Chapter 37

Lux's POV

What the hell is wrong with me?

Why did I go off on them in there?

I knew that it was a bad idea to come. Of course Fern would have an interior motive. She didn't want to help me. She wanted to help them.

What the hell am I even thinking?

This is what I wanted right? I wanted them to hate me enough to just sign the papers. Now… now there's probably no way in hell I can get emancipated even if they signed the papers and I'm stuck in a house with Trey. This is just great.

I walk over toward Valerie's car and open the door and get in.

She makes a face, "How bad was it?"

I don't answer. Where do I even start?

"That bad, huh?" she jokes.

"Yeah," I finally confess. "They were there," I complain.

"Who?"

"Stef and Mike," I shake my head, "And Lena."

"Your parents and your dad's wife?"

"He's not my dad," I inform her. "And he's my mom's wife—I mean, birthmother's wife."

"Okay, Lux. Calm down. You're not there anymore," she tries to soothe.

I don't listen and keep going, "You should have been there, mom. It was like some freaking cracked-out intervention or something. Fern was all like Lux you have to get to know these people. Why do I have to get to know them? I'm not even living with them. She took me out of their house and now I'm still supposed to get along with them! It's just. Ugh!" I shout as I ball my fists in my hands.

"Lux?"

"What?" I snap as I turn around and look at Valerie. She raises her eyebrows, "Sorry, I'm just mad."

"And you have every right to be. And I know, it's not fair."

"What am I supposed to do?" I ask her, "What happens if I just stop going?"

"I'll probably get in trouble," Valerie answers.

"So I have to keep going," I shake my head. "I hate this…"

"My job is to make sure you show up, however… they can't force you to say or do anything you don't want to. So just…"

"Don't speak?"

"Yeah, you can do that. Just let them know that it's not going to work out… Be passive. Act like you don't care… They can't force you to care, Lux."

I nod my head.

"… Unless you do care?"

I squint my eyes at her, "Huh?"

"Do you care about them? Your parents?"

"Uh… I don't even know them."

Stef's POV

"Look at this," I smile as I hand Lena a picture of Lux when she was no more than 6 years old. She was staring back at the camera in a mug shot, looking absolutely miserable. She looked the same as she had in the session with Fern today.

Lena chuckled, "I take it she was always the happiest person in the room."

"Even angry, she looks adorable... Here's another one," I hand her a picture of Lux at around the same age. She was dressed in a Minnie mouse dress and a painted black nose and whiskers on her face and was sitting on the floor with another girl with a leopard dress and a high ponytail. I assumed it was her best friend, Tasha

"Aw! This must've been on Halloween. Her curls are adorable, Stef," Lena answered with the biggest smile on her face.

I nod and immediately stop smiling. "Yeah... It kinda sucks that I missed so much," I respond as I try to keep from remembering all of what happened today.

"It wasn't your fault, Stef. How many times do I have to say it for you to believe it, huh?"

I didn't want to cry again but I didn't understand why I was. It was like I had no control of my own emotions. "She blames me, Lena," I tell her as I pick my eyes up from the file and stare at my wife.

"Stef," Lena starts as she puts the pictures down, "Don't do that, okay? Lux is confused. She doesn't understand what really happened—"

"None of that matters," I shake my head and feel even more warm tears fall down my cheeks, "She. Blames. Me. And she's right," I nod.

"No, she is not right," Lena replies in a firm tone.

"All I had to do was hold her, but I was too…"

"You. Didn't. Know," she shakes her head as she reaches for my hand and intertwines her own with it. "You didn't know," she repeats. "There's nothing you can do to change it. And Lux will understand—"

"How? How am I going to get her to understand? How do I tell her that what I did fourteen years ago isn't the same thing as what she wants me to do now? It's like…it's like she thinks it's that simple. She thinks that I can just go back and pretend like she didn't find me, like I didn't carry her inside of me for n‑nine months, like I didn't r-read to her e-very night, like I didn't—"

"Honey," she interrupts in an even louder voice in and effort to calm me down. "You need to tell her this. Fern asked you to write her a letter so—"

"I can't write this stuff," I stop her.

"Why not?"

"Because she— She's not going to want to hear excuses. That's the last thing I want to do to her."

"They aren't excuses, Stef," Lena tries to assure me. "They're the truth."

I hiss at her but she keeps going.

"Don't you think she's going to want to hear your point of view? Like she deserves to hear it?"

"She already made it clear that she didn't want anything to do with me, or any of us for that matter. What the hell can I write in a letter that I haven't already said to her?"

"I know you, Stef. Better than any one in this world," she says softly. "You can appear to be the most stubborn woman in the world and yes, it drive me nuts sometimes. But you can't worry about getting too emotional here."

"I'm not—" I try to defend but my wife stops me.

"You're stubborn. You always try to hide your feelings and you're not going to get anywhere with Lux like that. And obviously, she's just as stubborn as you are. So neither of you are going to get anywhere if one of you doesn't let her guard down. That person… has to be you, Stef. You're the parent. If you wait for Lux…" Lena pauses and I know that she doesn't want to say it. I'm actually glad she doesn't because I don't think I can take hearing it.

