by Reid, Angela
“It does,” I said. “Did you and your wife enjoy it?” He gave me a strange look, one I couldn’t quite read. This was the new Cade, and the intricacies of his mind were a complete mystery. “What?” I asked.
“Do you really want to hear the details of what I did and who I did it with while we were apart, Ellia?” He regarded me with a stern expression.
“Maybe I do,” I said, although I wasn’t sure that was the truth. His honesty would upset me, but I was a glutton for his punishments, it seemed.
“You and I were separated for ten years, so yes, I had sex with other women. Sometimes it was while it was on assignment with strippers and prostitutes, and sometimes it was just for me, for fun. Did I have sex in this cabin? Yes, I did. Since you seem to want all the sordid details, you might as well know that I also took illegal drugs in the line of duty to maintain a convincing cover. I have wounded people, and I’ve killed people—as in plural. Am I proud of it? No, I’m not. I did a lot of deplorable and shitty things as a means to an end, or to protect myself and others. Don’t stand there looking so surprised when I warned you about me before you threw yourself at me in the motel. I’m not asking for your forgiveness. It is what it is, I am who I am. You can take it or leave it.”
“Ouch,” I said, his cold demeanor freezing me. I stepped away from him and gripped the railing, trying to figure out what the hell I was doing with him.
He came up behind me and wrapped me in his arms while kissing my neck. “For the record, I am glad you threw yourself at me. I’ve wanted to be with you since I grabbed your sexy ass back at the park in Petoskey.”
Even though the goal was to lighten the mood, I wanted answers. “What kind of drugs did you take? How many women did you sleep with, Cade. Should I be concerned for my health?”
He released me and stood next to me; both of us peering out into the landscape. “I never used needles, if that’s what you’re asking. I snorted coke a few times and smoked weed. When I had sex, I always used protection. You are the only woman I’ve ever been with without a condom. Every year I get a physical, including blood work, and I am clean. What about you? Can you say the same?”
Wondering what he was getting at, I glared at him. “I took pills, and I never paid for sex.”
“You paid for drugs with sex,” he said returning my gaze of steel. The revelation he knew what I had done my first year of college, in the throes of depression and addiction, made me angry all over again because he didn’t care enough to save me from myself.
“Fuck you.” I went into the house, slamming the patio door. He stayed outside while I paced in fuming circles. After stewing for several minutes, I went back to the deck where he sat in a lawn chair, staring off into the horizon.
“Did you ever love anyone else? Was all the sex meaningless, or did you ever fall in love again?” I braced myself for his response.
He sighed as if deciding whether to withhold the information and stood up to face me with his answer. “Yes, even though hearing this will hurt you, the answer is yes, I loved someone. I was with a woman for almost a year. We met at Quantico, and we were serious. I cared for her very much.”
He crushed me, just as predicted. Anger holding the hand of that jealousy unfurled in me like a poisonous spider. I dipped my response in sarcasm before it fell from my lips. “That’s nice, Cade. I’m so happy you could easily find someone else and go on with your life like I never existed. That is really special. So what happened? Why aren’t you still together? Did you have to fake your death with her, too?”
“She got tired of competing with you,” he said, and walked back inside the cabin. I wasn’t sure what he meant, so I rode his heels through the glass doors, closing out the cold behind us.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know what it means. I told you I never stopped loving you, and that is the truth. Willow figured out rather quickly that my heart would never be hers, not completely. I tried to let you go, for both our sakes, but I couldn’t, or I wouldn’t, whichever the case may be. She left me, and after that, I got so involved in this assignment, it ceased to matter,” he said. “Are we done now? Did you hear enough or would you like to judge me a little more?”
I was so angry I wanted to smack him. “What kind of name is Willow, anyway?” I asked because nothing else came to mind.
Cade, despite his own annoyance, laughed at me. “Really? Is that all you’ve got?”
“Don’t you dare laugh at me; it’s not funny. This bothers me so much.”
