Never Let me Go (Blurring Lines #2)

by Chloe Walsh

  “Can I come with you?” I asked, breaking the kiss, stroking her damp cheek with my thumb. “I can wait in the car if you’d rather talk in private?”

  She shook her head slowly. “My dad said he would take me,” she mumbled before folding a tendril of her long blonde hair behind her ear. “And I need to do this without you.”

  Ouch.

  “I hate that you have to do this,” I managed to choke out, and I hoped she was hearing my apology – the depth of my remorse. The sadness I felt for where her life had taken her overwhelmed me. …

  “I’m going to be okay, Cade,” Kenzie whispered in an assuring tone of voice as she reached up and cupped my face in her hands, but the sadness I saw inside of her took my breath away. “And so are you…but I have to go.”

  “I’ll see you later, okay?” I told her before pressing one last kiss to her plump lips. “Tonight?”

  “I love you, Cade,” was all she replied.

  Long after I watched Mackenzie go safely back into her house, and was standing beneath the shower head in my bathroom with my head bent, listening to my mother weeping in the room across the hall and calling out my name, I had the most unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was kind of like the feeling you get before summer break ends…except worse, because the feeling inside of me was laced with dread.

  WHEN CADE FINALLY WENT INSIDE, I turned around and stumbled up the porch steps of my house. I was desperate to get away from him, the feeling of suffocation was urging me to move faster and further away, but there was another feeling inside of me that was even more unbearable…the feeling that I was tearing my body in half – literally ripping myself by leaving him.

  When I let myself inside, I found my father in the hallway with a suitcase in each hand. The sight of those cases caused my throat to tighten and I couldn’t stop the ach in my chest from spreading throughout my body.

  “Did you tell Sharon?” I asked, closing the front door behind me. “How did she take it… you didn’t tell her about me, did you?”

  “Of course not, sweetheart.” Dad shook his head and exhaled heavily. “I just told her that we needed to get away for a while – I didn’t say a word about the baby. I promise.”

  I sagged in a mixture of relief and emotional exhaustion. “Was she upset?”

  “Devastated,” was all my father said. “But it’s for the best, Mickey.” Dad placed the cases on the floor, clearly noticing my despair. “Did you tell him? How did he take it?”

  “I…I couldn’t,” I managed to choke out before crumpling to floor, a broken mess.

  My father was on the floor next to me in an instant. “Come on, sweetheart,” he soothed, pulling me into his arms.

  “I feel like I am dying inside,” I confessed, clutching onto my father’s shirt for dear life.

  For a huge portion of my life I had been kept apart from the rest of the world, violated and tortured. Chunks of my life had been so traumatic that I couldn’t bear to allow my memories to glimpse over the darkness. And now I couldn’t believe I was leaving the person I had spent four years staying alive for… All of the men that had raped me, all of their scents, manners, and smiles... I had seen Cade. I had dreamt him to life. Cade was my salvation. My heart, my complete and utter one true love. A person didn’t just get over a love like that – a love like him. But I couldn’t stay here and watch him and Emily play happy family. I also couldn’t doubly ruin his life with my baby. “It hurts, Daddy. It hurts so bad…I love him so much…” I was losing control of myself. I couldn’t stop myself from crying. “He doesn’t want one baby let alone two,” I all but screamed. “…Says he’s trapped…Dad he is miserable…I can’t tell him…”

  My father’s eyes were full of sympathy as he climbed to his feet, taking me with him. “When the baby is born we can decide what our next move is,” my father conceded with a sigh. “But I am not allowing you to stay in this place,” he added after a pause. “I won’t sit back and let you self-destruct watching it all unfold, and this is me putting you first. All you have to do it trust me, Mickey.”

  “I do,” I breathed, trembling all over. “I trust you, Daddy.”

  “WELL I MUST SAY, I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

  My face reddened as I held my phone to my ear. “Yeah...” Fidgeting with a straggling loose thread on my jeans, I glanced at my father, before looking out the passenger car window. “I’m really sorry.”

