by Chloe Walsh
“I chose you when I was ten,” I replied sadly. “It’s always been you for me.”
“Then be with me,” he whispered against my lips. His hands were in my hair. His body was pressed to mine. “Just be with me.”
Cade was my best friend and I had loved him since childhood.
How could I say anything other than yes – even if that meant lying to his face?
ALMOST A WEEK HAD PASSED since I last saw Mackenzie, touched her in the flesh, and it was taking every ounce of self-control I had inside of me to stay in my house and not go to her – to not blast in and snatch her away. My patience was running thin on the ground though and every unanswered text message I sent caused anxiety to build inside of my body.
Me: Can I come over later? I need to see you.
I got that Mackenzie needed time with her father, but it sure as hell wasn’t easy staying away and doing nothing. The only thing that was keeping me sane and inside the four walls of this house was the fact that I knew she was safe with Mitch.
Me: We could take the bike out for a ride? Let me know…
I needed to write an epic fucking text message, but every time I put my fingers on the keys I came up blank.
Me: Kenzie, please… just answer me, baby. I’m going batshit crazy here. x
Finally, after what felt like forever, my phone vibrated in my hands. Quickly, I keyed in my password and opened the message.
Kenz: Sorry, I can’t meet you today, Cade. I have an appointment later, and Dad wants us to spend some quality time together…
My gaze locked on the message that had appeared on my phone and my brow furrowed in confusion.
Me: With the shrink?
Was Kenzie seeing Dr. Rosetta again? After the stunt she had pulled last week? What the hell was Mitch thinking letting that whack job anywhere near her?
Kenz: Something like that…
Something was up. Kenzie wasn’t a hidden meaning type of girl – she had never been one of those girls…
Me: What aren’t you telling me?
She better not lie to me, I thought to myself. I could always read her like a book. I would know.
Kenz: …?
I had to swallow the urge to roar with impatience as I quickly tapped out another text.
Me: I need to see you today. Even if it’s only for a minute…x
Seconds later my phone pinged.
Kenz: I’ll try. x
I exhaled in relief and just like that, all of the tension that had been building inside of me began to seep away.
“Cade, you better make tracks or you’ll be late for school.”
My fingers froze on my phone as my mother’s words broke through my reverie and registered in my brain. “Are you serious?”
Turning around, I faced my mother. She was standing in the doorway of my childhood bedroom, dressed in her work scrubs, with her face plastered in makeup.
Mom’s face caved in for a moment before she quickly masked her features with a fake smile. “You still have finals to study for.” She busied herself with dressing my bed. “Graduation is less than a month away,” she rambled, shaking out my duvet before placing it back down on my old twin bed. “You need to keep up your attendance if you still plan on playing college...”
“After everything that happened you’re worried about school?” Sure I was showered and dressed, but hell, school was the last thing on my mind. It was way down on my list of priorities right now. All I was concerned about was what was happening in the house next door.
Mom shook her head. “We have to carry on as usual,” she managed to choke out. “And that means school for you and work for me. Ezra is downstairs waiting on you.”
“Mom.” I shook my head in disgust, but knowing my friend was down stairs kept me from raising my voice. “Nothing is ever going to be normal again.”
“Mitch will come around,” she replied, nodding frantically. “He’s upset right now, but he’ll change his mind.”
“It’s been over a week, Mom,” I tossed out. “And beside tossing everything we own onto our porch he hasn’t come around,” I offered, knowing deep in my heart that Mitch Moore wasn’t going to change his mind and have my mother back. And worse, I didn’t blame the man. Not at all.
“He will,” my mother whispered before rushing from the room.
“YOU FUCKING IDIOT.” Those were the first words to come out of my best friend’s mouth in first period Chemistry, when I filled him in on all the gory details. I came to school because it was better than staying at home and not seeing Mackenzie…or worse, listening to my mother whining over her failed marriage.
