Gypsy

Chapter 35

·Adam·

I hold my breath and wait. I'd had no expectations for what would happen once we reached the top of that death trap on the side of this building, so her words catch me completely off guard. I try not to react to them, but my arms tighten around her just a little anyway.

"You want to sit down?" she asks. "This might take a little while."

"Whatever you want to do, I'm good with." She pulls from my embrace and I fight the urge to pull her back into it. Instead, I swap it for holding her hand.

She leads me over to an old air conditioning unit, it's mechanical voice silenced forever by time and neglect. She takes a seat on the tarred roof's surface, then leans her back against the unit's battered side, still looking out over a cityscape that is as foreign to me as the surface of Mars.

I sit down beside her, then slip my arm behind her and around her waist. She stiffens slightly for just a second then relaxes again. She's gotten better with my occasionally touching her, but every time I am still relieved when she doesn't pull away.

For a long time, we just sit in silence. I know she's thinking and I'm content to wait until she's ready to voice whatever's on her mind.

"You know," she finally begins, her tone soft, just barely more than a whisper, "once upon a time I had a good life, a good home. I had a dad named Sean who thought I hung the moon. I had a bedroom, with warm blankets, pretty dolls, and soft teddy bears. My dad would read me stories every night before I went to sleep."

There is a tightness to her voice, as if what little she's said so far has been too much. I have a feeling this is a story she's not told many times, more because the retelling hurts her deeply than for any other reason.

"What about your mom?" I ask softly, unsure whether or not my question will be welcome.

She laughs and shakes her head, but there isn't a shred of humor in the sound.

"My mother. Now there's a story." Her tone has hardened noticeably at the mention of her mother, and remains that way as she continues. "My folks weren't together by the time I was born. If my mother had had her way, I'd be dead."

I turn to look at her when she says that, but she continues to look out over the city.

"She wasn't exactly the settling type. She and my dad hooked up a few times. I think he wanted more than that, but she didn't. When she found out about me, she immediately wanted to get rid of the problem. But my dad talked her out of it; said he'd take me, raise me, and she'd never have to worry about helping in any way. She took him up on his offer.

"The day we left the hospital, she handed me over to him, then went on about her life as if I'd never existed."

"That's awful."

Zara lets out a sigh and shrugs her shoulders but doesn't look at me. "It turned out okay. My dad loved me enough for the both of them."

"What happened to him?" I know I'm pushing, even though I'm trying not to, but I can't seem to keep the muzzle on my mouth.

"He died when I was eight. Forklift accident at work."

I tighten my arm around her a little when she falls silent after that. I wait patiently for her to continue, knowing in my heart how hard it had been for her to tell me that. When she finally speaks again, her tone is hollow, as if the part of her story that had included her father was the only part that held any true emotion for her.

"The state found my mother and sent me to live with her. That only lasted a couple months, a lot longer than I think she wanted it to. During those long months, she never wasted a chance to tell me how she felt about me. She didn't love me, didn't want me, and to hear her tell it, I ruined her life. That's a hard thing to hear when you're only eight and heartbroken over your father's death."