Then he tells me another one underneath the setting sun. “My mom lost me a couple of times, but not before that bad foster home placement. She left me alone in our apartment for a couple of weeks, and then there was an eviction notice on the door when she finally came back. She told me her life was too chaotic—that she had to give me up. But just for a little while….until she settled and found a place for us. She dropped me off in front of Children’s Services. Told me she’d be back, but, of course, that was a fucking lie. She never came back. Didn’t even visit.”

He’s thirty-four. That’s something else I know now. Not even a decade older than me. But he looks as weary as a man twice his age.

Oh, Waylon. I step forward and wrap my arms around him, my chest aching for him. I remember thinking that the kids who still believed—the ones who held on to the hope of being reunited with a less fucked-up version of the parents who lost them had it the worst. Their hearts didn’t just get broken. They were decimated.

I hug him. Hug the boy inside of him who was betrayed by the only person he had left on Earth. But I have to tell him, “I’m not your mom. Just like you’re not my dad.”

He hugs me back, burying his nose in my hair. “I know, and I want to believe you….

He draws back and says, “Fuck, angel. You see this house—this town. I want to give you everything and anything you want.”

He shakes his head. “But trust…I’m not built like that. I’m just not. And if you run again, there’s no guarantees I’ll be able to hunt you down this time. I’ll get you anything else—anything else but that. Whatever you want, just tell me.”

I look at him…I look at this crazy, broken man who somehow helped me heal my most embedded wounds, and my heart cracks with a new realization.

He’s helped me so much, but I can’t help him get over his trust issues. He won’t let me.

“That’s too bad,” I say, swallowing down a lump in my throat. “That’s too bad because the only thing I want is your trust. That’s the only thing on my list right now.”

And it doesn’t matter how bad I feel for him. I have to leave him there standing by the pond and walk back into the house. The dream prison he made for me.