Fighting Shadows (On the Ropes #2)(45)

“Oh hi, honey. Come on in,” the friendly voice replied as the door buzzed, allowing us entry.

The smiling face of a gray-haired woman in her late sixties greeted us.

“Hi, I’m Judy. So nice to meet you.” She extended a hand toward Till.

“I appreciate you seeing us today. This is my brother, Flint.”

Her eyes flashed to mine, growing wide before filling with tears. “Of course it is.” She grabbed her heart and continued to watch me with gooey eyes usually reserved for twelve-year-old girls, not elderly women.

“Where is she?” I barked, causing Judy’s warm smile to fall.

Till kicked the foot of my crutch out from under me, sending me stumbling forward. Just before I crashed to the ground, he grabbed my arm and stepped in front of me.

“Whoa, easy there,” he said. Then he snarled into my ear, “Less abusive ex-boyfriend, more long-lost love.”

I gave him the side eye as I got my crutches positioned on my forearms again. Taking a deep breath, I pasted on a smile I was positive looked no more authentic than it felt.

“So, where’s Ash?” Till asked when he turned back around.

Judy was still eyeing me as she answered his question. “Tori . . . I mean Ash is out on a breakfast run. Every morning, she delivers food to the people we can’t take on at night. There’s just so many of them, and our space is really limited.”

For a brief second, my smile turned genuine.

Yeah, that sounds like Ash.

“She’ll be back in about an hour. Listen, I did a lot of research on you two before I agreed to this. Leo James spoke very highly of both of you. I even had Kathy, our volunteer accountant, look you up on the computer. I’m sure you two are nice young men.” Her eyes flashed to mine. “But if she doesn’t want to see you, I will have you escorted out.” She lifted her eyebrows and pointedly glanced over her shoulder to an overweight, elderly security guard sitting at a desk in the corner.

Till began to quietly chuckle while nodding. “We completely understand.”

“Good. Now that we’re clear on that”—she took a deep breath before rushing out—“I’m really happy there are people who care about her. She’s such a sweet girl. We didn’t realize until recently how young she was. She was a minor when we first took her in, and we had absolutely no idea. She told us she was nineteen, and Lord knows she looked older than that, so we didn’t even question it when she asked if she could volunteer.” She motioned for us to follow her down the hall. “It wasn’t until one of our regulars found her sleeping on the streets that we found out that she was homeless too.”

My whole body stiffened as I froze in the middle of the hallway.

She was sleeping on the streets.

I might not have grown up in the lap of luxury, but I’d always at least had a roof over my head. I chewed on my bottom lip as I became lost in the visions of Ash at sixteen, resting her head on the cold concrete. My heart began to race, and guilt overwhelmed me.

I should have been there for her.

I wasn’t.

I’d sent her packing into that world.

Alone.

“Hey,” Till said, stepping in front of me, reading my anxiety. “Never again. We’re here. That life is over for her.”

I nodded absently, but I couldn’t escape the thoughts.

“Much better,” Judy whispered before releasing a sigh.

Till urged me forward with a squeeze on my shoulder. My legs might have followed, but my mind was stuck reeling in the middle of that hall.

Judy continued. “We didn’t have much to offer her, but she was so good with everyone who walked through the doors that we knew we needed to keep her.” She stopped at a door. “So we made her a room, and Tori . . . erm, Ash moved in.”

She pushed the door open to what could only be described as a small closet. The walls were bare, and the floor was covered in old, faded linoleum. There was a small pile of clothes in the corner situated beside a worn-out pair of neon-green Converse. A cot and a nightstand were wedged into the tiny space.

And on that nightstand sat my book.

I roughly pushed past both of them and scooped it up. I could tell by the tear on the cover that it was, in fact, my copy, but I continued to search for further proof just to be sure. As I started to flip through the pages, Dave Egger’s heartbreaking words were barely visible. Each and every page was filled with her handwriting. It started in the margins then eventually ran between his words as if his typed letters were nothing more than lines for her to write above. Then there was the highlighting. Random letters were highlighted in green, pink, and blue. Never a whole word, just a random ‘a’ here then an ‘n’ a few lines down. Sometimes, there were multiple colors in each word. Then, other times, one of the colors would disappear completely for several pages.

Even as strange as it was, the biggest smile I had ever felt formed on my mouth—even bigger than any she had ever put there in the past.

I was so f*cking pissed at her. So angry that she’d left and never given me a chance to apologize. Frustrated that it had taken me so long to find her. But deep down, most of that was because I’d been terrified that, even if I’d found her, I’d never truly get her back.

As I looked down at my book, which she had held on to for all of those years, even going so far as to turn it into a some sort of diary, I realized that Ash had never let go of me, either.