I rode the elevator up to the apartment, running inside to grab my wallet before running back out. Derek stepped aside as I rushed into the elevator with a box in his hands. I didn’t even stop to talk, I waved and he waved back. I’d stopped at the bank to get Colleen’s money. I filled out the withdrawal form and went to the teller. She handed me back and envelope, which I tucked safely in my pocket. I glanced at the receipt the teller gave me and stumbled. I raced back up to the counter.

“Sorry, there’s something wrong,” I said, sliding the paper across the counter. “My balance is way wrong,” I said, jabbing my finger at the Available Balance line. “While I would love to have all these zeroes in my account, they don’t belong to me.” I’d heard enough stories about people going out of their minds and spending money like crazy when something like this happens and then promptly going to jail.

“Are you sure?” she asked, her keyboard clacking as she typed away.

“Completely. As much as I’d like it to be, this balance is definitely not mine.”

“It’s not a glitch. Not that I can tell. There was a deposit made in your name earlier today,” she looked up at me expectantly, like it would have just slipped my mind that someone deposited the wealth of a small nation into my account.

“Made by whom?”

“It says it came from Thornton-Smith.”

“I don’t know who the hell that is. And this isn’t my money.” I checked my phone for the time. I needed to get this money to Colleen now. I needed to get her out of the city now. Then I could deal with whatever the hell happened here. “Can you have someone look into this? I need to get it fixed.”

“Okay, Ms. Bright, I’ll have someone look at it and give you a call.”

“Okay, thanks.” I said, rushing out of the bank and heading across the river to the address Colleen gave me, carrying more money than I’d ever had in my life, tucked into my bag. Please don’t get mugged. “Please don’t get mugged.” That was my mantra as I hopped off the train. Colleen sat leaned up against the wall of the bus terminal, smoking a cigarette, blowing a cloud of smoke over everyone who passed by.

“Here,” I said, shoving the envelope at her. “It’s all there. Take it and leave. This is it. I don’t want you coming here again.”

“Why thanks, daughter of mine. You got that pretty quickly, maybe I should have asked for more,” she said, laughing at a joke that was only funny to her. My hatred for her ran deeper than anything I’d ever experienced, more than anything I ever want to experience. Because if someone or something could generate more hate than I had for Colleen, I’d better be dead or they’d be.

“Colleen,” I warned. I didn’t need her making a habit out of this.

“Fine, fine. I don’t want to come out here again anyway. You never appreciated the things I did for you. Always so ungrateful. If I’d known you were going to be such a hassle, I’d have let those uptight assholes adopt you when they wanted to,” she said, stubbing her cigarette out on the wall and flicking the butt on the ground. My mind froze as I processed her words. Adopt. Me.

She pushed off from the wall and walked toward the buses. I couldn’t move. Everything that happened to me after I left my home with the Ashers flashed through my mind. Every night going to bed without food. Every tease and taunt because of my dirty clothes, every night I locked myself in my room because of the way Colleen’s many visitors stared at me. And worst of all, the day I ran away, after finally figuring out where Shannon and Ben lived.

I wasn’t more than eight when I had yet another visit from a case worker. Even after all that time, I still wanted to go back. I missed them, even though the betrayal burned bright. I knew if I could just see them again they would fix everything. I begged anyone who would listen to let me go back, but the court ruled that my mom was a fit parent. She told them everything I said was all lies, the ravings of a child who just didn’t want to live with her. They branded me a liar and a troublemaker.

Since I’d slipped away from Shannon that day and the police had been called, I was not to be placed back with them. What a load of crap that was. During our meeting, the social worker stepped out to take a call, and I glanced at my case file sitting on the table. I checked the door and flipped the folder open. Flipping through the many, many pages in the file I found what I looked for. I found the address. I scribbled it down on a piece of paper and closed the folder.

I looked up the address when I went to school and figured out how to get there. Two buses, followed by a three-mile walk in the pelting rain, and I was back at the house. My home. Peacefulness settled over me. Even in the freezing rain I was happy. It was like everything would finally be okay. I’d finally be okay. I knocked on the door and music drifted out from the kitchen. I slipped around the side and peeked in the window. Shannon was singing off key as she always did, standing in front of the stove. Ben came walking in with a mug in his hand and gave her a kiss.

I smiled, even out there in the freezing rain it made me so happy to see it hadn’t all been in my mind. It was real. They were real. I lifted my hand to knock on the glass, when a blur came racing into the kitchen, jumping into Ben’s arms. He put his mug down and picked her up. A little girl. Another little girl. It was too long. I’d been gone too long.

Pain sliced through me like I’d been run through with a knife. It hurt deep down in my soul, like someone ripped away the last lifeline I had as a drowning victim. I don’t know how long I stood out there, but it was long enough for me to be soaked through and frozen to the bone. I don’t even know if it was the rain that did it. I’d been replaced.

My life had been taken over by someone else, and now all I had left was the one I was running from. It would never get better than this. I’d made one mistake, one little thing that sent ripples through my life and the lives of everyone around me and destroyed it all. Smashed it into a million small fragments that couldn’t be put together again.

As I stood there, the chill of the air was nothing compared to the icy barbs I shot at her. I stared at Colleen, feeling like it was a lifetime ago that I’d run from her, never wanting to look back. She stood in front of me as the broken woman who gave birth to me gloat that she’d ruined the one good thing I had when I was growing up. The fire burned in my eyes as tears formed and pooled. Her head whipped around so fast, it wasn’t until the sting traveled up my arm, burning my palm, that I realized I had smacked her.

“Don’t you ever speak to me again,” I said, my voice full of venom and anger. “You are not my mother. You’ve never been my mother. And I swear, if I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.” I shook with so much rage, I didn’t know how I could walk straight. I longed to be back in my bed. No. I wanted to be back in his bed. Back in Rhys’s bed, in his arms, because there I felt like all things were possible. Like the world wasn’t a horrible place and like I finally belonged.