After I had expelled the last tear from my eyes, I wiped the moisture from my cheeks and looked at Kane. The small circles he had been rubbing on my back while I had my breakdown were comforting. I couldn’t believe that I had just spilled my guts like that to him, but I felt unbelievably better about the whole situation. I couldn’t deny the feelings that were growing for him anymore, and I would not be comfortable keeping that part of my life hidden from him.
“Thank you.” His voice startled me and I gave him a questioning look. “For trusting me enough to tell me that. I couldn’t imagine growing up with a coward like your father. If you don’t mind me asking … what happened to him?”
I shrugged. “He went to prison and I have not seen or spoken to him since. He could have died in there for all I know.”
Which was true. The last time I’d seen my father was when the court officers were escorting him out of the courtroom the day he was sentenced for my mom’s murder. I remember feeling his cold stare on me. I had made it all through the trail, not wasting one single look at him, but I’d made the mistake of looking up just before he had fully exited the courtroom.
He was, of course, staring at me. His face had no expression, but his eyes said it all. He hated me, he probably always had. Not once do I ever remember hearing my father tell my mother or me that he loved us. How could he after the way he had treated my mother? But the way his eyes looked in this moment, there was no mistaking it. He hated me. Hated me for what was happening to him.
There was no sorrow or guilt about what he had done. Just the rage and the anger because now he was no longer in control and in that moment I silently prayed he would never make it out of prison alive. That the prisoners he would now be living with would show him the same treatment he had shown my mother all those years.
My father ended up being convicted of murder in the 3rd degree. The bastard was a quick thinker and had actually taken the time to run back to the kitchen, grab a knife, slice his arm and plant it on my mother, claiming she came at him with it with intent to kill him and that he was only defending himself. I, of course, told my side of what had happened that night, and the jury ultimately found him guilty in the end.
After walking out of the courtroom that day, I vowed I would never think of him again and went straight to file papers to legally change my last name to Rien—my mother’s maiden name. I had become so used to it now that his last name was all but a distant memory.
The only people who knew that my last name was not Rien were Jessi, her family, and the people from my hometown … and that was the way it would stay. This was one truth I wouldn’t even tell Kane. I would no longer be tainted by that man. I wanted no part of anything that had to do with my father and I never would. So I would never acknowledge having that name ever again.
Kane sat there silence for another second or two before standing. He held both hands out for me and I laid my hands in his to let him pull me up. He gently rubbed my knuckles with his thumbs. “I’m so glad I met you Kelsey and I’m so glad I brought you here. This place has always been special to me and now that I have you here with me, it’s perfect.”
I smiled up and he slowly lowered his head to mine, kissing me so softly and so deeply that the rest of the world and the memories melted away into the dark night.
Kane drove me back to the dorms shortly after that. He waited on his motorcycle until I had made in safely inside. When I was safely inside my dorm building I turned and gave him a small wave through the window. He nodded his head at me before he took off into the night.
As I waited for the elevator I couldn’t stop touching my lips. They were still slightly swollen from the heavy make out session we’d had on his bike before I finally climbed off to come inside.
As I stepped onto the elevator, my phone chimed with a text from Jessi letting me know she was staying with Landon. So that meant there would be no walking in on any nakedness tonight. Thank God. I was still drained from telling Kane about my past. Crying always made me sleepy and all I could think about now was taking a shower, crashing, and waking up tomorrow and pretending it never happened.
After showering and drying my hair—because my mom always said don’t go to sleep with wet hair or you will get sick—I climbed in my bed. I had no more pulled the covers up over my body when my phone vibrated from the night stand.
Kane: Can’t stop thinking about tonight...
Kane. My cheeks immediately pulled up into a smile.
Me neither. <3
I nervously bit my lip, waiting for him to reply. Maybe I shouldn’t have put the heart?
Kane: I can still taste you on my lips, and it’s making it hard for me to keep myself from throwing on my boots and coming to you. What have you done to me Kelsey?
I sighed. Probably the same thing he had done to me. I always hated watching movies where the couple falls so hard and so fast. I had always thought that was too good to be true. Things like that didn’t happen in real life. But here I was so wrapped up in a guy that I had known for a little over a week.
Kane: Get some sleep, beautiful. I just wanted you to know I will be falling asleep tonight thinking about you. Goodnight.
Goodnight.
I reached over to lay my phone on the nightstand beside my bed. The charms on my bracelet jingled as they dangled from my wrist. I wished so bad that my mom could meet Kane. She would have been able to see through all the bullshit from the start. She was always good at reading people. I don’t know where she went wrong when it came to my dad.
My mom had met my dad when she turned seventeen. She had instantly fallen in love with him and she told me about all the sweet little things he used to do for her when they first began their romance.
Right after my mom’s eighteenth birthday she found out she was pregnant. She was still a senior in high school and had to drop out because I would due in the middle of the school year. She and my dad married shortly after, and that’s when things began to change with him. I don’t think we will ever know what changed inside him causing him to become such an evil person. Women are abused by their husband’s every day for no reason. I honestly believe some people are just born evil and grow to be good at hiding it.
My dad was a master manipulator and my mom didn’t stand a chance. He sucked her in then trapped her by getting her pregnant with me. She probably would have been better off had I never been born. Maybe I was the trigger for my dad’s rage. That was something we would never know. That man was dead to me now. As far as I was concerned I hate no father.
I didn’t want to think about him anymore, so I thought back to happier times with my mom. Like when she had taken me to pick out a new charm for my bracelet. It was my tenth birthday and she had made such a big deal about me finally being in the double digit numbers.
She had taken me to the jewelry store and told me I could pick out whatever charm I wanted. I browsed all the glass cases hoping the one I was meant to have would become evident the moment I saw it. I was beginning to think I would never find that special one, when in the very last case, sat a charm of two interlinked hearts.
I knew right away that that was the charm I was meant to have. It had always been me and my mom against the world. She was my best friend. My rock. The two linked hearts were me and her. Always together. Or so I thought.
I drifted off to sleep studying the tiny charms, but sleep didn’t last long before I jolted awake. My body and clothes were drenched in sweat and when I wiped my face, I found moisture there. I must have been crying in my sleep.
I thought back to the dream I was having. I was back in my old house. It was that night again. Only this time my father stood back leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and I was there with my hands wrapped around my mother’s neck, her eyes turning cold and empty all over again. I pried my eyes from the scene and looked to my father, who with a sinister smile on his face, was looking straight at me. Not the me that was in the dream — the me that was watching it all.
“See, sweet pea. You’re just as guilty as I am,” he’d laughed.
I tried screaming no, that this was all his fault. That he did this, not me. But no words would come out, only air. Maybe I couldn’t say anything because there was some truth behind his words. I was just as guilty as he was. He may have been the one to do the deed, but I set the whole plan in motion.
If only I had kept my mouth shut that night. If only I had listened to my mom when she told me to leave, and had not kept standing there fighting with him like I had. She wouldn’t have needed to protect me from him and he wouldn’t haven’t have lost it like he did, and maybe I would still have my mom here.
I jumped from my bed and ran to the bathroom to expel what little contents I had in my stomach. The nightmares had not been this bad in a while. I would go months in between each one but now I was having them more frequently again. The only thing I could think that would have triggered this one was the fact that I had told Kane about that night just a few hours ago.
When the heaving finally subsided, I hunched over the sink and rinsed my mouth, making sure not to look in the mirror as I did, in fear of the eyes that would stare back at me. I made my way back to my bed, but couldn’t find sleep again. I was scared to close my eyes and risk being brought back to that night. So I grabbed my phone and headphones from the nightstand, and listened to music to pass the time until the sun finally came up.