“What happened to taking your time with Kenzie?”
I opened my mouth to answer my best friend, but came up empty.
I didn’t have any excuses.
All I had was a pain in my heart and a burning urge to burst into the house next door and claim my girl. “You don’t fucking get it, Z,” I finally said. Raising my head, I looked around to see if anyone was within earshot before leaning towards his desk and whispering, “No one gets it. Kenzie’s inside of me… somehow – and hell I can’t even begin to explain it. I wish I could.”
“Try me, Cade,” was all Ezra replied as he tapped his pencil against his desk.
Stifling a growl, I tried to put into words how I was feeling. “It’s so fucking intense, Z… It’s like there’s a fire burning inside of me – consuming me – and she’s the fire.” …Spreading through my body, pillowing in my veins, taking over every part of me... “She owns me, man.”
“Yeah, Cade, she does,” he replied quietly. “She always has.”
I nodded, feeling grateful as hell that Ezra got it – that he understood how far in I was. “And I know I should give Mitch and Kenzie time alone together,” I continued, getting everything off my chest. “They need to talk and bond and shit, but I’m dying here, man. I need to see her.” I had a hollowing ache in the pit of my stomach – a hunger that couldn’t be sated with food – and a burning pain in my chest. “I’m so in love with her, Z, I feel like I’m going up in flames.”
“But Emily’s pregnant?” Ezra offered, jerking his thumb backwards, gesturing towards the back of the classroom. My gaze followed where Ezra was pointing and my heart fucking sank into my butt when my eyes landed on Emily – Emily who was staring directly at me…
Leaning over my desk, I dropped my head in my hands and stifled a groan. “I don’t get it. I’ve never been with her without protection, Z,” I added weakly, lifting my face to look at my best friend. “Never.”
“This makes zero fucking sense, Cade.” Ezra’s skeptic tone comforted me like nothing else. “Seriously, dude,” he muttered in a hushed tone. “I knew Emily was having problems – Rita mentioned as much – but I never heard anything about an actual baby...”
“Problems?” I gaped at my best friend. “What problems?”
“I don’t know, Cade.” Ezra blushed and waved his hands in the air between our seats. “Female problems. Rita mentioned something about her having a close call, but shit, I thought close call meant exactly that.”
Shrugging my shoulders, I had to force the urge to slam my face into my desk. “Apparently she’s like four months or something.”
Ezra shook his head again. “You really are…”
“A fucking idiot?” I offered, glaring at him. “Yeah, I got that, man. Thanks.”
“In over your head,” Ezra corrected.
I NEVER HAD A HEAVY PERIOD – malnourishment in the nest had caused havoc on my body.
The contraception injections Master had religiously given to me every few months while in the nest had kept me safe all those years. Master had also made sure that I was kept clean – unlike the other girls, condoms were an unbending condition of being with his pretty sunshine.
Master had kept me safe.
But I hadn’t been safe with Cade…
As I lay on the doctor’s table, with her poking and prodding at my stomach with an ul
trasound wand, I decided that this was the most scared I had felt since those men took me away from Cade all those years ago.
I was petrified.
My dad stood restlessly beside me, offering me support and a hand to hold onto, but I knew he was equally terrified. Ever since the night last week when I broke down and told my father that I hadn’t had a period since February, he had been incredibly supportive.
Dad was the one who had organized for us to come to the Gynecologist’s office today. He said we needed to know, and that either way we would deal with the outcome as a family. But deep down in my heart I knew that neither Dad nor I were prepared for this… especially when the doctor broke the palpable silence and confirmed to us that what I had feared was true.
“Here we go,” the doctor announced cheerfully. “It looks to me you’re just about eleven weeks gone,” she added as she moved the wand over my lubricant covered belly. “Congratulations.”
The soft, fluttering sound similar to a racehorse thudding, rippled through the room brought tears to my eyes and cracked open something deep inside of me.
