Page 220 of P.S. I'm Still Yours

So, I started putting myself in between them, trying to distract him from her, and it worked. He’d get mad at her, and like clockwork, I’d say something to provoke him, and he’d take out his anger on me instead.

Gradually, he stopped hitting her.

He stopped hitting her because he started hitting me.

It didn’t matter how many bruises I had or how many times I had to cover them up.

All that mattered was that she was okay.

But then he died.

Images of me and my mom living in that disgusting New York studio flash before my eyes.

Sometimes she wouldn’t eat for a week to ensure that I had at least one meal a day. Of course, I kept pretending that I wasn’t hungry so she’d finish off my plates.

She was nothing but skin and bones by the time Lillian took us into her home. Mom was killing herself, working three jobs because she couldn’t afford to go to school, and she still wasn’t able to make ends meet.

I promised myself the day she fainted from extreme hunger that I’d do everything in my power to take care of her.

“The question now is, what are you going to do? Are you going to tell the truth… or are you going to protect your mom?”

* * *

NOW

HADLEY

A stunned silence pervades the air, my mouth going slack, and I slouch into the couch, struggling to come to terms with Kane’s confession.

He did it for his mom.

Of course he did.

Besides the fact that he was only seventeen, he was also scared out of his mind. Terrified of having to watch his mom suffer.

That’s who Kane is.

He’s a mama’s boy through and through.

Evie is his whole world—she always has been.

And Joshua knew that.

He knew exactly how to manipulate Kane into keeping quiet.

Joshua preyed on Kane’s fears, took advantage of his endless admiration for him.

Kane already felt like he owed this guy his entire career. As though Josh was some sort of angel sent from above for making his wildest dreams come true.

When your mentor tells you to keep your mouth shut, that’s what you do.

Kane drops his face between his hands with a strangled curse. “Fuck, I… I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve caused you and your mom. I should’ve never let Josh get in my head. If I’d just done the right thing that day instead of listening to him, he would’ve never been able to…” He looks up, clenching his teeth and jaw.

“Been able to do what?” I’m afraid the answer will scar me for life.

“I showed up to his LA house unannounced a few weeks before the beginning of last summer. I was fed up with singing cheesy love songs, and I wanted to talk to him about putting out an album with tracks I actually liked. I couldn’t find him anywhere, so I went through the first floor of the house, only to find him and a bunch of people smoking cigars in the parlor. The room was full of powerful men—award-winning movie producers, big-shot directors, record label owners, and a bunch of other sharks I knew from the industry.

“Everything looked normal, at first. Then I saw them. The little girls. There were four of them. They were sitting on one of the couches half naked, staring ahead of them with glassy eyes. One of them looked familiar, and I realized… I’d met her at a meet and greet a few days prior. She had a very distinct blue strand in her hair and a birthmark on her cheek, which is why I recognized her instantly. When I’d met her, she’d told me she was twelve. But the worst part is… out of the four girls, she looked like the oldest…”

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