Coming Home (Only Time Will Tell #1)

by Caroline Spencer

  “That, you do, I almost forgot.”

  “Woah, woah, woah,” Ryan interjects and grabs my wrist to remove my hand from hers, smiling at us both. “This woman hasn’t danced with me all night, I think I need to get at least the last one in.”

  My shoulders slump on the spot. “What am I meant to do? I’ve just been dumped on the dance floor.”

  Ryan looks behind me and I know that someone is there, but I can tell by the lack of spark, it isn’t Kyle. “I’m sure someone will offer.”

  On cue, someone’s hand is placed against my back. Looking over my shoulder I smile at a good looking man with his blond hair slicked over like Kyle has his, and although good looking, isn’t lighting any fireworks. And that suits me to a “T.”

  “Do you want to dance?” he asks in a smooth and charming voice, his eyes sparkling with interest.

  Turning, I grab his hand. “Sure, why not?”

  His hands rest against my back as I move mine to his shoulders. It feels strange. All evening I’ve had Kyle grabbing hold of me or touching me and he sends my pulse raising every time; to have someone touch me and for my body to do nothing, it feels surreal.

  Swaying to the music, I enjoy this. Just dancing with a guy and no added complications. That task is saved for tomorrow.

  As we slowly turn around in our little circle the dancing lights on the ceiling cast spotlights on the remaining guests. Just before he goes out of view, a light swings over Kyle’s face sat at the side of the dance floor, shrouded in darkness. The stare he shot my way gives me chills.

  With each painstakingly slow step, I dread seeing his face again and seeing that look. Making our turn back around, it’s not his face I can see though, it was the back of Penelope, her unmistakably harsh blond bob shining in the light.

  My gut clenches.

  Watching them as I dance with a nobody.

  Every time I’m turned and he falls out of view I am thankful, but at the same time, eager to see them again. I don’t know why, I just am. I don’t like that she is so close to him.

  On one turn I watch in slow motion as Kyle placed his hands against her hips, his fingers digging into her skin. Looking up at him, I find him looking my way, he knows I’m watching and that I’d see it.

  Bastard.

  When the song finally ends I pull away and smile at the guy and feel awkward not knowing what to say, because I’ve said nothing the whole time. I was too busy watching. As casually as possible I look back at Penelope and Kyle and wish I hadn’t. Seeing her on her tiptoes, kissing the guy I love and the guy I want, tears chunks out of me.

  Sucking in a breath I look back at dancing guy and say, “Thank you for the dance but I’m ready to leave. It was nice to meet you, though.”

  He smiles down at me and replies, “My names, Roger. If you’d like I can drop you off.”

  The quickest route out of here would be the best option. “Thanks. I’m Catalina, by the way. I would be grateful if you could. I’m just going to say goodbye to my friends.”

  “No problem. I’ll see you in a minute.”

  I nod and fight the urge to look back. I just need to walk.

  I find Nadine and Ryan at the side, talking to each other rather intimately and it doesn’t feel right disturbing them so I rush to the bathroom to gather my senses. I hate this night. It was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have told him to go on another date. I shouldn’t have ran away from the dance floor. I shouldn’t have done a lot of things.

  The stalls are locked as I enter, but it doesn’t matter, I just need air. Resting my hands against the sink I look at myself in the mirror and wonder what the hell is looking back at me. I doesn’t even look like me. I can see the strain in my eyes.

  The door of the bathroom creaks as it opens and closes. I don’t look away from my own reflection but the teal flash of color was unmistakable behind me. “Catalina. I told you to stay away from Kyle, why can’t you do as I ask?”

  “Where’s the fun in that? It’s a hell of a lot more fun to see the steam coming out your nose.”

  She forcefully laughs. A high pitched sound coming out of her mouth that only dogs would hear. “How very childish. Although, by the look of Kyle and Penelope, you’re finally forgotten. I do like it when a plan comes together regardless of the setbacks that try and get in the way.”

