False Regret: Pikorua - Book 1

by Reid, Angela

  “Are you having sex with him, Ellia?” she asked bluntly, catching me off guard. It was a question she had not once asked me while I was with Will. It was a subject we didn’t talk about--ever. For the most part, my mother left sex education up to the public schools.

  “Why would you ask me that, Mother? I dated Will for three years, and you never concerned yourself with my sex life before. What if I had been screwing him? Would that have mattered to you?” I was outraged.

  She exhaled forcefully, preparing her answer. “I didn’t suspect you of doing that with Will. You didn’t disrespect curfew, and, frankly, you didn’t seem that interested in him. Most of all, you would have never demonstrated such a display of intimacy in front of your entire school with Will. Sam told me all about the kiss tonight, Ellia. I am not happy, and I want an answer.”

  My eyes rolled, and I crossed my arms, taking a defensive stance. “A kiss does not equal sex, Mother. The answer is no, I am not sleeping with Cade, but when I do, it still won’t be any of your damn business. I have always been responsible so stop worrying about me. Besides, I am almost eighteen, a little too old for your permission.”

  “I don’t care if you are ten or twenty-five, Ellia, as long as you live in my house you will live by my rules. You will be in this house by curfew, and you will not be sexually active. If I find out differently, you will be grounded to this house until the day you move out. I have worked my butt off to provide a good life for you and Sam, to make sure you got into good colleges; to make sure you have promising futures. I will not allow you to make the same mistakes that I did and fall for a boy who will only rip out your heart in the end. I wound up pregnant and married very young, and look how well that turned out for me. Your father ...Well, you know what your father is, and you know what he did to me. I want a better life for you than what I got. I won’t let some loser steal that from you. Do you understand?” she asked with real tears in her eyes.

  “I do understand, Mom, but he is not a loser. He is nothing like dad. I will obey your rules, but please don’t talk about him that way. Please don’t judge him based on what others say. Just because he looks different from all the uptight people around here, doesn’t make him a derelict. Are you even interested in meeting him?”

  “Yes, I insist on meeting him. You might think I don’t care about your ‘trivial relationships,’ Ellia, but I love you. Everything in your life does matter to me. I am sorry if you feel I have been disinterested. You have always been such a good girl, I never felt like I had to involve myself too heavily in your affairs because I thoroughly trusted your judgment. In light of this new boy, though, I don’t know what I think; so yes, I would like to meet him.”

  “Okay. How about tomorrow night?” I asked, knowing Cade would clear anything off his schedule for me if I asked.

  “Fine, dinner at six, and I will have Randy over too; he is a good judge of character,” she said, and I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes again.

  Randy had been dating my mother for almost five years and was still unable to commit to even living together, let alone marriage. Neither Sam nor I liked him, but he didn’t come around much so we tolerated his occasional appearances. Randy had never been married and had no children of his own. I thought it obvious he didn’t like kids, not even mostly grown ones. My mother seemed to think he was quite the catch, though. Randy had a good, stable job as a pharmacist, something that was imperative to my mother. She’d been married to a cop and didn’t want that disturbing, uncertain lifestyle ever again. My father had been dashing, and I still liked to stare at his photo sometimes, especially the pictures of him in uniform. He looked important and terribly handsome. He seemed to be aging well, too, though I rarely saw him anymore. Randy was a troll by comparison. His balding head, middle aged pooch, and monotone bow ties, didn’t seem to put off my mom in the least. After my dad’s many affairs, it probably seemed safer for her to be with a man that didn’t turn any heads. My mother, who was an attractive woman herself, may have been a lot of things, but she wasn’t shallow. She found something wonderful in Randy, even if I couldn’t see it.

  We ended the discussion, and I went upstairs, still having a score to settle with my rat-fink brother. At Sam’s door, I paused only a moment before I let myself in without knocking. He was listing to his headphones which sat snugly over his curly brown hair, and he was looking at a Playboy with his right hand under the covers. It was obvious what was happening, but I didn’t let it deter me.

