Ruined Vows Read Online Stasia Black

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Dark, Suspense Tags Authors: Stasia Black Advertisement1

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“After a while, you’re just not adoptable anymore. So I tried to stay wherever I got put and keep to myself as much as possible. Just counting the days till I was eighteen. I wasn’t good at school or anything, and the foster family I was with the last couple of years of high school kicked me out on my birthday midway through senior year. I went into the Army so I didn’t end up on the streets. Lots of kids did.”

“Isaak…” She reaches out for my hand, but I pull it away.

“You asked, so I told you. I’m not looking for sympathy.” My voice comes out gruffer than I mean for it to. “It is what it is.”

“Yeah, but… That’s a lot for a little kid to process. Have you ever gone to therapy?”

I guffaw. “Jesus, now you think I need a shrink?”

“Uh, yeah. I think everyone could use a good therapist. It’s kind of my whole deal. Therapy is just someone to talk to about stuff. What’s wrong with that? Surely, as a veteran, there are resources available⁠—”

Now I guffaw even louder. “Damn, you really are just a kid, huh?”

She pulls back, fire in her eyes. “I am not.”

“Well, you obviously are if you keep saying dumb shit like thinking anyone gives a shit about veterans beyond an occasional bullshit Thank you for your service here or there. I think I’ll take my pizza to go.”

I walk over to the counter, where I grab a to-go box and dump my slices in, tearing off another ragged bite of the half-eaten piece I was working on. Telling me to go to fucking therapy. Don’t fucking ask about my goddamn childhood if you’re just gonna tell me that shit.

Kira continues eating her salad and pizza slice where she’s sitting. She pulls out earbuds and plays something on her phone while she eats peacefully and I stand steaming in the corner like a dumb ox. I feel stupid for storming off while she maturely eats her food and listens to music or probably a smart podcast or some shit.

Have I ever gone to therapy? Phsh. I mean, technically, I have, though they called it counseling back then when I was a kid.

For a while, I’d go to this lady’s office, and she’d ask how I was feeling after I beat the shit out of another kid at the group home. It was mandatory for six months. I never said a word the whole time. ’Cause I might have been eleven, but I already knew that shit was rigged.

Adults didn’t give a fuck, not really. They came in and out and made sympathetic faces sometimes. But they couldn’t even hack it in their dumb jobs. The good ones lasted a year, maybe two. The corrupt ones made a career out of it.

So it was up to us kids to form our own packs. That’s why I beat the shit out of Tucker. He was fourteen and thought he could pick on the younger kids. I’d always been big for my age and had learned how to throw a punch out of necessity in my second year in the system.

I drag a hand through my hair. There’s a reason I don’t like thinking about any of this shit anymore. I did my time in the system, and then, as soon as I finally got my freedom ticket at eighteen… I went into another, even more regimented, even more violent system. Where they gave us guns and sent us to places where people planted bombs in the road.

Fuck. I yank another peppermint candy out of my pocket, unwrap it, and shove it in my mouth.

But I’m free now. And I got off way easier than plenty I know. So I’m not gonna whine about how good I got it to some starch-shirt head-doctor-in-training who’s got no clue half the shit I went through.

I nod hard, even though I’m arguing with no one except myself. ’Cause none of this shit made me crazy at all, see? See?

“You ready?” Kira asks, suddenly popping up in front of me. She startles the shit out of me, which means I’ve been slacking on the job. I’m supposed to be watching her six.

Her voice softens. “Hey, you okay? I’m sorry for what I said back there. It was wrong of me to intrude and then offer advice once you’d actually opened up and were finally sharing. It’s a vocational habit. Always trying to solve everyone’s problems.

“I don’t got any problems,” I grouse. “I’m fine.”

I nod and spin, shoving through the door and trying to do a better job of being aware of our surroundings.

TWENTY-EIGHT

KIRA

Oh suuuuuuuuuuure. He’s fine.

He’s so fine he doesn’t say a single word on the ride home. He’s extra fine. Well, I mean, he is extra fine, but he’s clearly not fine. And no wonder with such a chaotic childhood. I decided that while early childhood health and developmental psychology would be an excellent field to go into, it wasn’t for me.


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