What I've Done (7 page)

“Tasha,” my little sister’s voice is calling. I snap out of the trance I have fallen into and turn to where Rose is standing. Her little arms are wrapped around her exposed skin as she visibly shivers. “Can we go now? I’m tired.”

Bolting onto my feet I reach down to grab Rose’s shirt and help her into it. I try to push the overwhelming feelings for Gabe aside as I dress my little sister and gather our things. I had foolishly let my guard down for a minute but luckily Rose pulled me back into reality. There is no time in my life for a silly teenage romance. My focus needs to be on Rose’s well-being and making sure she is provided with all the things she needs. The days of my being a carefree kid were gone long ago, when my mother had chosen her addictions over us.

“Can I take you home?” Gabe asks. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a t-shirt that he throws on. I scold myself for being disappointed when his magnificent chest disappears from sight.

“Thanks, but we’re okay. You’ve already done too much, Gabe.” I attempt to smile, but the muscles around my lips won’t cooperate. Rose snuggles into the side of my leg, rubbing her eyes with her fists.

“You can start by letting me meet with you again tomorrow,” he says.

I struggle with how I will deal with this dilemma and look down at my shivering sister. “Sure. We can meet back here.” It is hard to look him in the eyes and ignore the sensational feelings raging through me, so I keep looking at Rose and pat the top of her head.

“I’ll meet you here in the morning, then. Is nine too early? I can bring breakfast.” He squats down in the sand so his eyes are level with Rose’s. “Do you like bagels, Barbie?”

“The kind with cheese?” Rose asks hopefully, temporarily perking up from her sleepy mode.

I sigh. “Gabe, you don’t have to bring us breakfast.”

As kind as he has been, there will be no way for me to pay him back for everything. It is starting to make me a little irritated. It will be hard to keep up the appearance of having parents if we always show up hungry and I never offer to bring something instead.

He shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. I want to. I had fun hanging out with you guys today.”

I certainly had fun hanging out with him, too. But there are also a lot of things I need to do, like figure out a way to enroll Rose and myself into school. I also need to find a job, as soon as humanly possible. We can’t continue to hide out in the cold house every night.

“Thank you.” I know I am repeating myself, but I try to give the words as much depth and meaning as possible.

He takes a step forward and presses his lips against my cheek, letting them linger longer than I expect. My heart flips in my chest and I nearly gasp aloud. The electrical surges that continue to pass between us are really hard to brush off once I have felt his lips against my skin.

“I will see you in the morning,” he whispers, taking a step back. “Sleep well.”

He bends down to pat Rose on top of her head and gives us one final smile before turning to walk down the beach. I am happy when he doesn’t turn back because I can’t stop staring after him as he walks away.

“Lily,” my sister says after a moment, pulling on my arm.

The sound of my real name surprises me and I am amazed how she is able to slip out of our pretend mode with such quick ease. When I look down at her, I don’t have to ask what she wants. Gabe left his blanket and cooler behind. I turn back to look where he had been, but he is no longer there.

Rose eats one of the apples from Gabe’s cooler as we walk back to the little yellow house. We are able to slip in through the back again without being seen. I am relieved that Gabe left his blanket behind when Rose and I snuggle under it together. The blanket smells wonderfully masculine, just like Gabe. With my little sister wedged up against my side and Gabe’s scent filling my lungs, sleep comes more easily than I would have guessed, despite my excitement to see him again in the morning.

* * *

When morning comes we meet Gabe on the beach again as promised. The bagels are warm and happily fill my stomach to the point where I actually feel full for the first time in days. The day goes by in a blur when Gabe gives us a walking tour of the immediate area. The city is even more alluring than I had first imagined and it is nice to learn things about the area from a local. He buys us lunch at a sandwich shop later in the afternoon.

I decide we need to leave before he can offer to buy us supper if he is going to believe I have parents that are waiting for us to return, but he is able to convince me to stay with him long enough to grab seafood from a cute little restaurant near the pier as the sun is about to set in the sky. Gabe is so kind and easy going that I begin to relax a little around him, knowing we may not be in any kind of immediate danger of being discovered.