  “What the fuck, Ellia,” he yelled, tossing the magazine under his bed. “Knock much?” Sam was a sophomore, and the two of us had always been very different people, not finding much common ground. He was the kid our mother should be worried about, yet she coddled him and completely lived a double standard when it came to the rules for him. Sam drank at parties and even got high once in a while, but I always respected his privacy. We had an unspoken rule, and he crossed it when he went to mom about Cade.

  “Why did you do it, Sam? I have so much dirt on you; why would you run to mom and say a bunch of negative shit regarding Cade? Maybe I should go down right now and tell her about your Playboy and the weed in your gym sneakers. What do you have to say about that?” I asked, so angry I was almost yelling.

  “Shh … Shut up, Ellia, and close the door,” he said, sitting up in the bed. I walked into his room, the floor covered in his jungle of dirty clothes and soiled dishes, the remnants of undefinable food still clinging to the china like life support. The space smelled of unwashed socks and something else I couldn’t quite place. None the less, I shut the door behind me. “Listen,” he continued, “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble, okay? It’s just that I see you getting in deep with this guy. You barely even talk to your friends anymore. Believe it or not, I want you go somewhere in life, and there’s a good chance I guy like that would hold you back.”

  “Why don’t you like Cade? He’s always been so nice to you. In fact, you asked him to teach you to play guitar, and he said he would. Why are you being such an asshole?”

  “It’s not that I don’t like him, he is cool, but you nearly got yourself a Saturday detention by kissing him. It looked like you were about to fuck him right there in front of the whole school. Will was so pissed he could barely talk afterward. It was mean, Ellia. The more I thought about it, and the more everyone talked about it, I got worried about you. Stuff like this is not you at all. In fact, seeing you with that guy in the first place, is totally out of character for you. You’ve always been my stuck-up, nerdy sister destined for Valedictorian status and an academic scholarship. Your entire relationship with this guy is weird. Plus, Will is my friend, and that was really shitty of you, so I guess you really pissed me off, too,” he said.

  I had never considered Will being there. The kiss was pretty telling, and I realized how insensitive I’d been. I had gotten thoroughly caught up in Cade’s song, and it had touched me so deeply, no one else mattered in that moment. I was embarrassed all over again by my actions and could only imagine the rumors circling the mill.

  “Sam, I didn’t mean to hurt Will’s feelings. It was a spontaneous instant. I will apologize to him, but in the future, you need to talk to me first, not mom. I don’t rat you out when I see you doing questionable things. Your choices are yours to make, and I let you deal with the consequences. You still get good grades and play sports, so I know you are doing okay. I leave you alone. Have the same respect and faith in me, all right?”

  “Yeah, I hear ya. I hope you didn’t get in too much trouble,” he said sheepishly.

  “Not too much--more of a lecture than anything, but now she wants to meet him so we are stuck having dinner with her and Randy tomorrow night. I need you to be there, too, since you caused all of this. Besides, it’s always great entertainment watching you make Randy feel uncomfortable.” I laughed.

  “No way,” he said. “I can’t stand that jerk. What a snore. I still don’t get what mom sees in him. At least dad was fun.”

&nbs
p; “Yeah, well, dad may have been fun, but he’s also a liar and a cheater, not exactly good marriage material. He hasn’t been much of a father since their divorce, either,” I reminded him.

  “I guess. But I can do without Randy harshing my mellow, so I’m out. Jeff and I have plans anyway.”

  “Well, be careful. Good night,” I said leaving his room, no longer mad at him. I went back to my own bedroom and texted Cade, telling him what happened with my mom. He was more than willing to meet her and promised to be on his best behavior.

  Dinner the next evening was a nightmare in the beginning. My mother was less than gracious. After introductions, she started asking him all sorts of personal questions, with Randy at her side to feed them to her.

  “So why did you move here?” she asked.

