Crash into You (Pushing the Limits, #3)(113)

Fair enough.

“You and your mom talked a lot today.” Courtney observed us from her dry car.

“Met my dad.” So to speak.

“Sort of figured. How are things going with her?”

I shovel the ice cream in my mouth so I don’t have to answer. My eyes narrow at the way the sweet sprinkles roll on my tongue. Courtney giggles. “By the way, gummy worms on ice cream are way overrated.”

“Noted.” I mix the ice cream. “I can’t give her what she wants.”

“You don’t have to,” she says. “I never said a relationship with her is healthy, just that you should talk to her. From experience, you eventually would have had an ache to see your mom. I thought it would be better to deal with her while you’ve got me to buy you ice cream afterward.”

“You should have told me when we first met you were system-produced.”

She squishes her lips together. “I was once pissed-off-seventeen. You weren’t ready to listen.”

True.

“Congrats, by the way. Heard you aced the exam.”

“Thanks.” I passed my ASE...again. My internship and job secured. I nudge the ice cream away and relax back in my seat. Lately, I feel like I’ve been drifting. I’m back in foster care at Shirley and Dale’s. Noah lives in the dorms. We still talk, but not nearly as often. There are times I feel...alone.

“I know people who have families,” I say. “They graduate from high school and they get a job or go to college and if they f*ck it all up they go back home.” I pause, tapping my finger on the table. “What do I do if...” I f*ck it all up. I clear my throat and my eyebrows move closer together. “Where do I go?”

Courtney shoves her ice cream away, too. “Foster care sucks, but so does aging out. It’s weird. You spend the entire first part of your life fighting to get out and then one day...you are out. Then you want to scream at the closed door that you’re still a kid, but everyone is pretty damned insistent you’re an adult. I cried a lot when I first aged out.”

My lips quirk. “I don’t think I’ll be crying.”

Courtney snorts. “Or whatever boys do.”

I swallow and find the courage to say the words. “I don’t want to be homeless.”

“You won’t be.” She waggles her eyebrows and pulls a folder out of her bag. “I have a plan. You don’t turn eighteen until this summer, so we have a couple more months before you age out. I can teach you how to budget and help you find a place to live and all sorts of fun adult things. And here’s the cool part. I’ll still be around when you turn eighteen. I may not be mandatory, but I don’t disappear.”

The alarm on my phone rings, and Courtney smiles, knowing why I’m ready to bolt. “We’ll start this next week.”

I stand. “Thanks. For everything.”

“No problem. And next week we’re getting hot fudge.”





Chapter 77

Rachel

I DREAM A LOT. FOR the past three months, I’ve been sleeping more than I’m awake. Between surgeries, hospital stays, pain meds and rehab, I always seem tired.

I see Isaiah in my dreams. Giving that rare smile. Laughing that deep chuckle. Every now and then, I dream of his kiss. Those are my favorites.

Someone whispers and I open my eyes. The specialist appointment wore me out physically. My therapy appointment with my counselor knocked me out mentally. I stretch my arms on the bed and hear crinkling to the side. I turn my head and see a Mustang magazine with a note:




Tell me which one you want. I love you—Dad.





My fingers brush the note before I toss the magazine onto my bedside table. I don’t want to think about cars, not yet.

“Told you she wasn’t ready,” whispers a deep voice from across the room.

Propping up on my elbows, I lift my upper body. West and Ethan sit on the floor, both with controllers in their hands. Their eyes locked on the video game they play with no sound on my flat screen. The two of them practically moved in here when I came home from the hospital. Most of the time, I don’t mind the company.

Ethan glances over his shoulder at me. “Finally.” He tosses the controller on the floor, and West follows his lead.

“Field trip, baby sis,” says West. He flips his hat so that it’s backward.

I flop back on the bed. “I’ve got rehab in two hours.”

“That’s why we’re going now,” Ethan says. “You’ll be too tired later. How do you want to do this?”

It’s a question I’m used to, and one they’ve learned to ask. It’s been weird between my family and me. My entire life I never wanted to be the family weakling, and now there’s absolutely no doubt that I’m the physically weakest one under the roof. The casts are off, but both of my legs are in a full brace.

While it’s apparent to anyone that I can’t run as far as my brothers or dance like my mom, what can’t be seen by the naked eye is the real miracle. It was hard to ask for help at first. I made everything a million times harder by my need to do it all myself, and it was a zillion times harder for my family not to do things for me. But I learned to ask. And they learned not to jump in. And so my weakness has made me stronger.