  “Setbacks?” I laugh as I turn and look at her, my hands clenching against the porcelain. Who’d have thought that I’d finally try and stand up to this woman, even if I fail, I’m trying. Back then I would have cowered away and left. I wouldn’t have done as she’d asked but I would have gotten out of this kind of situation. With the revelation that’s come to light, this woman makes me want to fight single handedly against World War Three. She might have won us over that time. But not any more. “I haven’t come here for Kyle, I came here to have a good night with my friends. I don’t think I walked over to Kyle once, he found me.”

  “That may be so, but it was you who won the auction. How you’ll afford that kind of money is a wonder. You’ll probably have to work extra nights on the streets, not that any man would want you.”

  I don’t know what I’ve done in a past life but it must have been the evilest of crimes to put this bitch in my life. Straightening my spine I suck in a breath, hoping that I can prove her words haven’t cut me, even though they feel like stab wounds. “Where I get my money from is nothing to do with you. All you need to know is I can afford to pay for my bid and everything else tonight. I don’t owe anything.” I know it’s all a complete lie but I’m not having her thinking she’s won.

  “Whatever, dear. Might I just add, before I leave, that you can stick the prettiest bow around a garbage can, but it’ll still hold all the trash, and you’re no exception. Kyle will thank me one day. He’ll look back on the infatuation he had with you and laugh at how ridiculous it was.”

  It takes some gentle persuasion but Nod eventually allows me to leave with a complete stranger. I get her point that it isn’t safe but Ryan assured her that Roger is a good guy and I promise to call her the moment I get home.

  Roger kindly gives me his business card when I’m dropped off and asks me to call him, but that goes straight in the trash as soon as I walk in the apartment. I’ve had enough of his kind for one evening, maybe a life time. I just give up on them, they are useless. Okay, not all. Okay, not even Kyle. But, he knew how to mess with my head, my feelings, everything. But it fuels my plan for tomorrow. If he was hanging over Penelope I could tell him and save my heart a little bit.

  Walking in to the bedroom I place my purse on the chair by the window and then go to the dresser to remove my earrings, banging my thigh into a drawer that I’d left open as I had rummaged for a decent set of underwear upon noticing the dress was practically see through. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, you stupid piece of shit!” I swear as I dance around uneasily, clutching my thigh against the throb. I gather the dress in my hands and look at the reddening flesh and slight graze it has caused.

  The door of the bedroom swings open as Kyle barges in looking terrified. “Cat, are you okay?” he asks as he comes over in a couple of strides, grabbing me by the shoulders and straightening me back up.

  “Of course I’m fine. I banged my leg, what the hell did you think had happened?” Wriggling free of his grasp, I feel anger crawling within me.

  “You don’t want to know,” he sighs. “They told me you’d left with that guy and when I get here you’re swearing like that—which is disgusting by the way—I just envisioned the worst. I’m sorry for worrying.” He laughs sarcastically.

  “You shouldn’t even be here any way. What do you want?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay. I tried your phone but it’s off, I couldn’t help but come over.” he says, gradually getting more irate. “Is it such a bad thing that I actually give a shit about your safety? I know you don’t care about me but at least give me some credit.”

  “Credit?” I shout as the anger
takes hold and I see red. This is the guy who was locking lips with that blond bimbo. “Why the hell would I? When I left, you were all over Penelope, and you want me to give you credit?”

  “Yes!” he shouts throwing his hands in the air from frustration. “It doesn’t mean I don’t care, Cat. It’s not like you weren’t preoccupied. That guy, a complete stranger, comes over asks you to dance and you do. I try and get you to dance and it’s like I’ve just asked you to kill the entire room.”

  Is that what this is about? Is that why he was glaring at me, because he thinks he makes my skin crawl? “It was a fucking dance! I wasn’t all over him, kissing him—that was you. If you’d have come over I’m pretty sure I would have.”