  “You’re alive, Mackenzie,” Anna replied down the line. The kindness in her voice put my nerves at ease. “That’s enough of an apology for me.”

  “I shouldn’t have gotten you involved in my drama,” I blurted out, desperate to give my doctor an explanation. “I just felt so helpless. The pain and grief clouded my common sense.” Sighing, I added, “I swear I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I just wanted to make it stop for a little while…”

  “I’m impressed,” Anna announced, surprising me.

  “You are?”

  “Yes,” I heard her say. “This is about the most forthcoming and honest you’ve been since we met.”

  “I guess I’m getting tired of pretending that I’m okay.” I shrugged. “I’m done with the lies and pretending,” I confessed, forcing the truth from my mouth. “I’m not okay, Anna, and I am beginning to accept that it’s okay. I don’t have to be okay; I just have to keep trying – keep living.”

  After a heavy silence, Anna let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. “Good,” she announced in a voice thick with emotion. “That’s good, Mackenzie.”

  “I’m going away for a while,” I confessed. “My dad thinks we need a break from Preston.”

  “Your dad is a smart man,” she replied. “You need some time to relax and recuperate.”

  “Do you think I can do this, Anna?”

  “Yes,” she replied immediately.

  I shook my head, smiling. “You don’t even know what I meant.”

  “You want to know if you can make it in this world,” she shot back. “And my answer is yes. You can do this, Mackenzie Moore. Heal. Take this time for you. Don’t worry about anyone else. Concentrate on finding the girl you want to be.”

  “Thank you for everything,” I whispered, clenching my eyes shut, absorbing her voice for what I knew would be the last time. “You’ve done so much for me. I’ll never be able to repay you…”

  “Repay me with your success,” Anna told me. “Be happy, Mackenzie Moore. And live.”

  AS I STOOD IN THE SHOWER, with scalding water pouring down on me, I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling of dread blooming in the pit of my stomach. It was crawling up my throat. Eventually I just gave up trying to make sense of my fucked up emotions. I was in love with one girl and having a baby with another. I figured that was enough to screw with any eighteen-year-old guy’s head.

  Switching off the shower, I climbed out and wrapped a towel around my waist before padding out of the bathroom and back to my room.

  My mother was still screaming from somewhere downstairs, begging me to help her, but I just zoned her out. I couldn’t deal with her right now. I had enough on my plate without adding my mother’s guilty conscience to the pile.

  Instead I dressed quickly and planted my ass on my windowsill, hoping to catch sight of Kenzie, whose bedroom window was opposite mine.

  I wanted to go to her, but I knew that was a bad idea. Mitch wouldn’t leave me through the front door for starters. But aside from that, I knew Kenzie was trying to deal with everything that was happening between us. I knew she was hurting over Emily and I had no clue of what to do to fix that. I couldn’t go back in time, god knows I would if I could, but life didn’t work that way. I just had to have some patience and let her take everything on board. It fucking sucked and I wished I could make everything better. But I couldn’t.

  “Are you deaf?” My mother demanded. She shoved my bedroom door so hard that it slapped against the plaster on the wall, chipping it off in clumps.

  “What is you
r deal?” I demanded when she stepped through the doorway.

  “I just had to watch my husband pack up and drive out of my life,” Mom screamed, hysterical. “And all while my son was too concerned with scrubbing his back. That’s what my deal is.”

  “You’ve got it wrong,” I told her calmly. “Kenzie has a therapy appointment this evening, that’s where they’ve probably gone.”

  Mom’s face caved as another sob racked through her. “Is that what she told you?” she whispered, clutching at her chest. “She misled you, Cade.” Mom shook her head. “Mitch told me… when you were out earlier… he said they needed to go away for a while.”

  “What?” I asked, deadpan.

  “You heard me!” Mom shrieked, inconsolable. “I tried to stop him – talk some sense into him, but he just wouldn’t listen.”

