Salvaged Hearts by Lilly Wilde

Author:Lilly Wilde [Wilde, Lilly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: No Longer Broken Duet, Book Two
Publisher: BGF Publishing
Published: 2018-12-13T18:30:00+00:00

“NOT SURE YOU REALLY WANT to hear my story.”

He brushes his shoulder against mine, an innocent gesture that somersaults my insides. “You listened to mine.”

“Yeah but I didn’t know we were trading tales of woe.” Though I never shared this part of myself with anyone besides Ethan and Hayley, I find myself wanting to open up to Branch. I take a breath and step into the shadows of my past. “A year after giving birth to my brother, my mother ran off. Abandoned Noah and me and never looked back.”

His eyes widen, and once he’s given my words a chance to sink in, he asks, “Who does shit like that?”

“Oh, let me finish. It gets better. My mom’s an addict and she used drugs the entire time she carried me. So yeah, I was what they called a crack baby.” I look down at my feet and scrape the toe of my shoe over the pebble on the step. “Luckily Dad was around to keep it at bay, so I wasn’t born with any type of addiction, just a shitload of immune issues. Three years later, she had Noah. A year after that she was gone. She left for work one Friday morning and never returned. She finally had the gumption to call a month after and tell Dad she wasn’t coming back.”

I hesitantly look up at Branch and then relax when I see his blue gaze soft with sympathy. “That’s pretty fucked. Do you know where she is now?”

I shrug. “Who gives a shit? Last I heard, she was in jail.”

His heavy brows furrow in question to my statement.

“Shoplifting. Prostitution. Drugs. Those are her usual three.”

“What about her side of the family? I would guess she stays in contact with them.”

“I wouldn’t know. Dad doesn’t talk about them anymore and I don’t use my real last name on social media because I don’t want them to know shit about me. The only reason I know about her bouts with the law is because when I was younger I tried to find her and saw details of her arrests in the online newspaper.”

“And now you’re no longer curious?”

“Not really. They knew what my life was like and never tried to help so to hell with them.”

He nods. “I get that, I guess.”

“And the one relative I did manage to find on Facebook basically blew me off, so I decided I was on my own.”

His eyes roam over my face. “So your dad raised you?”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

“What would you say?”

“I pretty much raised myself.”

“So…there’s more to your story?”

I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I should tell him the rest. “Yeah. A lot more. A year or so after Mom left, Dad married Cassidy Merritt, the woman who gave evil stepmother a new face.”

“That doesn’t sound too good.”

“It was fucking horrible. She had two kids of her own and since we had the larger home, they all moved in with us. And that’s when her true colors started to show.

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