He shook his head and smirked. “Do you even hear yourself? Of all the things I’ve done in the last ten years, the only one that troubles you is my relationship with Willow? Come on, that is laughable, don’t you think? Grow up, Ellia. Besides, you had a serious relationship with Matt. So what is the damn difference?”
“The difference,” I said, my lips trembling as I struggled to hold back my emotions, “is that I thought you were dead. I believed I lost you forever. Meaningless sex for me was always in a drugged or drunken stupor to fill the giant hollowness you caused inside of me. Nothing could ever fix the emptiness in my soul, not even Matt. But you knew I was alive. You were aware I was out there, lost and pining for you. Telling me you kept tabs on me only hurts that much more because you let me suffer. You watched me agonize for ten years, and never once did a single thing to ease my burden. I nearly killed myself while you replaced me and built a life for yourself. Do you understand how insignificant that makes me? You LOVED someone else, and I was dying right in front of you. You admitted you would’ve been content to go on without me in your life if this job hadn’t forced you to reveal the truth. Meanwhile, I still struggle every day to keep my head above water. I lost the ability to love another man, but I pretended I did so I could find normalcy in my broken life. You didn’t even have to pretend.” I finished the sentence as the tears settled in the corners of my mouth. Selfish or not I wanted to know he suffered as much as I had.
He stared at me, weighing his words as he always seemed to do before speaking. “I never said I’d be content to go on without you.” He growled and shoved his hands in his pockets as if to control the anger I provoked in him. “What the hell do you want from me? You want me to be sorry that I tried to go on living? Well, I am not. I chose a different path of coping, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t hurting. If that makes me an asshole, so be it. When Willow came along, it was five years after you, and I was lonely as fuck. I won’t lie and say my feelings for her were not real because that’s not fair to her. I’ve told you many times how regretful I am for everything that happened, and I’ve run out of ways to convey it. If you can’t forgive me, then we need to end things right here. I hope when it’s safe for you to go home, you will have enough closure to get over all this once and for all.”
“Is that what you want? Do you want to call it quits and go back to your real life once this case ends?” I asked, my heart beat resounding in my ears at the thought of losing him again. “You can run to Willow and make it work now that you see the pieces you left behind can never be glued back together. I’m a fucking mess, and who wants to deal with that, right? Was last night just part of a guilty conscience? Did you throw me a pity fuck?”
“That is bullshit and you know it,” he said as he ran his hands through his silky black hair and down behind his neck, lacing his fingers there, making his biceps bulge. He stared at me a few moments, and I watched the mask of anger fall away from him. He set his irritation aside and closed the space between us to cup my face with his palm. “Last night was … I don’t even have words for how you made me feel. It only reaffirmed that I want to start over with you, even though I sure as hell do not deserve that chance. When I took you from the hospital, I never dreamed we would reconnect, and I’m still not sure we can make it work. You have a lot of anger and resentment towards me you need to work through, and I understand that. I’m also not naïve enough to think it will ever be like it was before, but I don’t want
to live without you. Once this shit storm is over, I would love to build a life with you. If you can’t forgive me, or you can’t get past everything that happened, then I guess I don’t see the point in continuing. It’s up to you.”
I chewed on his words for a while as my tears spilled onto his fingers. “I can’t figure out how to deal with this anger, Cade. If I had found out about you without the backdrop of this drama with my dad, maybe it would be easier—I don’t know. I have to grieve my family and Matt while coming to grips with whatever is happening between us.”
He used his thumbs to wipe my tears before wrapping me in his arms and kissing the top of my head. “What do you need from me, El?”
Despite everything, I still needed him. “I am trying hard to forgive. Please be patient with me when I act immature, and selfish, and jealous. I will make an effort to find compassion for what you suffered, too, but it’s difficult, because my own pain has kept me trapped for so long. When I am mean and irrational, I want to punish you for all that torment. I’m working through emotions I can’t control. I love the Cade I buried, and I still love that part of him left inside of you. My head tells me to stay away from you because my trust in you is so damaged I’m not sure it can ever be repaired. But I’m still drawn to you in that same inexplicable way I was at seventeen, and even though it’s probably a huge mistake, I could never walk away without at least trying. I need you, Cade—I’ve always needed you.”