  “No you wouldn’t! You can’t wait to get away from me, it’s always the case! Quick to get rid of me and put as much distance between us as possible. As for the kiss, she kissed me, I was stupid to let her and let it go on for as long as I did. I just wanted to make you jealous. If I could take it back I would. Hell, I’d have dragged the guy away from you because I don’t want anyone else touching you.”

  I want to lash out, to scream at him but that wouldn’t be fair on the neighbors, so I start to take the grips out of my hair, which means I take it out on my scalp as I drag and pull them from the knots and tangles. “You would say that! You wouldn’t admit to kissing her. Just go back to her and make your Mom happy. She was more than impressed that you were all over her and not me,” I seethe, squinting as I pull a grip out along with hair that I’d prefer on my head.

  “What the hell does my Mom have to do with this?”

  “You’d be surprised how much. That woman hates me, you just fail to see it. Between you and her this evening has been close to the worst in my life.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t make out that our problems are because of her. Why can’t you just admit you hate me,” he spits, leaning closer, getting in my face and knocking me for six—as my Mom liked to say.

  All I can hear is my pulse hammering in my neck and the sound of his breathing, hot and heavy as it burns like fire over my face. I hate that this is what we’ve become. I take a huge gulp of air and attempt to steadily inform him that I. Do. Not. Hate. You. But I can’t get my throat to clear of the anger. “I feel tons of things for you and hate is not one of them.”

  “Bull. Shit.”

  As I grind my teeth I place my hands against his chest and firmly push him away from me. He backs up and gives me all the room I need. Walking steadily to the bed I crouch down and drag out a box from underneath and grab the book on top. “Sit.”

  His jaw twitches and I can see his pulse jumping in neck. But follows my hand and sits on the bed.

  “When I packed my life up to move back here I decided that the only things I needed were the things I needed in life and things that I held close to my heart. I grabbed some family photos and put a little album together of them on their own and at family events. Things I could use when I missed them. I found photo albums from middle school and high school as I hunted through everything, and although they’re my memories, they’re things that I don’t need to hold on to and so I left them there.

  “Then I came to this,” I say as I throw the book I’ve been holding in his lap and he looks at it, his fingers tracing the lettering and patterns on the front cover of the scrapbook that I made in the first few months of living over there. “Inside that, is our life. Every photo I took or I could get hold of is inside that book. And even though I hadn’t spoken to you in years and believed you’d forgotten about me, I still needed that. I needed to look at you and remember some of the good times in my life. I missed you and figured I’d never see you again, and regardless of trying to hate you for abandoning me, I couldn’t let go.”

  “Some of the best moments of my life are in that book because they were with you. So don’t tell me I hate you. If anything I’m still in love with you, but as people, we have changed and I need to know that the Kyle I’m in love with is still in there.”

  He doesn’t say anything, just shrugs out of his jacket, placing it at the foot of the bed and opens the cover, staring at each picture intently, his head twisting as he reads the little messages I wrote around the side before turning to the next page and doing the same thing.

  With him occupied, I head to the bathroom and slip out of the dress and put on an old shirt to sleep in and walk back to the bedroom, still in my heels—such a fashion statement.

  Sitting on the bed and leaning against the pillows I lift my foot to the bed to unclasp them, but as I do Kyle scoots over and places the scrapbook on the bed, taking hold of my foot and twisting me around to undo them for me.

  Carefully placing a hand around my calf he slips each vice from around feet and I can’t help groaning at the feeling of release. His mouth tips up into a lopsided smile as he looks at me with hooded eyes. “Anything else need coming—”

  My wrist is in front of his face before he can even think about finishing the sentence.

  “Anything else?”

  “No, thank you,” I sigh as I wriggle into the pillows. “Have you finished?” I ask pointing to the book.

  He grabs it and comes and joins me, lying beside me, crossing his legs at the ankles and getting comfortable. “Not even close. I think you need to remind me about some of these though. If it wasn’t for the pictures I’d swear that I wasn’t there.”