  I paced my bedroom floor as I tried to make sense of what my mother was saying. “This can’t be right.” Stopping short at my bedroom window, I looked across at Kenzie’s window. The lights were off. There was no movement in the house next door.

  Running my hands roughly through my hair, I desperately tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Grabbing my cell off my nightstand, I unlocked it and dialed Mackenzie’s number.

  Mom was wrong.

  She had to be.

  Kenzie wouldn’t just up and leave me without saying goodbye.

  My hands were shaking so bad I could hardly hold the small piece of plastic without dropping it. “Mom, if you’re fucking with me, I swear to god I will…”

  “I’m hardly lying,” Mom screamed, cutting me off. “This is my marriage we’re talking about.”

  Every time the phone rang out another piece of my heart cracked…until finally it went to voicemail. “Kenzie,” I choked out, talking into the mouthpiece of my phone. “Baby, where are you? Mom thinks you guys have left town…” I had to pause for a moment to steady myself before I could continue to speak. The thought of her leaving town stirred pain inside of me so crippling I could barely stay in an upright position. “Call me back, baby, please…”

  “They’ve left us, Cade,” my mother howled. “Oh god.”

  Rushing out of my bedroom, I raced down the stairs and out the front door. My mother was wrong. She had to be. Kenzie wouldn’t leave me. She wouldn’t do that to me. She loved me. Fuck.

  Panic laced my gut as I raced up their yard. The absence of Mitch’s sedan in their driveway only elevated those feelings. “Mackenzie,” I roared, pounding my fists against the front door. “Open the fucking door.”

  “Cade, stop. They’re gone...”

  “Just shut the hell for a sec, and let me think, Mom. Damn!” For some reason unknown to myself, I happened to glance at the flowerpot perched next to the door and that’s when I noticed it; the small, perfectly folded enveloped wedged beneath it.

  With shaking hands, I bent down and retrieved the envelope before opening it.

  Dearest Cade,

  If you’re reading this, then you’re probably wondering what’s going on. I’m sorry I wrote this down on paper, instead of saying it to your face, but I just couldn’t…

  I can’t heal in Preston, Cade.

  I have to get out of this town, and away from the people that live here.

  If I stay, I’m afraid the pain will kill me.

  I don’t blame you for Emily.

  But you can’t blame me for not being able to stay and watch it all unfold either. It’s too hard.

  To be honest, it’s killing me, Cade, and I’ve been dying for too long.

  I never meant to hurt you or cause you pain of any kind. You’ve been my reason for living since I was ten years old. But I’m beginning to understand how unhealthy that is.

  I need to start living…

  Dad is going to help me get back on my feet, so you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be with my father and he’ll take good care of me. Dad’s really stepping up, Cade. I’m so proud of him.

  Be kind to your mom. I know you’re mad at her, but she loves you so much. All she has ever tried to do is protect you. Don’t hate her for having your best interests at heart. Don’t hate her because of how she treated me since I came home.

  Instead, love her for all of the good things she has done. She is still the woman who plastered my knees when I fell in her garden, and baked us cookies every Friday night. She is still the same person from our childhood. Fear of the unknown just made her behave badly.

  That’s all.

  And I hope… I hope that your when your baby is born, it is healthy and well.

  Be a good man, Cade. Be the man I know you are.

  And who knows, maybe in time, we will find our way back to each other, but for now I need to learn how to be my own savior.

  And I need to set you free…

  Yours now, and always,

  Mackenzie.

  I read and reread that letter until I had each line memorized off by heart.

  The pain of betrayal was unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

  I couldn’t go through this again.

  I was not going to live through that pain again.

  Fuck…

  I HADN’T BEEN TO TAMPA since my fourteenth birthday. It was the last time my parents and I had taken a weekend trip to visit Dad’s family. We used to go every year on my birthday. Mom had always hated visiting Dad’s family, but I remembered loving my time with Uncle Sam and his family.

  Being here now, though, felt different – not because of my mother’s absence – because I wasn’t the same person anymore.

