Angie frowned. “So, what did you do?”
“I tracked them down.” It had been incredibly easy. They weren’t trying to hide. Not from the government or the rest of the world. Their goal was simple: they wanted to be rid of him.
“Your parents?” She glanced at the family dinner picture on his wall and then back at him. “How long had it been since you’d seen them?”
“Fifteen years.” He looked at the floor as he remembered that horrible day. He usually tried not to think about it, or relive that sense of absolute rejection and fear. “One day I had returned home from school and they were gone.”
She blinked and leaned forward. “I’m sorry, what?”
“My mom and my stepdad had left me.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he felt the heat flood his skin. “There was no note or any contact information. They had taken all their stuff and took off while I was at school.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand.”
“I wasn’t a runaway, Angie,” he said gruffly as he felt the dark emotions welling up inside him. “I was a throwaway. They kicked me out of the family because they didn’t want me. They left and started another life.”
She stared at him. “What did you do? How did you survive?”
“My friends helped me a lot. But there were nights when I had to live on the streets. I kept going to school because it was warm and I could get a meal. It took a while before I got enough jobs and could support myself.”
“Why would your parents leave?”
“My stepfather and I always fought. He was bigger than me and would hit me often. One day he hit me and I hit back hard.” His mouth twisted as he remembered how powerful he had felt. He had believed that his stepfather couldn’t hurt him anymore. How wrong he had been. “The next day my parents were gone.”
“It’s taken you this long to track your mom?”
“No.” He went and sat next to Angie on the sofa. He felt weary and old. Thinking about that time in his life always dragged him down. “I found out her information a long time ago but I didn’t go searching for them. And they definitely weren’t interested in looking for me.”
“They told you that?” she asked, clearly horrified.
“They didn’t have to.” He saw it in their faces when he found them. They asked no questions about him or his life. They just wanted him gone. “But when you talked about moving in, I knew I had to find them and answer some questions.”
“Did they give you any answers?”
“No.” He regretted looking for his mom and stepfather.
Angie was quiet for a few minutes before asking, “Where do they live?”
“Across the country. Virginia.” He shifted as the image of his mom’s new home bloomed in his mind. It was tiny but well-loved. It was a house he would have been grateful to grow up in. “They’re doing better than when I lived with them.”
“I can’t believe your parents didn’t look after you.” Angie curled in closer. She wrapped her arm around his chest. “They messed up. Not you. What mother would do that?”
“My mother never wanted me. I was an accident.” She had ranted about it so many times. How his biological father abandoned them when she got pregnant. How no man wanted her because he was part of the package. How he had better not mess it up with his stepfather. “I was a mistake that changed the course of her life.”
“You’re not a mistake.” Angie leaned her head against his shoulder. “When your parents left you to fend for yourself? That’s a mistake. That’s a crime.”
“I survived.” Barely. There were times when he wanted to give up, but pride kept him going. He had been determined to show his parents that he could take care of himself. He had carried the fantasy that his parents would eventually come crawling back to him begging for forgiveness.
“Why didn’t you tell me when you found them?” Angie asked. “You didn’t need to keep it a secret.”
“All this time I thought they were incapable of loving anyone. But I was wrong. They were incapable of loving me. There was something wrong with me.”
She pressed her hand against his chest. “That’s not true. Don’t ever think that.”
“It is true. I know because when I tracked them down, my mother was still married to my stepfather. They were happy and doing well.” The pain tightened his throat and it hurt to tell the rest of the story. “And they had more children.”