We spend a lot of time with Gabe in the days to follow when he is not in school, although I consciously try not to spend too much time with him to keep up the appearance of having parents and an actual home to go to. I have not yet figured out how to get us enrolled in school and our money begins to run dangerously low with the few meals we have without Gabe.

I purchase a couple more shirts for each of us at the used clothing store and use an old trick a friend once taught me at the Laundromat to wash our clothes frequently without having to pay. We continue to stay in the little yellow house every night, our presence continuing to go undetected.

Before I know it a couple of weeks have passed. Time advances so hastily that I begin to panic when I realize I am no closer to getting us enrolled in school. Gabe and I are becoming very good friends and he is so kind and patient with Rose. As much as I enjoy the time we spend getting to know each other, with each day that passes I am becoming increasingly worried about what our future will hold.

One morning I wake in the little yellow house to hear the annoying little Chihuahua next door barking insistently. I walk to the kitchen window, tempted to yell out the window at it to be quiet, but a commanding knock at the front door starts up that causes me to yell out in surprise. My hand flies over my mouth and I freeze in place, hoping whoever it is will go away.

“Sheriff’s office,” a gruff voice calls out.

My eyes dart to the bedroom where Rose is still sleeping. My heart is beating so wildly my body hiccups with each beat. I watch in terror as the door handle begins to move. Before I can process what is happening the front door swings open and two officers in matching tan uniforms stand staring at me from the front step.

The taller of the two looks less threatening with large blue eyes and shortly trimmed blond hair. He steps forward with exaggerated delay and gives me a wary smile.

“Hey there. Are you here alone?” There is a kindness in his eyes but his hand is at his belt, poised over what I guess to be a Taser gun. The beady-eyed, overweight officer behind him sneaks in behind his partner, watching me with cautious eyes as he does so.

I nod when I am too afraid to speak. My chances of running away without being caught are terrible since Rose is still sleeping and I won’t be able to simply grab her and run. I can’t leave Rose here all by herself, either. My options are horribly limited.

The officer still speaks to me with languid care, as if I am a bomb about to explode. “We got a call that there were two young girls in the backyard of this house last night. Is there someone else here with you?”

My eyes flicker to the bedroom again. I know I have no other choice. “My sister,” I whisper.

The taller officer motions for his partner to head into the bedroom but keeps his eyes trained on me. “Where are your parents?”

The shorter officer walks into the next room in a quick movement.

“Don’t scare her!” I beg.

The taller officer holds his hand out toward me. “We aren’t here to hurt anyone. Did you and your sister run away?”

Tears fill my eyes. “Our parents are both dead. But I’m eighteen.” The second part isn’t quite as truthful as the first but my birthday is not too far away so I consider it more of a white lie.

“Do you have any identification?” He has crept in closer to me so I take a step back.

“No.” My shoulders fall when I know there will be no way to avoid foster care at this point.

The officer’s hand curls around the Taser and he continues to speak to me with a certain deliberation. “I’m going to have to take you in, just to make sure you haven’t been reported as missing by anyone, okay?”

I bob my head in affirmation, a tear falling down my cheek. The shorter officer comes into the room with Rose in his arms. Her cries are soft when she reaches out for me. I run over and take her away from the officer, hugging her close to me. The taller officer removes his hand from the Taser and motions for me to come along with him.

“Shhh, it will be okay,” I whisper to Rose.

But it is another lie, because I don’t know that everything will be okay. Not this time.

CHAPTER 4

“Are
these
people movie stars?” Rose asks as we step into our new home.

Svetlana, our new foster mother, laughs good-naturedly as she closes the door on the social worker who had delivered us. Svetlana is a very pretty brunette I guess to be somewhere in her early thirties. She has a thick foreign accent with hair and makeup that are perfectly applied. Her bright green eyes pop out from behind the right amount of eyeliner and mascara. She wears light blue capris and a white sweater that reminds me of old housewives in the 1950s. Although her husband is not home when we arrive, I get the feeling Svetlana could have been some kind of mail order bride to some rich old guy.