  “You remember Molly, don’t you, Mickey?” my father asked when I climbed out of the passenger side of his car. Wrapping his arm around my shoulders, Dad guided us towards the front door of my uncle’s condo. “You two were thick as thieves when you were younger.”

  “I remember,” I replied, watching my Dad ring the doorbell.

  Sam Black was my dad’s half-brother, and his daughter Molly was my only cousin. Molly and I had spent a lot of time together growing up, and I guess you could have called us close once upon a time.

  I wasn’t close to anyone now.

  But I wanted to be.

  “Look at you,” Aunt Maggie gasped the minute she opened the front door. Her broad smile was as warm and welcoming as I remembered, and immediately put me at ease. I didn’t have a chance to open my mouth before Aunt Maggie had her arms around me, pulling me into her voluptuous bosom. I felt my body coil toil tightly with anxiety, but I pushed it down.

  I was safe.

  “So grown up.” Aunt Maggie led me through the foyer and into the sitting room without letting go of me. “So beautiful. So…”

  “Alive,” Uncle Sam pointed out in a tone of voice that was thick with emotion. He was standing in the middle of the sitting room, looking like a younger version of my dad, and smiling from ear to ear. Uncle Sam didn’t approach me though – it was if he knew one quick move could send me into a panic.

  It would, and I appreciated his thoughtful awareness.

  “I am, Uncle Sam,” I replied softly, and for the first time in a very long time, I meant what I was saying.

  I was alive.

  I was free.

  My gaze drifted to the girl standing just behind my uncle, and a strange feeling of pleasure and comfort washed over me.

  “Hey Kenny,” she offered in a voice that sounded so sweet and pure it felt like music to my ears.

  I smiled back at my younger cousin.

  I couldn’t help myself.

  Those deep dimples in her pretty round face made it impossible not to. “Hey Molls.”

  As children Molly and I had looked alike with our tan skin, blonde hair – though hers was a thick mane of curls – and green eyes. Time had only enhanced our resemblance to one another.

  From one glance at my younger cousin, it was plain to see that she had grown into a beautiful, wholesome girl – unlike me – and it made my heart hurt so bad. I felt a hollowing inside of me when I look
ed at my Molly Black.

  I was almost jealous.

  Cade’s face floated through my mind and I physically flinched. I was supposed to grow up like Molly so obviously had. I was supposed to become like her and be the type of girl Cade fell in love with.

  Not the mess I had become.

  The urge to peel my own skin off was so strong it took all my willpower to refrain. I didn’t want to be the girl I had become for a second longer. I refused to be. I needed to reinvent myself.

  For my baby’s sake if not for my own…

  AFTER DINNER, OUR PARENTS retreated to the sitting room while I hung back in the kitchen with Molly to help her with clean up. It had been so long since I had been in the company of a girl my own age that I had forgotten how enjoyable it could be.

  I had lost all my friends when I returned to Preston, and being with Molly, just listening to her chattering on about random yet typical teenage girl dramas, felt incredibly refreshing.

  She even asked me for my opinion on this boy she had a crush on at school, and asked me if I had any pointers, although I wasn’t sure what sort of advice Molly thought I could give her about boys.

  I didn’t know boys.

  I knew all about men.

  How evil, and cruel and sexually meditated they could be.

  I could write a book on those kinds of men.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Molly chirped, when I vocalized my opinion on the matter.

  “What isn’t?”

  “You writing a book. Oh god, Kenny, I’m so excited you’re here,” she declared, for what had to be the third time in an hour, as she loaded the dishwasher with the dirty pots and pans.

  “Seriously, I squealed like a little girl when Dad told me you guys were coming for a visit.” Filling the kettle, Molly switched it on before turning around to face me. “You have no idea how much I missed you – how much we all missed you.” She smiled. “It feels like Christmas.”

  I handed Molly a stack of dirty plates and grabbed the washrag from the sink. “I’m happy to be here, Molls.”