  Cade nervously looked at me. It was difficult for him to talk about his life, even with me. Sharing his tragic past with strangers was like trying to squeeze water out of a rock. I could also tell he was contemplating a fib, knowing my mom probably didn’t know about his father and mother. I threw caution at him with my gaze. We lived in a small town, and she was bound to hear the truth, eventually. Besides, he had nothing of which to be ashamed. Just because his dad had done wrong, didn’t mean he had. I was relieved when he was honest.

  “My dad was in a motorcycle club in Detroit, and he committed a crime. He is currently in prison, probably for life. My mom is deceased, so my aunt agreed to take me in until I finish high school.”

  “What did he do?” asked Randy, munching on the cheese and crackers my mother had prepared. I hated the way he chewed with his mouth open, and I fought the urge to smack him for his invasive question.

  Cade hesitated again. “I might as well just tell you,” he began. “It’s on public record. He killed a man.” My mom and Randy exchanged a look.

  “What happened to your mother?” she asked. I wanted to strangle them both.

  “She committed suicide,” he said, and I took his hand. He looked completely helpless and uncomfortable.

  “That’s enough, Mom. His family is not why he’s here. It’s personal and has nothing to do with him and me. You guys are being rude.”

  She appeared chastised. “You are right, Ellia,” she said. “I apologize to you, young man. We just want to get to know you. I am terribly sorry about your loss. It must be so difficult without either of your parents. I hope your aunt is treating you well.”

  “She is, thank you, Mrs. Meyers,” lied Cade. I knew the truth. His family ignored him and tried to pretend like he wasn’t even there. They held his father’s brutal sins against him. They blamed his dad for the death of his mother, their blood relative. Cade admitted to me he didn’t believe it was suicide. According to him, his mom was a kind, selfless soul, who would never put her family through such pain. He was convinced she’d been murdered, but by who, or why, he couldn’t be sure. This wasn’t information I intended to discuss with my mom and Randy.

  “So I hear you are a musician,” said Randy. “I play a little guitar myself. What are your plans after high school?”

  “I love making music. I was in a band back in Detroit, and we made a demo that got picked up by a label. But I had to move before we could finalize the deal. I’m probably the biggest idiot in the world, but I didn’t want to throw away my senior year on the hope that we would make it big. It is a risky business. I plan to finish high school and go to college in case things don’t pan out in the future with my music, professionally. I could do both if I was still in the city, but that’s not how the cards played out, so here I am,” he said.

  “What do you intend to study in college?” My mother pressed on with her inquisition.

  “Well,” started Cade, “Just to be clear, I will always try to pursue my music, even if it’s not with my current band. In college, I hope to major in music as well as business.”

  “Do you really think you can find a job using that degree if your dreams of being famous don’t work out?” she asked. “What if you had a wife and family to support?” I shot her a death glare.

  Cade laughed. “Mrs. Meyers, it’s not about being famous, it’s about doing what I love to do. But, if I had a wife and family to support, believe me, I would dig ditches if that’s what I had to do to support them. I have my priorities in order, don’t worry about that. I would never make the people I love go without, just to chase a dream.” It was clear my mother was softening once he said those words. I wanted to die of embarrassment. Cade was irresistible, though.

  The rest of the evening went well, and he had both my mom and Randy under his spell by the time he left. I walked him to his motorcycle after he said goodbye.

  “You never cease to amaze me,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck.

  “What do you mean?” he asked smiling.

  “You know exactly what I mean. They started out hating you, and now they love you. And so do I.” I let those secret words slip, without meaning to say them out loud.

  He looked seriously at me, and with no hesitation he said, “I love you too.” He kissed me, but then pulled back to look at me again. “Your mom loves you. She just wants what’s best for you. Don’t be too tough on her. I had to learn the hard way; there may not be time for forgiveness and goodbyes. Sometimes people leave without giving you the chance to say everything that needed to be said.” The sadness on his face tore at my heart. I hugged him harder.

