Page 42 of Personal Foul
“I know it’s hard for you to trust people, to open up and let them in. I saw it when we first met, and I recognize what you’re doing with Colson now. You’re testing him because you’re waiting for him to decide it’s not what he wants, and he walks away. Sydney, sweetheart, Colson is one of the good ones. I noticed it since the first time I saw you two together. The way he talks about you and how you look at each other. I suspected there was something going on before dinner, but when I saw how you two were together, I knew I was right.”
My mind flashed back to the night we went out to dinner for my mom’s birthday, replaying every detail.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do or how to feel. You’re smart and talented. You know what you want for your future. You know what is right for you. Promise me one thing, will you?”
“What?” I asked, still trying to take in everything he’s said.
“Promise me you’ll give him a chance. Talk to him, let him get to know the real you. You deserve to be happy, and I think Colson could be your person.”
“How are you so sure?”
“He promised me he’d fight for you. Trust me, only a man who knows what he’s losing would fight to keep it.”
Here we are, I am promising to give him a chance, and he is promising to fight for me.
He rolls over onto his side, pulling the sheets back enough to invite me in. Smiling back at him, I climb in next to him, curling my arm under my pillow to face him.
“We didn’t get a chance to talk earlier like we had hoped,” I whisper.
It’s always been easy to forget everything else and focus on the way Colson makes me feel when he’s around me.
“I think I should start off by saying I’m sorry,” he sighs. Reaching over, folding his hand against the side of my face, he presses a soft but quick kiss against my lips. Pulling back, he continues, “I remember the first time I realized Coach was your dad, I remember thinking to myself how different you looked.”
“Yeah, I guess that could’ve given it away.” I giggle.
“I feel like an asshole for making assumptions about how your life was.” He exhales. “I’m the last person who should be judging you. I’ve listened to people criticize me as if I’ve somehow forgotten where I came from or what I went through growing up. Being in the public eye, I’ve experienced firsthand how people are so quick to talk about you on social media and make up lies about what they think of you. I hate to think I’ve done the same. I don’t know what your life was like before you met your parents, but I know you deserve to have a family. You deserve to have people in your life who care about you. I wish you wouldn’t push me away.”
I nod, tears filling the brim of my eyes, brushing my finger beneath my eye to catch a tear before it slides down my face.
“I don’t know where to start,” I whisper.
I’ve never opened up to anyone about what my life was like before I was adopted. There’s a lot even my parents don’t know.
“Start from the beginning,” he murmurs, slipping his hand down, wrapping it around my wrist before tangling our fingers together.Something about his hold on me makes me feel anchored to him, like no matter what I say or do, he will be here with me, and he’ll never let go.
“Well, my biological mom died when I was six. She had heart disease. I hate to admit it, but I don’t remember much except how my biological dad didn’t handle it well. He wasn’t in the picture when my mom was alive, so you can imagine his surprise when he found out I was his responsibility.
“He struggled with addiction. Alcohol at first, but later turned to drugs. Heroin. He was arrested a lot. There were nights he wouldn’t come home. I was around eight or nine at the time. I grew up taking care of myself, so I had to grow up fast.”
It was then I started to learn I could only rely on myself. It was a painful reminder that continued to resurface each time I would bounce from foster home to foster home.
“Eventually, things got to be so terrible, and he wouldn’t come home for days at a time. Some days I didn’t even bother going to school. Of course, they started to ask questions. One day a police officer showed up at my door. I guess they were looking for my mom or someone in my dad’s family. They were trying to contact his family to report his death.”
Even I can hear the void of emotion in every word. Somehow over time, I started to disassociate myself and my emotions to the situation. I know addiction is a disease, but he was all I had left, and even he left me.
“I’m so sorry,” Colson whispers.
I don’t have any more words. I simply nod as he moves closer, wrapping his arms around my body, pressing our foreheads together. He must sense I am done talking about it now.
Drudging up all these memories are painful. He knows all he needs to know about my past, enough to understand why I continue to keep him at arms-length, why I have focused so hard on my education, and why I am now putting my career above all else. No one has cared enough to be there for me or about my future more than I do.
“I had been in and out of foster homes for a long time before I ended up with my parents. I think my mom once told me it was something like thirty-two or thirty-three foster homes before I found them.”
His eyes widen, his mouth falling slack like he can’t believe it either.
“I remember sitting at their dining room table eating breakfast, and I asked her how much longer I’d be with them, fully expecting it would be a couple of months, if that.”
“What did she say?”
