Ours To Be (All Ours, #1)

Chapter 43

NO smut in this one, loves. Just continues off of the last chapter so you can read the last part to catch up a little as a little reminder of everything if needed. Enjoy!

Kayden

''That depends. Are you okay with having someone very stupid that got his little sister into a terrible accident which left her physically disabled for years- maybe forever, as your boyfriend?''

My heart soars and I can feel the blood over my body run completely cold. I'm suddenly lightheaded.

Why the fuck did I just do that?

Because she completely poured her heart out to me and it's the least I can do.

Her mouth falls open and her forehead crinkles in a way that's telling me she's trying not to show the amount of shock she's feeling. ''Uh...''

''Yeah,'' I sigh weakly.

''How,'' her fist goes to her mouth as she clears her throat. ''How did that even happen?''

Better get it all out now that the cats out the bag. ''Up until I was about... seventeen-eighteen, my family was broke.'' I start, ignoring the uncomfortable jolts overtaking me. ''Like, dead-fucking-broke. The concept of having money to spend on anything other than bills and groceries was foreign for us. But it was all we knew and were around in our neighborhood so it wasn't like I knew what I was missing out on. It was bargain markets outlets, Adli's, black markets and Dollar Tree's for most of my life. My father was a delivery guy and my Mom cleaned elderly people's apartments for them a couple of times a week. Making nothing near enough to get us out of East L.A.''

Her eyes soften in what I assume is compassion so I turn my abrupt barbed eyes back out the window, watching a Volvo drive out the complex's back entrance. I don't need pity, I just need her to know that the person I used to be would've never treated her the way I'm trying to treat her now.

''I tried helping wherever I could but it was hard with school and trying to get accepted into college for my business degree... But then my mother got laid off work when a white lady noticed her hatbox missing some jewelry. So when the company she was working for got word of that, of course the Colombian cleaning help gets the blame without even an investigation. That's when shit really went south,'' I divulge. ''Eviction notices were dropping left and right, the fridge was empty and Cassie was not even ten years old, so I knew I had to do something. It started off with selling cheap cigarettes this friend of mine got me, but those soon turned into soft drugs, soft drugs did fucking amazing so I got in contact with this guy that supplied me with some hard drugs, like, very nasty shit- and yeah, it wasn't ideal or what I wanted for myself, fuck no. But it kept us going so I just paid off a lot of shit behind my parents' back and never let them question me on it. And they never did. I think they knew, but a part of them was just scared of the answer and it becoming a reality to them.''

I don't tell her who that guy was, or how bad it really was- this shit is fucking hard. Damn. I was ankle-deep in horseshit and I just don't need her hating me for the dumb choices I made as a teenager. Not more than she's gonna hate me for this one.

''When my father finally found someone willing to invest in the label corporation he had been trying to set up since his freshman year of college, he grew... overnight. I mean, it didn't go that fast, sure, but it felt like I was just living the life I was used to one day and then not even twenty-four hours later, I'm in this gated community, surrounded by these rich white boys in their khakis, driving around in Ferraris of all the colors in the rainbow. I was fucking starstruck. But most of all, I was livid. So fucking angry at the fact that my parents had changed into these people I felt like I didn't know anymore. Anything I'd done in the last two years wasn't even being acknowledged. They just acted like their seventeen year old hadn't been paying gas and rent, or coming home with bags of groceries all that time. My Mom wasn't as bad as my Dad. She still has that motherly warmth, like she knew everything and wanted to protect me from it all. But I didn't recognize my own father. He turned into this stuck-up asshole that wanted nothing but respect and power, and so he tried damn hard to fit into the whole L.A, Californian business scene. It would have been fucking pathetic, hadn't it actually worked.''