“Yeah. She never passed up the opportunity to help any child,” I replied with a smile.

“What are you two talking about?” Nathan asked.

Andrew looked to me, I looked to Caroline, Caroline looked to Andrew, and we all looked to Nathan.

“Well, umm, Teresa was my foster mom for a little while.”

Nathan’s eyes grew wide as he stared at me in shock, his jaw slack.

Caroline jumped up, pulling on Andrew’s arm. “Come on, Andrew, let’s go get some coffee.”

“Umm, okay,” he mumbled, looking between Nathan and I in confusion.

Caroline shut the door as they exited. Another reason to love her.

“What?”

I bit my lip and took a deep breath. Only Andrew and Caroline knew what I was about to divulge to Nathan. I wasn’t hiding it; I just couldn’t stand the twenty million questions people always had that followed. My ex-family’s words still haunted me. Why would I want to open that up to everyone?

I let out a long breath before speaking. “A few months before my seventeenth birthday, I contacted a children’s law center to be emancipated from my family.”

“Jesus f**king Christ.” Nathan ran his hand through his hair.

“Joan, she was my lawyer… In fact, she was the one who got me interested in law. Anyway, we never made it to court, child services stepped in. Joan knew of a couple who liked to help out teens in situations such as mine, and so I moved to Indianapolis between my junior and senior year and finished out high school here.” My hands twisted in my lap as I went into details of my teenage years that few knew. “Teresa is a sweet loving woman who was very patient with me. She was my first hug.”

“Your first hug?” I could see the wheels turning in his head.

I nodded. “My first real hug since I went to live with my father. Armando worked with me, showing me that what my father and stepbrother did was not how most men behaved. It took me a long time to trust him. I waited for the insults to slip from his lips, but only words of encouragement and caring ever came from him.” A small smile crept onto my lips. “Armando was a bit awkward, but that made him more endearing. Noah was also there, he helped as well.”

“Who’s Noah?”

“Noah lived with Teresa and Armando when I moved in. He’s a year older than me. He had come from a more abusive home than I did. When his dad sent him to the hospital, the law stepped in. He was headed to college that fall; something he never thought he would do. He showed me what a brother was supposed to be like. He was better adjusted than I was to people; he had a better support system.”

Nathan’s expression morphed before my eyes. So many emotions passed over his face as he digested it all. Every bit of pain, anger, and remorse that crossed his face, solidified what kind of a man Nathan was inside. Especially compared to those I grew up with. The emotions he felt were not directed at me, but for me. I could see it in his face; he wanted to hurt those who had hurt me.

“Do you want to know what my favorite Disney movie was?” I asked out of the blue.

He looked up at me with soft eyes, and my heart fluttered. “I want to know anything you want to tell me.”

“Cinderella. I used to pretend I was her and a prince would come and take me away.” A sad smile tugged on my lips. “It was when I was fourteen and Adam kicked me so hard he broke two ribs that my dream came crumbling down. The hospital, of course, believed the story my father told about what happened. He told them we were rough housing when the truth was Adam was pissed off, and I was an available punching bag. It was then I realized if I wanted out, I had to do it myself; no one was going to come rescue me. There was no prince on a white horse.”

When I looked over, Nathan’s fists and jaw were clenched tight. “Did he do that to you often?”

“It was mostly verbal. Yeah, he’d push me into walls every day, but a few times a year he would go off, and I’d be in the hospital again. I was ‘clumsy’ you see. Clumsy Lila hurt herself again. Tripped and fell down the stairs. Can’t walk across a flat surface without falling. Clumsy, clumsy Lila.”

I sat silent and still for a moment to collect myself; I’d been willing the tears away. When I turned to look at Nathan, he was staring at me with sadness and anger. I wasn’t sure how to make it better, so I kept silent.

“Did your father hit you?” he asked through clenched teeth.

My head unconsciously twitched at the thought, and Nathan hissed out a soft “fuck.”

“He would slap me, but he never punched. He couldn’t stand to look at me, and if his eyes met mine, he would snap.”

“Why then?” he asked.

“Because he was staring at his eyes on the face of a woman he slept with once, years before, and he hated her for ruining his life. He hated me.”

“Your mother?”

“She died in a car accident when I was five. Steve, my father, knew about me, but didn’t want anything to do with me. When she died, he was listed as my guardian. I don’t think she ever meant for me to go with him, but her own parents were dead, and she had no other family. I’d never met him before that day.”

I took a deep, shaky breath. It was always hard to talk about my father, a man who held so much contempt for me. “He was married by then, and his wife had a son of her own. They all hated me for disrupting their family. It was the talk of the town because he was prominent in the community, so he couldn’t ditch me once word got out. I wish he had, but they had to think he was the kind of man that did the right thing. So, he took me home and ignored me. He refused to soothe me when I was upset; he would yell and scream instead. He put on his proud father face when out, but when at home, I was left to fend for myself. Child protective services would be all over his ass these days.”

Nathan’s voice was strained, every muscle in his body tense. “How did you survive?”

I snorted. “He taught me independence through neglect. That was probably his downfall.”

His hand reached across the desk to mine. “You did nothing to deserve it. You know that, right?” His thumb was making soothing circles across my fingers.

I knew he wanted to do more, but we couldn’t in the office. It would have to wait.

I nodded as best I could. Words would fail me because I couldn’t agree, not fully, and then he would see through me.