Chapter Three
“Borderline obsessed.”
WINTER
*One-Year Ago
I had been watching Caden Dean without his knowledge for as long as I could remember. It had started in middle school, a peek here, a gaze there. It wasn’t as if I could help it; he fascinated me, just like he did everyone else. Soon, without my permission, it grew into more than that.
By the time we hit high school, I was borderline obsessed.
He was the most interesting person I had ever come across in my life. The way he interacted with people. The way girls flocked to him like moths to a flame. The way everyone feared him without even speaking to him. The way he manipulated people into doing whatever the hell he wanted them to do with just one sentence. Sometimes with just one look.
Even if his outer beauty hadn’t of been captivating, his inner evilness would have been. Caden Dean was like a puzzle that had been shoved together all wrong but no matter how many times you tried to fix it; the pieces would never fit back together right.
But the strangest part of all was how much he seemed to enjoy it.
He liked being fucked up.
He got off on it.
When my mother married Logan Rockwell and moved us into the rich neighborhood on the other side of the city with him and my new stepbrothers, I was thrilled to find the Dean’s house only two away from ours. More thrilling? If I crawled out of my window and sat on the edge of the roof I was able to see directly into their house.
The entire friggin layout.
It was like getting a peek into a world that you only thought existed on the movie screens. The parties, the drugs, the money, the girls. And, Lord, was there a lot of them. Girls, I mean. Every time Caden would bring a girl home I would feel a sickness creep into my throat followed by a gulp of jealousy I didn’t fully understand.
I would swear I wasn’t going to watch, promise myself that I didn’t want to see it. Most of the time I felt frozen when it came down to it, though, unable to move even if I desperately wanted to. It felt like an addiction, watching with envy as he was with numerous beautiful girls that I would never be.
I wondered what it would feel like to have him touch me the way he touched them, curious about how good he would taste with his lips covering every part of me. I started wishing that he would pay attention to me, that he would finally notice me the way that I noticed him.
Of course, by the time he did, I wished he hadn’t. I guess I should have specified all those nights that I spent praying for Caden Dean’s attention that I wanted his positive attention. Caden started noticing me all right, just not in the way I had wanted him to.
I wasn’t sure when Caden had made the decision that I would be his personal plaything but I remember the first time he acted on it. The move to my new home had come with three stepbrothers I wanted nothing to do with. All older than me, all more experienced than me, and all crueler than me. The only one I could stand was the youngest of the three.
Josh Donavon was the baby of the family but still two years older than me. Instead of making snide remarks about my mom being a whore or me looking like a wet piece of trash, he took one look at me and then promptly decided to act like I didn’t exist. It might have sounded cruel but it was a break in the constant tension I was used to and I appreciated it more than he knew.
He also happened to be Caden’s best friend.
Suddenly, the man I had secretly watched all those years was around all the time. I no longer just saw him through the ends of my black hair at school or from the safety of my bedroom with no chance of being spotted. The first few times it felt thrilling; until I realized he had about as much interest in me as Josh did. If I thought I was nothing to Josh, I was straight up invisible to Caden.
But after the first few weeks, the looks started.
Not the sweet, he’s checking me out looks. No, these were sharp and intense, filled with hatred. It was as if he was accusing me of something, annoyed with me purely for existing. Avoiding him became a routine, locking my bedroom door and choosing only to watch him from the safety of my room.
I remembered the first time he spoke to me like it was yesterday.
My stepbrothers had decided to throw a party, inviting half of the town over to drink, do drugs, and hookup where ever they saw fit. When a couple promptly shoved me out of my own bedroom so they could make out I ended up making my way downstairs and into the backyard.
The party was in full swing. Various people mingling around, drinking and partying. The girls were all clad in short skirts and bikini tops, I immediately felt out of place in my pajama pants and t-shirt. I tugged on the bottom of the bright yellow fabric and glanced around the backyard, searching for someone, anyone, that I might know. I should have known better, it wasn’t like me and my stepbrothers hung out with the same crowd.
