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There was another reason that darkened my thoughts. One I didn’t want to say out loud because it made me sound pathetic.
Maybe I wasn’t good enough for him.
Ugh. I hated that I felt this way. I never had. Not even when they threw me into juvie.
But I couldn’t help thinking that he deserved to be with a woman who understood his life, whose past wouldn’t embarrass him. Someone who didn’t have to hide what she’d done.
What if a reporter found out? I didn’t want my life plastered over the papers.
No. Ryan and I were better off pursuing our own goals and just being happy with the time we had together.
“Hey princess, what are you looking at?”
I turned at the new girl. The guards must have brought her into the cell while I was talking to Ryan.
I didn’t respond this time.
“Are you ignoring me?”
Ah, shit.
Here we go again.
Ryan
The hospice was about forty minutes from my home. I didn’t ask Colton how he knew about our aunt’s whereabouts, but I shouldn’t have been surprised that he would keep tabs on her. Not after what she’d done to him.
“Good morning! Have you come to pay a visit to a dear relative?” the young woman’s perky voice felt jarring against my ill temper.
“No. I’m here to see my aunt,” I said.
She frowned and tilted her head. “Oh… Uh…” She blinked a few times.
Poor thing. She didn’t deserve my bad manners. “Her name is Catherine Crawford.”
“Thank you,” she said and typed on her keyboard. “Here we are. Room 107. Can I get you to sign in before you go?”
I scribbled my name inside her logbook.
“Her room’s just down the hall, to your left.”
I nodded and walked past a large floral arrangement to the narrow hallway. I stood in front of door 107, the number etched onto a silver plaque. After rapping my knuckles twice on the door, a woman in blue scrubs answered.
“Is this Catherine Crawford’s room?” I asked.
“It is,” the woman said. “I’m her nurse. Who are you?”
I extended my hand to her. “I’m Ryan Crawford.”
“Oh, you’re one of the nephews,” she said as we shook hands.
Surprised she knew who I was, I didn’t reply quickly enough before she scolded me. “Well, don’t just stand there looking like a fish out of water. Come in.”
The woman waved me in and I stepped forward.
There was a beige sofa in the corner and a small wooden desk against the wall. When I slowly turned toward the bed, a memory of my aunt hit me square in the chest. She had passed out and I was returning from an errand she had sent me on.
As I did when I was a child, I went to check on her. See if she was sleeping… breathing.
