Saved by the Woodsman

Author:Eddie Cleveland [Cleveland, Eddie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-02-15T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Ashley

I look down at my dwindling bowl of stew and take a deep breath. I want to trust Sawyer, but my past isn’t something I share easily. I haven’t even told Ben much about my life. Yet, when I look in his eyes, I see an earnest concern for me that I never saw in Ben’s. He doesn’t want the salacious details to entertain himself, he wants to know the real me. The one I’ve been trying to hide for longer than I’d like to admit.

“I’m a foster kid, I was put in the system when I was eleven by child services.” I blurt out.

“I’m sorry, that couldn’t have been an easy life for you,” Sawyer answers.

“No, it wasn’t,” I admit. “Most kids are taken when they’re younger and it’s easier to place them because people like cute, little kids. Not a lot of people like taking on a pre-teen girl. They cost more for one, and they usually have a lot of scars. Like sexual abuse and shit like that.”

Sawyer’s face twists like I just stabbed him. “That’s not what happened to me,” I reassure him and he breathes a sigh of relief.

“Anyway, a lot of women don’t want to take on an older girl because they have this messed up idea that you’re going to seduce their husbands. Isn’t that fucked up?”

My mind flashes angrily to the first house I was placed in. How, when she found out her husband liked to drink and make me watch him jerk off after she passed out in a drunken stupor, she acted like I made him do it.

Like it wasn’t some predator taking advantage of a vulnerable kid. Instead, I must have been “Begging him for it.” My cheeks flush with the shame I felt then. Like I was just dirty and unlovable. Like no one could ever want me in their lives unless I could do something for them.

“Did your parents die?” Sawyer intrudes on my dark thoughts.

“No, that probably would’ve been better,” I confess. “I know that sounds terrible,” I blurt the words as his eyebrows cinch together in a frown. “They were meth heads, they made it themselves for some guy who sold it for them. He split the cash with them so they were happy. But then they got into it too, bad. They were high all the time and screwed him over by giving him a bad batch and he was pissed. He told them they owed him his money back or he’d kill them,” the words pour out of me like I’m sitting in a confession box. I’m guessing the booze is helping all this bubble out of my mouth.

“But you said they didn’t die?” Sawyer tries to piece together my story.

“No, they decided to try to sell me to get the cash. Like my parents were my pimp.”

“What the fuck?” Sawyer’s face contorts with rage.

“Yeah, lucky for me they were both fucking idiots,” the memory flashes back over me.

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