“I’m right here, and I am never leaving you again. Thank you, for trying.” He whispered, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe. “You are the only thing in my life that has ever made me feel complete.” His lips found mine, and he pulled me into the bedroom, the one place that obliterated all the lingering issues between us.
***
I spent the days following Cade’s death in a Xanax induced stupor, barely functional. Other than trips to the bathroom, I didn’t get out of bed again until the day of the funeral. Food revolted me, and I shed weight at an alarming rate. Sleeping pills were the only thing that kept away the screaming nightmares through the long nights. The morning of Cade’s burial, I got up, at my mother’s insistence, and put on the black dress she’d laid out for me. Not bothering to brush my greasy, tangled hair, or remove the grime from my teeth, I waited to leave. I didn’t care, not about anything.
When my mother walked in and observed my disheveled state, she cried. “Ellia, you can’t go like this. Honey, you need to take a shower and wash your hair. I understand you don’t want to, but please do it for me. Don’t send Cade off this way. He wouldn’t be happy to see you in this condition.”
I said nothing but obeyed her commands like an emotionless robot. After cleaning myself and brushing my teeth, she came in the bathroom and twisted my tangled hair into a presentable bun. She dabbed a little blush on my stark, gaunt cheeks, and put gloss on my pale lips. I looked like a cadaver, the makeup making me look less alive, rather than the desired effect.
“Let’s go now, honey,” she said, taking my arm and helping me up from the toilet. I sat in the passenger seat of her gray sedan, and Sam got in the back. No one spoke, and I was glad. I pilfered two more Xanax from my mother’s purse when she got out to pump the gas. I chewed them as we approached the church. When I tried to get out of the car, my balance was off, and my mother and brother had to help me up the stairs. Once inside, most of our graduating class was in attendance. Cade’s band and his retched family sat near the front. I couldn’t look anyone in the eye as I kept my focus on the shifting floor beneath me. Mom and Sam sat me in the first pew where I viewed Cade’s closed casket draped in aromatic white flowers. Why do they have a closed casket? I wondered. The killer didn’t shoot him in the head. I wanted to see his beautiful face one last time. The sorrow consumed me, and I asked no questions. His guitars flanked his casket. A portrait of Cade standing on a stage with his acoustic guitar, hung behind the cold, black coffin. My vision was blurring, and I saw double of everything on the altar.
“Who’s in the other casket?” I asked with my words so slurred my mother could barely understand me.
“What are you talking about, Ellia?” When she looked into my eyes, realization dawned on her. “Did you take something? Tell me right now what you took?”
I laughed and then cried, quickly vacillating back to laughter again. I knew everyone was staring at me as I made a spectacle of myself. Their judgements bore imaginary holes in me, and I wondered if they could see the black emptiness that lived inside there.
“Just a little blue thingy,” I said. “It’s still stuck in my teeth.” I opened my mouth wide so my mother could give me a dental exam.
“It’s a couple Xanax, Mom,” I heard Sam say. “She’s high, but she’s fine. Let’s just get through this.”
“How did she get her hands on the bottle, Sam? I have been giving them to her. I didn’t trust her with them.”
“She took them out of your purse when you got gas. I saw her do it but figured she’d need them to attend his funeral without screaming her head off, again.” A note of ire hung on his words.
My mother didn’t respond as the minister entered. The ceremony began. The preacher droned on about the beauty of heaven after death, but I was oblivious to everything. My concentration was on remaining upright. Several people got up and spoke, and I even heard my name a few times. I felt like I was listening from underwater, unable to breach the surface to catch what they were saying. When the pastor dismissed everyone to attend the graveside service, Sam and my mom helped me to my feet. The next memory was of Scott on the other side of me, instead of my family. It confused me how my mom had morphed into a drummer. He glided me down the steps that seemed to loom long and steep in front of me. My legs felt rubbery, the ground felt shifty, and my vision was distorted. Scott carried me across the parking lot and placed me in the car.