Obviously feeling uncomfortable with our silent reaction, the doctor announced that she would give me a moment to digest the news and clean myself up before rushing from the room.
“How do…how you feel about this?” Dad asked me after I had wiped the gunk off my stomach and twisted into a sitting position on the table. “Mackenzie,” he whispered. “I’m here. Talk to me, sweetheart.”
“I feel…” I didn’t know how I felt. A million different emotions were rushing through me and I couldn’t handle it. I looked up at my father. “I need to tell him, Dad. I need to tell Cade.”
Reluctantly my father nodded in agreement. “I wasn’t planning on keeping it from the boy,” he said. “But I don’t want you under any more pressure. We can take this as slowly as you want… There’s no rush, Mickey. We’ll take this at your pace, honey.”
“Sharon will think I did it on purpose, Dad,” I blurted out. My voice sounded shaky and terribly young. I was trembling all over. “To trap Cade.” I blinked back the tears that were scalding my eyes. “She’ll hate me worse than she already does.” Cade’s face penetrated my mind and I flinched. “I’ve ruined everything.”
“You haven’t ruined anything,” Dad shot back in a vehement tone of voice, taking my hand in his and squeezing it tightly.
“But I have,” I croaked out, head bowed. “This is all my fault.” And it was. Dad’s marriage falling apart… Cade’s relationship with Emily in tatters… It was all on me.
“When we get home we will sit down with Sharon and Cade and talk this out,” Dad coaxed gently. “No one is going to say a word against you, sweetheart. We’ll figure it all out together.”
“I should’ve stayed in the nest.” I forced myself to swallow the mountainous sob threatening to rack through me. “I am poison.”
“Look at me.” Dad tried to catch my eye, but I couldn’t look at him. I was too full of shame and self-loathing.
“What about Emily?” my voice was rising. “He’ll hate me…” I swallowed the scream that was threatening to burst out of me. “Oh god…what have I done?”
“Mackenzie, look at me,” he repeated in a firm tone, using his hand to gently raise my chin. With a heart full of sadness, I looked up at my father.
“That’s better,” Dad said with a small smile. “I never want to see you bow your face to anyone ever again, Mackenzie Moore, do you hear me?”
I nodded slowly, not bothering to wipe the tears from my face as they trickled down my cheeks.
“A baby is a blessing,” he continued. “The circumstances are horrible and the timing couldn’t be worse, but this is a blessing all the same – a gift from God.”
“How can you say that, Dad?” I choked out. He was clearly delirious if he thought me being pregnant was a gift from god.
“For almost four years I believed my only child was dead,” Dad said in a tone of voice that was thick with emotion. “The child I watched come into the world. The child I fell head over heels in love with the instant the nurse placed her in my arms,” my father’s eyes welled up as he spoke. “The child that as she grew up made my heart swell with pride and joy. The child, that when I lost, took a piece of me with her… And now, here you sit,” he announced passionately. “My child with a child of her own growing inside of her belly.”
“Dad,” I whispered, unsure of what to say. My father’s words impaled me with love and comfort.
I never knew he felt like this about me. I guess I had forgotten over time the bond we had once shared. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t hate me. Everyone else did.
“I won’t lie and tell you that I’m happy that Cade Mathews got you into this…situation,” Dad added. I watched as a vein ticked in his neck when he mentioned Cade’s name. If the situation weren’t so serious I would have found it funny. “I want to personally wring his damn neck – but I will gladly take you – and a baby that is half of you – over none of you at all. And that, my dear girl, is why this is a blessing.”
“DAMN, KENZIE, WHAT THE HELL.” Cade was wiping his mouth furiously, and cussing like a sailor.
I rolled my eyes and yawned. “What’s wrong now?” Cade and I were in the den at the end of his garden – our den that consisted of timber palettes as the walls, some old felt as the roof, all held together with some rusty six-inch nails.
