Page 191 of Revv

I don’t answer. My heartbeat is pounding hard enough that I can feel it high in my throat, but Travis seems completely fucking comfortable as he sets his basket down beside his shoe and looks me over like we’ve bumped into each other at some family reunion instead of a grocery store twenty years too fucking soon.

“Been a long time.”

Yeah.

Not long enough.

Memories I’ve spent years burying start crawling back up before I can stop them. That house always smelled like cigarettes even though nobody was technically allowed to smoke inside, with brown carpet, white walls stained yellow around the vents, and a lock on the pantry because Travis liked telling people foster kids stole food.

Lena’s room was across the hall from mine, the bathroom at the end of it. I still remember brushing my teeth beside her that first week, both of us watching each other through the mirror because neither of us knew if the other one was safe yet.

She was younger, small and way too fucking quiet, always checking where the adults were before she let herself relax.

I understood that.

We got good at understanding each other without needing to say much.

Then Travis started paying attention to her.

At first, I thought maybe he was just nicer to girls. He gave her extra snacks, sat too close beside her on the couch, volunteered to drive her places alone and called her sweetheart in this voice that made something inside me crawl long before I was old enough to understand exactly why.

Then one night, I heard her crying through the wall.

Quietly.

Lena never cried loud. Kids in the system learn pretty fucking fast that making noise brings adults, and adults don’t always make things better.

I reported him. More than once.

Told a caseworker I didn’t like the way he went into her room, told another adult Lena didn’t want to be alone with him, and watched them ask all the right questions while doing absolutely fuck all with the answers.

Nothing changed.

There wasn’t enough proof, apparently.

Funny how there’s never enough until somebody gets seriously hurt and everyone starts asking why nobody fucking noticed sooner.

Travis is still talking, but I haven’t heard a word of it. My attention snaps back when his eyes drop to the flowers tucked beneath my arm, and somehow his smile gets wider.

“Got yourself a girlfriend?”

Cold turns hot in my stomach so fast it makes my jaw clench.

“Don’t.”

His smile slips. “What?”

“Don’t fucking talk to me like we know each other.”

My voice comes out lower than I expect, enough that a woman pushing her cart past us glances over. Travis notices too. His eyes flick around the store before his whole expression changes into one I remember way too fucking well.

Calm and patient.

Reasonable foster dad dealing with a difficult kid.

I fucking hated that face.

“Revel, I know things were complicated back then. You kids had already been through a lot.”