  My reasoning behind taking photographs.

  He picks up where he left off and looks at each page like he’s memorizing a treasure map. “Where was this?” He asks, pointing to a strip of photo booth pictures.

  “I think,” I start, leaning over him to look at the glittering notes just to make sure. “That was at that arcade we went to not long after you broke up with Melissa. You said you wanted to get out the house and you just drove,” I laugh. “I like that one the best,” I say pointing to the last one. I’m making a stupid face like we’d planned to, but he wasn’t when the photograph took. He’s just gazing at me and smiling. A soft gentle smile that now, looking back, should have been a big clue into his break up. I was young, stupid and blind to him. I believed we were just friends and nothing special compared to the other girls around him and especially not his ex, who was the most popular girl in my year. She hated me when she found out, but I couldn’t tell him to go against his heart. I tried, to start with, but he wouldn’t listen.

  “You look like a goof ball,” he laughs.

  “That was the plan, it’s not my fault your timing was wrong.”

  He flicks to the next page and the next until his arm laces around me to pull me closer and the book is nestled between us as we relive our old memories.

  They were good times.

  After I’ve turned the last page I pick my head up off his chest and gaze at him, if anything, thankful for the last couple of hours. “Don’t ever think I hate you, Kyle. I tried that and failed.”

  He nods and then places his lips against my forehead. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

  “Me too. Maybe in future, we could try and not get in each others faces over stuff we can talk out. I haven’t been trying to avoid you I just—”

  “I know,” he interrupts. “I know what people say about me and I know that’s hard for you to hear because I’ve changed, but I just stopped caring. You left and then we lost contact. I decided I wasn’t going to hurt like that again. If I don’t care, I won’t hurt.”

  That’s not what I was about to say. “I’ve noticed. From this moment, I’m going to try and not believe everything I hear,” I say.

  “Good.” He says brightly as he gives me a quick kiss on the nose and scoots to the edge of the bed and gets up. He crouches down and lowers the book but stops and his eyebrows screw up as he picks something up.

  “What’s up?” I ask confused.

  “This,” he says lifting another scrapbook that’s decorated exactly the same as the one I made for him but instead of his name decorating it, it says Kody.

 
; I never knew I could move as fast as I did in that second as I lunged from the bed and grabbed it out of his hands, hugging it to my chest. My legs feeling weak, blood pumping in my ears like I have a marching band inside my head. “Sorry, I just don’t want you looking through this,” I say, my hands shaking as I clutch onto it for dear life.

  “Clearly,” he snarls. “Have you got one for every guy you’ve been with?”

  What. The. Fuck. “Excuse me?” my voice breaking.

  “You heard me. Here’s me thinking that we had something special and you have a scrapbook for every guy who’s come into your life?”

  I want to be sick. I don’t even care if I am, I’ll clear the mess up. “That’s not the case,” I stutter.

  He gets up and grabs his jacket off the bed. “You know what, Cat. I’m done. You’re acting like I’m the bad guy and someone who can’t be trusted and yet you’re the one twisting the past into something it’s not. This is me protecting my heart. Go and find Kody and hold him. Tell him how special he is, I’m out of here.”

  I can’t even shout anything as he leaves. He has no idea how much those words hurt me. He has no idea what he’s just said and if I could do what he said, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

  I don’t care how old you get. When life feels shitty, the only person who can pick you up is your Mom. I don’t know what I’d have done without mine, or my Dad, but I think my Mom helped me more than anything through my toughest times. She knew what it felt like—to some degree.

  I couldn’t get home fast enough after work, rushing out the door the moment the clock hit five so I could get home and call her. I really need this to survive.

  The screen lights up with my Mom’s face and I breathe a sigh of relief that she’s still an addict when it comes to Facebook gaming. “Hey, Sweetie, you just caught me, I was just going to bed.” She yawns.