“I think we should take her to the hospital,” my mom said to Sam.
“She is fine. Just take her to the service so we can go home and put her to bed. Like this isn’t bad enough, without her making a complete fool of herself.”
“She’s grieving, Sam.”
“Well, we all are. She acts like she’s the only one who’s sad. This fucking sucks.” His voice broke a little, and my mom began to cry again, too.
My forehead remained pressed against the window during the funeral procession, and though I felt drool land in my lap, I didn’t care. Nausea was setting in from the blurry vision, and once we were parked at the cemetery, I opened the door and vomited on the gravel path. There was little to regurgitate since it had been so long since I’d eaten anything. Sam pulled me up out of the car once the heaves subsided, and Scott was there again. They walked me to the graveside and sat me in a chair near the casket, next to Cade’s aunt. I kept slumping forward, so Scott stood behind me and held me upright.
“You should be ashamed of yourself, Ellia,” his aunt whispered to me. “This is so inappropriate. If your mother had a brain in her head, she would take you out of here.”
I looked over at Cade’s aunt and something inside me snapped. “Don’t talk to me about inappropriate you, fucking bitch!” I yelled, stunning everyone around us into silence. My words were slurry but understandable. “You treated him like shit the entire time he stayed with you. There must be money or something involved for you to even be here you fucking, cold, hearted cunt!”
“That’s enough,” my mother said, coming to help Scott and Sam to remove me from the chair. I struggled to free myself from them, but my muscle coordination and strength to fight was diminished by the Xanax.
“You are probably glad he is dead, you hateful witch. I hope you rot in hell!” I screamed again, and then broke down into hysterical sobbing. I reached out to Cade’s coffin as they hauled me away. “Cade! Cade!” I screamed and cried as they continued dragging me through the crowd, and then I mercifully passed out.
I woke up in a hospital bed, with an IV plugged into my vein. My head was pounding, but I
was in my right mind again. “Mom?” My voice was raw and hoarse. My mother was in a chair by the window, sleeping. It was dark outside. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Mom?” Her eyes flew open, and she moved to my bedside.
“I’m sorry about the funeral. I just can’t deal with this. I’m so sorry …” I said, the tears rolling out of my eyes and soaking the pillow case.
My mother stroked my head. “I know, baby. It is going to get easier, though, I promise. It just takes time. Go back to sleep now. If you eat something in the morning, they will let you go home, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, and closed my eyes; letting sleep steal me away from the pain of reality.
Chapter 13
I stayed awake with all my memories while nestled in Cade’s arms on the wrought iron bed we were sharing in our cabin hide away. He had long since fallen asleep. Tears soaked my pillow as all those emotions spilled. It didn’t seem fair for it to hurt so much to go back there in my mind, even when he was alive and next to me. It would kill me to endure something like that again, and nagging doubts about rekindling anything with Cade, plagued me. He worked in a dangerous profession, and losing him again, terrified me. I had to keep my heart as guarded as possible. He’d proven he’d do what he thought was in my best interest, whether I agreed or not. It wasn’t safe to love someone like him. There was no doubt he would sacrifice his own life to protect me, even though it would destroy me all over again to do so. I also assumed he would drop me in a heartbeat if he believed it was the right thing to do. He had already done it once. Even if we both survived the present danger, he would still be an FBI agent, unless he was serious about leaving the Bureau. If he stayed an operative, I envisioned my mother’s life—long days and nights left alone while he was out doing whatever, and whoever, in the name of his job. The questions and worries mounted as my brain picked at all the what-ifs like nasty scabs. Even with all the disturbing possibilities, I still wanted him. He held too much power over me, and that was unnerving. Cade spoke in the darkness, startling me.
