else. “No. Charlie is all I have.”

A look of pity crosses over Bennett’s face, one that I’ve seen before, and its stays on his face longer than I’d like. He looks like he wants to say something but he holds back and just gives me a small smile.

The fact that Charlie is the only family that I have, and how that came to be is not something that I tend to share with people. Hell, some of the friends I made working at my old restaurant job don’t know much other than the fact that I have a sister.

My past has become something that I hold close to my heart, but if I’m going to be married to Bennett for two years, there are a few things that can’t stay hidden. He’s going to have questions and I will have to give him answers.

“You can ask you know.” I say, looking down at my hands, not wanting to see any more pity directed at me.

“Ask what?” The question leaves his lips as if I didn’t see him hesitating just a few seconds ago.

“Why Charlie is all that I have?” I put the question out there, and why I watch Bennett go through a sting of things before he settles on curiosity and leans back in his chair. He had discarded his suit jacket a few minutes after we sat down, so the movement has that sleeves of his button down long sleeve rolling up.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

He’s right, I don’t but for some reason I find myself wanting to.

“We’re going to be married. Isn’t one of the things makes a marriage work is not keeping things from the other?”

“I guess it is.”

For a second, the both of us just sit here and process the fact that this is legit. We are really getting married and there is no backing away now.

I take a deep breath before I say anything.

“My childhood wasn’t the very best. At least the parts that I remember. My mom had me young during her last year in high school. My bio dad was a rich kid, that apparently had a future ahead of him so, his parents paid my mom to “take care of the situation”, at least that’s what I remember her telling me. She could have been talking out of her ass. She took the money but instead of getting rid of the pregnancy, she had me because she thought that my bio dad would grow a heart and would give her more money to help raise me. Newsflash, that didn’t happen.”

My mind goes to when I was five and a random man came to our door and started yelling at my mom. He kept telling her that he wanted nothing to do with her, to stop looking for him. It looks me a few years to figure out that the yelling man that made mama cry was my dad. I never saw him after that from what I can remember.

“When I was a little, she developed a drug habit. One that at times made her forget that she had a kid waiting at home. When I was about six, she had left for about three days and left me in our house by myself. She always told me to never go outside unless she was home, but I had finished all the food that was left, so I thought it was a good idea to go next door and ask the neighbor for some. To this day, I don’t know if that was a good idea, because that neighbor called child protective services and within two weeks I was in a foster care home in Nevada.

“My mom, or her mother, didn’t fight for me. Neither did my father or his family, so I became a ward of the state and that’s where I stayed until I was moved to a group home here in Chicago when I was fifteen.”

I don’t know what I hated more. Going from one foster home to another or getting shipped out to a different state because nobody wanted to take in a teenager?

I wasn’t a bad kid. I wasn’t mouthy and I followed all the rules, but even when you are doing everything that you are supposed to do, it doesn’t mean that foster care is going to be a joyfilled ride. Sure, there were families that I loved being with and I got the feeling that the loved me, but even then, that wasn’t enough to lead to a permanent home. More so when I got older.

The group home I spent three years in was just an extension of high school. You would think that being in similar situations would bring people closer together but no. For three years, I was surrounded my catty bitches that didn’t know how to keep their hands off my stuff.

Not wanting to do down a very deep and very depressing rabbit hole, I bring my story telling to an end because I don’t want to start crying in front of boss.

Or should I get used to calling him my future husband.

“Anyway,” I say after clearing my throat. “I cut ties with all the people that were my family and now it’s just me and Charlie.”

I cross my fingers under the table, away from Bennett’s eyes, and hope that he doesn’t notice I didn’t mention about how Charlie came into my life.

My future husband stays quiet for a few long seconds, as if he is digesting everything, before he gives me a smile, one that isn’t filled with pity, but with sympathy.

“I’m sorry that you had to go through that.”

I give him a shrug. “It’s okay. It’s something that I’ve dealt with already.”

Liar. I still very much have abandonment issue rooted deep inside of me but I never let them see the light of day, so there’s need to tell him about that.

We go silent for a few seconds, not knowing how to move on from dark turn this all took with the talk of my past. Not wanting to get los staring at Bennett again, I break the silence.

---