  “You are the most amazing person I have ever known, Cade Cantrell. Your mom is proud of you, and your dad is too. Even if they are not with you, physically, I know they are pleased,” I whispered in his ear, and then trailed my tongue down his neck.

  He shivered, and it excited me. “I should go,” he said but didn’t let go of me right away. “Maybe I should trade my bike in for a car soon, huh? It’s getting awfully cold.”

  “Yes, a car with a big backseat so we can snuggle.” I ran my chilled hands under his shirt and touched his warm, soft skin. He moaned and his lips found mine again. We both knew it was time to say good night.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.” He put on his helmet and climbed on his bike.

  I hugged him again. “Good night. Love you.”

  “I love you too, Ellia,” he said. I watched him drive off and missed him at once.

  Chapter 5

  I woke in the motel room feeling much better. The fever was only slight, and the body aches were bearable. I sat up, looking for Cade. He wasn’t there, but Agent Robert’s was standing by the door observing me. “Where’s Cade?” I asked, wiping the sleep from my eyes.

  “Agent Cantrell went to get you something to eat. He will return shortly,” said the agent, not engaging in any open ended conversation.

  “Can I take a shower?” I wasn’t sure what they would allow me to do. Being in their custody felt much like being kidnapped.

  “Yes Ma’am,” he replied, face stoic. Not saying anything else to the serious looking black man guarding the door with his cleanly shaven head and neatly groomed goatee, I found my bag and headed for the bathroom. The basics were in there, a change of clothes, a toothbrush, a hairbrush, and a small bottle of shampoo and conditioner. The shower, hot and steamy, soothed me, and I stayed in a long time, washing my hair twice to remove the grime I imagined nestled in there. My only wish in that moment, was for my mind to be as clean as my body.

  Thoughts of Matt lingered and when it became too much, I shut the pain down, concentrating on a crack in the fiberglass tub or a moldy spot on the shower curtain. When the emotion threatened to bubble up, I pushed it away with great force, refusing to replay that horrific scene again. I had to learn to deal with it, and I had to get answers from Cade. There was no going back, but I had no idea how to move forward. I didn’t have a clue how long the FBI would keep me in custody. Where is my mom? Where is Sam? The questions begged inside my head.

  When I emerged from the bathroom, Cade was sitting at the motel table with Agent Roberts, both eating a McDonald’s breakfast. He stood up an
d looked me over for signs of lingering illness. Though I hadn’t bothered even pulling the brush through my tangled hair, he said, “You must feel better. You look better.”

  “I probably smell a lot better now, too.” Cade grinned and shrugged his shoulder. It was such a ‘young Cade’ gesture it ripped at my heart. God, how I still missed that boy.

  “I got you some food.” He motioned for me to sit in his chair, and he moved to the edge of the bed. “It’s not the most nutritious but will suffice.”

  I took his offer and sat down across from Agent Roberts. I was so famished that my stomach cramped as I swallowed the first bite. I moaned and clutched my stomach.

  “Just take small amounts,” said Cade, watching me with scrutiny. “It’s been days since you kept down any food.” I did what he suggested and followed each nibble with a sip of the water he provided. After a few bites, an image of Matt scrolled across my mind, and the nausea returned. Unable to eat anymore, I pushed the breakfast sandwich away from me.

  I looked at Cade. “What is going on now? Where are we going? I have a job, and family, and friends, whom I need to contact. I have to see about …” I stopped short, not able to mention Matt’s funeral arrangements out loud. It made it too real. He really was gone. Quiet tears fell again. “How am I supposed to drop my life? What will I have to return to if I survive this?”

  “You don’t have a choice if you want to stay alive, Ellia. You saw what happened to Matt. Anyone you might associate with could be in potential danger. We can’t force you to remain under our protection, but it’s the optimal decision for you and those you care about,” said Cade. “We have already contacted your place of employment. We’ve made them aware of minimal details about your detainment, but they were assured you are safe and will return when possible. We can contact whoever you require.” He spoke to me as if I was a stranger.