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Don’t we all...
EIGHT
KILLIAN
Courtland is silent the entire ride back to his apartment. I keep my eyes trained out the window, catching sight of Ainsley through the mirror occasionally. She fidgets in her seat, no doubt feeling uncomfortable from the shift in the air. It’s not my business to tell, but I owe her more of an explanation. She’s changed since she’s fallen deeper into her addiction. Things that didn’t bother her before do now. She has the ability to consume the energy around her when she’s coming down from the drugs and I don’t think that she even realizes it.
I first met Lincoln when Courtland and I were placed with a foster family. It wasn’t long after I was first put in the system, but Court and I were already close. We had already been through one house together at that point and had spent our time running the other kids in the group home. Lincoln had already been with this family for a few months.
His parents died in a murder-suicide and he had no family to take him in. That was the story that we were told, but after seeing how much of a bad-ass he was, I think that anyone who was family probably opted out of taking him in. Either way, he was thrown into the system but landed himself in a home before ever stepping foot in the group home.
At first, it didn’t seem like a bad situation. They already had eight foster kids, which isn’t as unusual as you might think. These people get paid by the state to take these wayward kids in, so there are some families that only view the kids as a paycheck. A quick means to make a few bucks. What they often forget is they are taking in a child—a real life person that needs to be taken care of.
We were divided by boys and girls. There were three of us in a room, each room with two beds, so Courtland and I alternated between sleeping on one of the beds and sleeping on a blanket on the floor. We weren’t allowed anywhere near the girls. The house was big enough that they were able to separate us on opposite sides of the house. We had scheduled times that we were allowed out of our rooms to shower or go to the kitchen for food.
Mabel and Elliott Quinn. They weren’t bad people, but they just didn’t give a shit about us. Their 9,000 square foot mansion operated like a goddamn prison. I don’t even know that either of them stayed at the home that often, except to keep up appearances when the social worker came for a home visit.
The Quinns were both doctors, so I was told by the social worker. They had money, but they needed more and saw foster kids as an opportunity to make extra. Supposedly, they had lost their only child in a house fire. Mrs. Quinn wasn’t able to have any more kids, so they started to foster. There was only one foster kid that they actually took an interest in. Meredith. She was around the same age as the child would have been that they lost.
Meredith’s name changed to Serena.
She was their replacement for their Serena that died in the fire.
I’ll never forget the way that her dark brown eyes shone with fear when she did rounds with the Quinns. I don’t know what they were doing to her, we never got the chance to talk, but I don’t think they were treating her the way that they would another child.
It took a little while for Lincoln to acknowledge Courtland and I. His hands and arms were always covered up to his elbows in charcoal. He rarely lifted his head from his sketch pad, except to eat and take a shower. The first time that he raised his head to talk to us, his curly hair fell away from the side of his face, revealing a scar right below his temple, stretching back above his ear.
Courtland and I never asked what happened, but with the way Lincoln behaved, it was obvious that he was a victim of abuse.
One night we snuck two bottles of vodka from the Quinn’s kitchen. After we were locked away in our rooms for the night, the three of us drank ourselves into a stupor. It was Courtland’s night to take the bed, but my dumbass passed out in it after violently vomiting into our small trash can.
I woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of their hushed voices and the rustling of blankets. Courtland never slept on the floor again after that night.
We never spoke of what was going on between them. They were never affectionate to each other in front of anyone, not even me. Even after I walked in on them fucking in the shower, we still never talked about it. Instead, I found a pair of headphones and a sleep mask to give them some privacy since we shared a room.
After a few months, Courtland told me what Linc’s scar was from. After his father brutally murdered his mother, he shot Linc in the head. Not knowing that it only grazed the side, his father put a bullet in his own head shortly after.
Even though most times foster kids come with only a few belongings, we have more baggage than anyone else. I never said anything to Linc about what Courtland told me. It wasn’t my place to say anything. He confided in Courtland and Courtland told me, as his best friend. I wasn’t about to come between them.
When the Quinns eventually got busted for trafficking the girls that they adopted, we were all taken from their home and put back in the group home. Courtland and Lincoln continued whatever was going on between them throughout the group home and other homes until they were ultimately split up.
I don’t know what happened exactly because it was something that Court never wanted to talk about. I didn’t push him for answers because it was obvious how badly it fucking hurt him. After seeing the way that they interacted earlier, I’m wondering if there is more to the story than them getting separated because of the system.
A tap on my shoulder draws me out of my head and back to reality. I glance over at Courtland as he puts the car in park. Ainsley watches me from the back seat with her hand clutching my shoulder. I give her a small smile, nodding at Courtland as he glances up at the front door to his apartment.
“I’ll walk you,” I tell Ainsley as I look back at Courtland. “Amethyst is home, right?”
Courtland gives me a curt nod with a detached look in his eye. He directs his attention down to his phone as he scrolls through music on Spotify before settling on a song. Ainsley climbs out of the car, but I’m not far behind her. I take her hand in mine and lead her up to Courtland and Amethyst’s apartment.
Her palm sweats in mine. She shifts her weight nervously as I knock on the front door. I glance down at her, softly pressing my lips to her forehead. “I promise that you’ll be safe here with her.”
She’ll be safe from the shit that Grace could expose her to or coerce her to do, but she won’t be safe from the drugs. I don’t have to worry about her overdosing alone or getting drugs from someone random. She won’t get sick from the withdrawal and have to go through any of that either. Amethyst will be here to keep an eye on her. I’m sure that she won’t be thrilled about being a babysitter, not that she really needs to, but I need to know that Ainsley will be okay.
“You’ll be back though, right?” she asks, her voice soft. “You’re not going to leave me here?”
I cup the sides of her face, tilting her head back to look up at me. “Baby, I will never leave you anywhere. Don’t ask stupid fucking questions.”
“I just—I don’t know about her, you know?” Ainsley chews on her bottom lip. “She was the enemy in my eyes for a while. It’s just kind of awkward for me, being here alone with her.”