It wasn’t much to look at but it was ours, and we loved it. We filled it with a beanbag, a torch, a tin full of our favorite cookies and a sleeping bag.
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” I heard him say. Crouching down on his hands and knees, he crawled under the bushes and briars until he reached where I was sprawled out on the battered old beanbag. “That stupid crap you put on your lips?” Cade pointed at my lip-gloss and then to our bottle of water. “You ever hear of wiping the cap when you’re done?”
I giggled and waggled my eyebrows. “I think pink is your color, Cade,” I teased, chuckling when his face reddened. “You look really cute.”
The look of outrage on Cade’s face soon transformed into a look of mischief. “Oh you think it’s funny, do you?”
I knew I was in trouble, his expression assured me of that, and started to back away, but Cade was on me quicker than lightening. I couldn’t get away from him, he was too strong, and to be honest I liked the feel of him on me…
“Here,” Cade chuckled before pressing his lips to my cheek, and then the other one. “You sure make a good hankie, baby girl…”
“When we have all of this business with Cade hashed out, we should take a trip to see your Uncle Sam in Florida,” Dad announced, breaking me from my daydream, as we drove home from the gynecologist’s office. “I’ve been meaning to take you back there for years,” he explained in a cheerful tone. “And god knows we both could do with a break from this town.”
My blood ran cold. “What?” Panic came to life inside of me, causing my heart to race in my chest. “Dad, no, I can’t…”
“I’m not talking about leaving forever and never coming back, Mickey,” Dad coaxed. “Just for a few weeks of the summer.”
“I can’t leave him,” I spluttered, clutching at my chest. The pain I felt was real and it intensified every time I thought about leaving Cade. “You don’t understand…” How could I explain to my father that for the past four years Cade Mathews had been my reason for breathing? How could I explain that Cade was the very reason I was, and that loving him gave me a purpose in life? “I love him,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around my stomach. I couldn’t admit it to my father, but there was a small part of my heart that was thrilled that I got to keep a small part of Cade with me. I had a piece of Cade inside of me. “I just love him so much, Daddy…I can’t leave him. Not now…”
“If I thought staying here was in your best interests then we would stay, Mickey,” he told me. “But it’s too complicated, sweetheart, and you don’t need the stress of it all – at least n
ot for the next few months. Let me get you out of this town and get you better. Let me help you heal.”
I knew my father was right.
I couldn’t heal in Preston, not really, when just across town Emily’s belly was expanding by the day with Cade’s child growing inside her.
Just like mine…
I blanched.
Dad was right.
But I couldn’t leave Cade.
“Cade needs to deal with his responsibilities like a man,” Dad said firmly. “I know you don’t want to hear this, Mackenzie, and god knows I don’t want to upset you any further, but Cade and Emily are going to have to figure out what they’re going to do about their baby. And I sure as hell don’t want you here watching it… ” Dad shook his head and I could tell he was struggling to contain his anger. “That boy needs to handle his own corner – and we…” Dad gestured between us. “…will handle ours. I need you to be selfish, Mackenzie, and put your needs and your health above his.”
“No.” I vehemently shook my head, blinking back the tears. “I won’t leave him, Dad.”
“Okay, okay,” Dad placated. “We’ll stay. But you only have to say the word and we will go.”
My heartbeat slowed, returning to normal. The thought of being separated from Cade caused me to break out in palpitations.
Loosening my fist, I smoothed out the small sonogram picture I had been clutching in my hand and exhaled heavily. Everything was happening so quickly, my world was turning upside down once again, and the only place I wanted to be was in Cade’s arms.
BY THE TIME SCHOOL FINISHED on Monday, I was ready to throw in the towel and take up working at the local burger joint. To be honest I was regretting ever getting out of bed today.
“Well, news sure travels fast in this hole of a place,” Ezra mused when he joined me in the parking lot. “I’ve never seen so many heads turn in your direction, Cade,” he added. “And you’re a varsity quarterback.”
