“He saved me in that group home when everything I’d ever loved was stripped away. He saved me with his smile, his kindness, and his guitar.”
Tayler
I’m the leftovers that nobody wanted; a casualty of the foster system. Now that I’m 18, I have nowhere to go. No job, no home, but I have my bestie Haze by my side, and together we’re going to make it. I love music. Yeah, everybody says that, but I know I have what it takes. We’re going to find a way to reach the top. Kind of like Dakota, the front man for Kings of Ash, except not as a-hole-ish and muscley as him. Ugh, the muscles. We were in foster care together, me, Dakota, and Haze. That’s where I fell in love with him. But, he was older than me and got kicked out of the group home when I was only fifteen. The guy ripped my effing heart out as he walked out that door. It’s a shame, really. He’s the only person in the world who ever really understood my love and need for music. He saved me in that group home when everything I’d ever loved was stripped away. He saved me with his smile, his kindness, and with his guitar. Since then, Dakota has changed and hardened in more ways than one. I’ve been trying my best to avoid him, but our paths have crossed and now he’s back, famous and hotter than ever.
Dakota
I gaze at Tayler for the last time while my mind repeats the same mantra: she’s your foster sister, you can’t be in love with her. But every part of me screams otherwise as I walk out of that group home. Aging out of the foster system at 18, I left behind a 15-year-old girl who knew I couldn’t stay. It broke her heart, but it’s better to be hated than to be in jail for loving her. Letting go of her was the toughest thing I’ve ever done, but I had to chase my music and put her behind me. Plenty of women came and went in my life, but none could fill the void that she left behind. It was always the music that drove me forward, pushing me to become a part of the punk Seattle music scene as the front man for Kings of Ash. Just when I thought I had moved on from Tayler for good, she blows back into my life–smoking hot and determined to make her mark. Even though she despises me for abandoning her all those years ago, I can’t help but admit to myself that I still want her. No, I don’t just want. I need.
EXCERPT:
I fell in love with a girl who’s way too young for me, and now that I’m eighteen, she’s my ticket to jail if I ever tried following through with any of the twisted debauchery I really want to do.
When she’s eighteen though? All bets are fucking off.
When the song she’s singing for me is over, I listen to her husky, alto voice trail off and close my eyes. I can’t even explain what it does to me, other than it feels kind of the same as cool aloe over a sunburn. I can’t get enough of it.
The sun is setting and we’ve got to go inside. Dinner is over and curfew will set in pretty soon, so I walk her into the house and to the room she shares with Haze.
“Will I get to see you tomorrow before you leave?” she asks.
I shrug.
“I don’t know. I’ll be leaving pretty early. Got the first shift.”
She frowns, a lone tear sliding down her cheek.
“I’ll wake up early to say goodbye. I really want you to have this. So, when you’re lonely, you still have a little piece of me with you.”
Tayler presses her locket into my hand and my heart fucking breaks.
I can’t take it.
This piece of nickel and tin is her most precious possession in the world. The pictures inside are all she has left of her family after her asshole aunt sent her to rot in foster care while she took in her other, younger two siblings. I still can’t get that to make sense to me. What kind of a selfish prick would you have to be to abandon your niece because she’s ‘too old’ and take in her siblings because they’re, what, cuter? Easier to mold?
I’m angry for her.
It’s too late. She puts the locket in my hand and closes my fist around it, then pulls me in for another hug.
“I’m going to get a job so I can have a cell phone, then we can talk at night and stuff even if we can’t see each other every day.”
I nod, squeezing her hard because I know I won’t be able to see her much. Not often enough anyway.
I press a kiss to the top of her head and take in the generic scent of something chemically and fruity in her hair. She might smell like all the other girls in the place, but there’s something special about the scent on her.
She pulls back and looks me in the face.
“I love you,” she whispers.
I smile, even though those words mean something completely different to her than they do to me. She loves me like a brother, I love her like a woman.
“Take care, kid,” I tell her, unable to reciprocate the words through my suddenly swollen throat.
She nods, tears pooling in her eyes before they go crashing down her cheeks.
I need to leave her soon, or I won’t be able to at all.
Tearing myself away, I feel a legitimate piece of me going with her as I turn my back, heading straight to my shared room.
The next couple years are going to be some of the hardest of my life, waiting for her. Then again, which is harder, having her but not being able to have her, or not having her at all?
I lay on my bed for a few hours, watching time slip by, knowing she’s just in the other room. It would be so much easier to just curl up with her and spend my last hours cuddling, but I can’t. I fucking can’t!
Four o’clock approaches and I growl, giving up on sleep. Ain’t no rest for the wicked, they say.
I gather my duffel bag and the paperwork that my advocate gave me days ago, including my Social Security card and a birth certificate.
Holy shit, I’m on my own.
I heft my bag over my shoulder, positive that I won’t be able to last another goodbye with Tayler without breaking down and sobbing like a baby, telling her all the things I’m fucking scared of. I need to be strong for her and, right now, that means leaving.
Looking at the locket that I’d kept in my hand as I laid there, unable to sleep, I press a kiss to it the same way Tayler had so many times when she was missing her family more than usual.
With one last surge of strength, I drop the necklace on my pillow and turn, leaving it all behind.
My future awaits me, and as scary as it is, I have to face it head-on if I’m going to make something of myself. My parents fucked up their chance at life, but I’m not going to. I’m going to work hard, make a name for myself, and eventually, I’m going to be on a stage, playing and singing for tens of thousands of people.
Author Bio:
L.L. Ash is a Washington-born writer who has traveled and lived across the western coast of the US. Ash has been writing fiction since she was a pre-teen, and while her writing has improved since then, her love for literature has not changed.
Oftentimes you can find Ash reading an indie romance or enjoying a historical fiction. Dabbling in culinary arts and music, Ash has been an artist for decades but found her true love and passion in romances.
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