The spacious house our foster parents own sits high on a hill overlooking the ocean and is not far from the beach where the stolen cash remains safely locked away. From the front entrance you can see all the way across the clean and neat house to the other side, which is completely covered in glass windows overlooking the beach. The open layout reveals in one glance the best of everything; stainless steel appliances, plush leather couches, a huge flat screen television and ornate area rugs over marble floors. It is by far the nicest house I have ever even set foot in.

I am not consciously aware when I automatically take a step backwards.

Svetlana senses my withdrawal and gently yanks on my arm. “What is wrong, Tasha? It okay, I promise.”

I had given our aliases when questioned by the pretty, young social worker named Melissa at the sheriff’s station and didn’t give out many other details. Since they had no way to verify who we really are, we appeared briefly in front of a Judge who decided to place us in a foster home until we could be seen by another Judge for a more in-depth hearing. I had just been relieved when there was no mention of placing me in a detention center.

 “This place is way too upscale,” I mutter, adjusting the new messenger bag on my shoulder. “We don’t belong here.”

 “Your home is here,” she says, smiling warmly. She takes Rose’s new backpack from my hands and puts it on her own shoulder. Again she pulls on my arm, forcing me to either trail behind her or fall down on my face. I reluctantly give in with Rose holding tight to my other hand.

We walk through the house without speaking but our flip-flops snap in loud beats on the stone floor, the sound echoing all around us. Svetlana stops to open a large metal door, revealing a warm and spacious bedroom painted in a muted light blue. A giant bed in the center of the room is covered with a white fluffy comforter under a sea of ornate, brightly-colored pillows.

Rose drops my hand and runs into the room. “We are going to sleep here?”

Svetlana grins down at my little sister. “Yes, you stay here.”

Rose giggles happily and throws herself into the mass of pillows on the bed, lying still among them with a satisfied smile. “This is the most softest bed I’ve ever been in!”

Svetlana laughs, her voice making a pleasant ringing noise. I already like this woman and we had just met her for the first time at the sheriff’s office less than an hour ago. “Come with me. I show you where everything is.”

Svetlana leads us down a bright white hallway decorated with stunning prints of the ocean in black and white. She stops at the end to where a smaller but beautiful bedroom and bathroom are situated across from each other and tells me the room will be mine. I can’t get over how elegant and expensive everything inside the house appears to be.

I give Svetlana a grateful smile. “Your house is amazing.”

“You have to see best part!”

She leads us back to where the dozens of windows stretch across the room and opens the glass doors to a large stone patio. We walk past a massive outdoor kitchen that is situated beside a large glass-top table and a stunning stone fireplace. Everything looks like it is straight out of a home décor magazine.

“Does it snow here?” I ask, baffled by the need for a fireplace.

Svetlana chuckles. “We do not see snow. But it is cold sometimes for people who only know California weather, yes?” She brings us down a small slope of a hill. When our feet hit the warm sand, we discover behind the patio there is an oval shaped hot tub nestled inside a group of white flowering bushes.

The view of the ocean from the hot tub is spectacular. The nearest houses are hidden by more white flowering bushes so it feels kind of like you are alone on a deserted island. In the very far distance you can see the start of the public beaches where we have spent many afternoons with Gabe. The early afternoon has brought a variety of people out to enjoy another ideal day on the beach. Further out in the water I see a cluster of surfers bobbing around as they wait to catch the next big wave. I can only imagine how much the view will only continue to improve once the sun begins to set.

Rose stands on the steps leading up to the hot tub and peers down at the still water behind a translucent cover. “Do we take our baths in here?”

It hadn’t occurred to me until now that my little sister has probably never seen a hot tub before. She has lived such a sad, sheltered life. But in the short time since our mother’s death we have been given more opportunities than I could have dreamed of. It only continues to get better and better, which is starting to scare me.