In fact, I didn’t have any crowd.
It felt like the more I tried to talk to people the more they ran the other way.
“What are you doing out here?” A deep voice said huskily from behind me, disapproval rested there. Caden grabbed me by the arm and swung my body around without even giving me a chance to respond. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, Winter.”
My body went stiff under him. Caden Dean had never said two words to me in his whole life and there he was, bossing me around as if it were completely normal. And he knew my name, how did he know my name?
“You know my name,” I choked out.
My response annoyed him and his grip tightened on my body. “You shouldn’t be out here.” He looked my body up and down slowly, amusement creeping into his eyes when he saw what I was wearing. “It’s not the kind of place a girl like you should be hanging out.”
I immediately started to blush. I could have died.
“You aren’t the boss of me,” I said boldly, trying to remove myself from him. I should have been appalled at him for putting his hands on my skin but all I could feel was a hotness that started between my legs and traveled all the way down to my toes. Plus, I was having trouble not getting lost in his eyes. They were deeper up close, almost impossible not to drown in.
My mouth was growing dryer by the second.
Anger drifted into his features and he yanked me against his chest, crushing me into his broad chest. “I’m the boss of you if I tell you I’m the boss of you, Winter, do you understand me?”
My heart started racing in my chest and I felt my body starting to shake slightly underneath him. I tried to fight it, I really did, but my fear and hormones were getting the best of me at the same time.
He closed his eyes and groaned softly, pulling my trembling body even further into him. “You’re nervous,” he said firmly and seductively, almost as if it turned him on or something, which was ridiculous.
Nothing someone like me could do would turn someone like him on.
“Say it,” he seethed between clenched teeth.
“I’m nervous,” I whispered.
He kept his eyes sealed shut for a few more seconds, enjoying the notion, before snapping them open again. They were even more furious than before, even though I had given him exactly what he wanted.
He leaned in close to me. “The next time I tell you to do something, you had better fucking do it the first time," he growled into my ear. "Now go dry off and then go back up to your room and lock the fucking door behind you."
What did he mean dry off?
He pushed his large hands into my shoulders and sent my body flying backward into the pool, completely soaking me from head to toe.
By the time I came up for air, the entire backyard was having a laugh at my expense and Caden was nowhere to be found. I had to climb out of the water with soaking wet clothes and everyone laughing at me.
No, I would never forget the very first time Caden humiliated me.
It was that first night I was thinking about as I sat on my roof all those weeks later. Things had gotten worse since then; Caden’s need to humiliate me had grown more fierce and regular. I was pretty sure everyone in town had laughed at my expense at least a hundred times over thanks to the hands of Caden. I had spent endless hours trying to figure out why he hated me so much without ever coming up with a single reason that made sense.
Maybe he was just that evil.
I hated the part of me that didn’t want to believe that.
I was just thinking about how to avoid him the next day when I saw him throw open the side door of his house and stomp inside, his younger brother trailing after him, spitting words to the back of his head.
Caden reached out and picked the chair up that sat in the living room, tossing it across the room before he grabbed his brother by the collar of his shirt and brought his face to his, spitting words out at him that I knew were venoms just based off their body language.
Leave it alone, Winter.
None of your business.
Caden hissed a few more words out at his brother before tossing his body aside and grabbing his keys off the counter, leaving the same way he had come. He kicked over a plant that stood next to the entryway as he left, sending dirt flying all over the ground.
Caden Dean is none of your business, Winter.
He’s his own worst enemy.
The thoughts stopped me for about 5.2 seconds before I was crawling back inside of my window and slipping my shoes onto my feet. What harm could it do just to sneak down and have a look? Clearly, he was in some kind of trouble. I knew I was the last person he would want help from but like so many other times where Caden Dean was concerned, I wasn’t thinking logically.
Maybe it was me who had the own worst enemy issue.