"Okay," I give in. "Fine. I'll be… completely honest when writing this letter. Lux is probably going to think I'm crazy but… what the hell she already thinks I'm crazy," I mumble.

Lux's POV

"Do you believe in fate?" I ask Eric as we sit in the parking lot of Dairy Queen, eating our ice cream in the bed of his pickup truck.

"Where did that come from?" he asks in confusion and I know I must sound insane to him.

"Nothing, never mind," I shake my head.

"No," he tries to stop me and puts his hand on my knee. "I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable or anything. I was just curious. One minute we're naming the craziest flavored ice creams we've ever tried and then next you're asking about fate," He chuckles. "It's not a bad thing though."

"I don't know. Just… Do you believe in it?" I ask again.

"Yeah… It's always nice to believe that everything good or bad has it's purpose in life. The bad teaches us life lessons and the good reminds us what we're put here for."

"Oh," I answer awkwardly as I lick the last of the rainbow sprinkles from my vanilla cone, "Good to know," I smile.

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," I assure him.

"Something's on your mind," he answers me skeptically with a smile that makes me feel guilty. "Is this about your family? The one you just met?"

I sigh. I don't want to get into this again, but something about Eric's eyes made me feel so comfortable. "I don't… I don't really know how I feel about them. It's like one second I think I want nothing to do with them and wish that I could just wish them away and then next… I'm thinking about them, even when I don't want to."

"What do you mean you're thinking about them? Like missing them?"

"Missing is a little strong I think. Maybe… I don't know? Wishing that I could see them again, one day. Not today but one day," I correct with a smile.

"That's missing," Eric informs me.

I turn my gaze away from him.

"Hey," he starts as grabs my hand, "It's okay to say you miss them, Lux. No one's judging you."

"It's not okay," I tell him. " I just met them. They are complete strangers to me. I shouldn't miss them," I shake my head.

Why wasn't he getting it?

But more importantly, why wasn't I getting it?

"They're your family. Strangers or not, it's okay to feel a connection with them."

What he didn't understand was it was the exact opposite of okay…

But still, I was the one letting that first night at Mike's house replay in my mind. I was the one that kept couldn't erase Stef's words she spoke that very night from my brain, You have a family who wants you.

Why was something I had been chasing for so long, the same thing that I was running away from?

After my date with Eric, he dropped me off at Tasha's and I ended up walking back to Valerie's. It was a long walk but I always managed.

The first thing that I do is open the gate and close it back up. I glance at the cellphone in my pocket to look at the time. It's 12:26am. I'm just a little over twenty minutes late. Normally, Valerie wouldn't really care since it wasn't a big difference at all but from the looks of it all of the lights were off so she was probably sleeping.

"Where were you?" I hear an abrupt voice on the porch and turn around to see Trey's shadow. I pressed my weight even harder on the floor so that the porch light would turn on but it wouldn't.

I try my best not to show my fear as I dig inside my bag for the key, "I was at Tasha's."

"You're still friends with her, huh?" he says as if I'm really in the mood to have small talk with him.

"Yeah," I answer flatly as I dig inside my bag some more.

"You still don't have a boyfriend?" he asks with a sly smile.

Where the hell was my key? I think to myself before I just twist the door handle in hopes that it would just open. It doesn't.

"No, Trey. I don't have a boyfriend," I try my best to stay calm and collective, despite the fact that I can almost feel my heart wanting to pop out of my chest as I reach into my pockets this time.

He walks over even closer and immediately I smell the stench of beer on his breath. It felt like déjà vu all over again.

"That' good," he nods. "You don't want to be like one of those sluts that start dating too young anyway," he chuckles. "Those little girls aren't going to be worth a dime when they get older. Good thing you're not going to have that problem," he smiles as he touches my hair.

I flinch away and stupidly open my mouth, "Please DON'T touch me." I practically yell as I finally find my key and shove it into the doorknob. I breathe a sigh of relief, suddenly glad that I can finally get away from him, but he snatches my wrist in his hand before I can get the door open all the way.

"What did you say to me?!" he says through gritted teeth and piercing eyes. He had only stared at me once like that before and it was the worst day of my life.

"Nothing," I shake my head as I feel the pressure of his hand tighten around mine.

After what felt like the longest ten seconds of my life, he releases his hand and brings his face closer toward my own. And as much as I'm screaming at myself not to look at him, I still do.

"It better be nothing. What, you think that just because you left and came back you can tell me what to do in my own house?" he says in a low yet still angry voice.

"No."

"You do what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it. You speak when I tell you that you can speak. You don't cop an attitude with me because you know I can fix that reeaaall quick."

"Okay, Trey. I'm sorry," I tell him even though I hate myself for even saying it. But there was something about the way he was right now, that made me fear him. I hated his guts but I was more scared than anything else.

"Good. Because no one believed you the last time, remember? Who's going to believe I ever did anything to you, if you just came crawling back? Huh? …Ask yourself that before you decide to make any more accusations…"

To be continued.