“Baby,” I said, crouching down in front of her again. “You need to get out of this corner.”
She just stared at me.
“Cecilia,” I said, more firmly. “Come on.”
I reached for her arm, and was surprised as hell when she didn’t pull away, letting me tug her to her feet. Her gaze darted around the room, but she allowed me to help her onto the bed. A little progress, at least. She was no longer curled up in the corner.
Sitting down beside her, I rubbed my hands over my face. I suddenly felt weary all the way to my bones. I had no fucking clue how to help her. No idea if I should be pushing or leaving her alone. No idea what to say to snap her out of whatever had happened in the kitchen. I was at a complete loss, and I felt my throat grow tight as I dug my fingertips into my eyelids.
“You know,” I said, after the quiet became so absolute that you could hear a pin drop, “I knew it was a mistake the moment I left you. No, that’s not right. It took about an hour. I was stepping onto the plane when I realized how badly I’d fucked up.”
I glanced at her, but couldn’t meet her eyes when I realized she was watching me.
“But by then,” I continued, “my course was set. I didn’t have any choice. I’d signed a contract to go.” I huffed out a breath. “I told myself that I’d make it up to you. That as soon as I could, I’d go back home and get you. It was only three months. I convinced myself that three months was nothing if we had our whole lives together.”
When I looked at her again, her eyes seemed clearer. She was staring at me, and while the fear wasn’t gone, it was now mixed with sadness.
“I didn’t let myself think about the fact that you were pregnant,” I confessed, forcing the words out. “It didn’t feel real. So, instead, I thought about things going back to exactly how they’d been before. I was so sure you’d forgive me. I was so sure that I could fix it. The few times I did go down that road, trying to imagine what a baby would mean for us, I’d picture you meeting me at the airport, your belly sticking out and a big smile on your face.”
I laughed derisively. “It was three months,” I ground out. “It was only three goddamn months.”
I cleared my throat and fought against the urge to hit something. This was why I refused to let myself think about the past—because the guilt was impossible to live with. I froze when Cecilia’s head met my shoulder, her body leaning into mine.
“If I could relive it, I would,” I told her, kissing the top of her head. “If I could go back and change it, I would. I know I was the reason that shit went south, but fuck.” I took a deep breath. “I’ve never regretted anything the way I regret that.”
Cecilia turned and kissed my shoulder before raising her gaze to mine.
She was with me, one hundred percent, and I let out a small breath of relief. Who would’ve guessed that ripping my guts out and handing them to her would be what pulled her out of the fog she’d been in? Afraid of letting her fall back into that hole, I kept going.
“I wrote you,” I said as she pushed herself backward until she sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed. “Every day. I told you about everything that was happening, all the shit I had to deal with, the plans I’d made about how I was going to come get you and leave Eugene. About how we’d get married so you could live in San Diego with me. That you could get a job down there, or go back to school—whatever you wanted, we’d figure it out. God, I fuckin’ missed you. It was like a physical ache.” I shook my head at the memory. “But I didn’t have your address. I didn’t have anywhere to send the letters. I kept them, you know?” I met her eyes. “I held on to them, planned on giving them to you when I got back to Oregon.”
Uncomfortable with the memory, I scratched at the back of my neck and stared at the floor. “We both know how that played out. Jesus, I’m lucky I didn’t kill Leo that day. I could’ve. With my bare hands. But it was you that stopped me. The look on your face. Fuck, you hated me. The whole time I was planning on how I’d make it up to you, you were figuring out how to live without me.”
“I had to,” she whispered, making my head jerk up in surprise.
“What?” I croaked.
“I had to figure out how to live without you,” she said, her voice almost soundless. “The other choice wasn’t an option.”
“I thought you’d wait.”
“If you’d have given any indication that I should,” she said gently, “I would’ve.”
“Fuck,” I whispered. “Fuck.”
“I was never with Leo,” Cecilia said, her voice still low. “Not after you. He was just a good friend that knew seeing you was going to hurt me. He made it easier the only way he knew how.”
“By acting like the two of you were together?” I asked in disbelief.
“By making sure that you wouldn’t come back,” she clarified.
“He did that,” I confirmed. After I’d left the club that day, I’d avoided going back for almost two years. I couldn’t stand the thought of Cecilia and Leo together. Imagining it still made my guts twist.
“You broke me,” she said simply, “and I needed the space to piece myself back together again.”
“That was never my intention,” I replied. I didn’t know how to explain that I’d been immature and stupid, that I’d convinced myself everything would be okay, that somehow, I’d deluded myself into thinking that she’d still be there when I got my shit together. I honestly hadn’t even realized back then that I’d had the power to break her.
“Intention matters less than people think,” she said quietly. “I needed you.”
“I know.”
“Do you know what it was like?” she asked, her voice still quiet. “Calling your mom’s looking for you, only to find out that you’d left? You didn’t even tell me.”
“I was afraid you’d talk me out of it, and I knew it was the right thing to do,” I said hoarsely.
“No,” she hissed with a jerk of her head, the Cecilia I knew finally shining through. “The right thing would’ve been to tell me that you were leaving, but that you’d be back. The right thing would’ve been to say that we were in it together, even though you had to leave for boot camp or whatever the hell it was called. The right thing would’ve been to grow a pair and tell me to my face that you’d made a decision that was going to completely change our lives, and let me decide what I wanted to do about it.”
“I know that now.”
“I would have followed you to the fucking moon,” she said, her voice almost pleading. “And you left me without a word.”
I could feel my pulse pounding in my head as her words sunk in deep. I’d known it all along. I’d known it, because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have assumed that she’d be waiting on me with open arms. I’d taken advantage of that fact, deciding to ask for forgiveness instead of permission, because I’d been so fucking weak and unsure of myself that I’d been afraid that her disappointment would make me change my course. I’d known, and that’s why I’d been so blindsided when I’d come back and she’d wanted nothing to do with me.
I’d known my entire adult life that I’d screwed Cecilia over and I had no one to blame but myself for our relationship imploding, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized just how deeply I’d betrayed her. My breath sawed in and out as I tried to drag enough air into my lungs.
“Looking back,” she said, her voice steady, “we weren’t ready for a baby, not even if you’d stayed.”
I swallowed hard against the bile rising in my throat.
“Please don’t feel guilty about that,” she said softly, looking down at Olive. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I whispered, gripping my hair in my fists. “Stop, Cecilia.”
We sat there in silence as I tried to get myself under control. I’d deliberately pushed those memories to the past for so long, convincing myself that, sure, I’d fucked up—but it just hadn’t worked out, that the realizations hitting me made it feel like it had happen
ed yesterday. The shame of what I’d done was suffocating.
“How can you even be in the same room with me?” I asked in confusion.
“Because I love you,” she said with a small huff. “And you came through when I needed you.”
“Don’t fucking say that,” I replied.
“What? That I love you?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. “So you can say it, but I can’t?”
“I don’t have anything to be angry about,” I said. I remembered the day I’d come back for her, how pissed I’d been that she would barely look at me. How much I’d hated her in that moment, believing that she’d moved on, not having any idea that it was self-preservation. That hate had been the only thing that had kept me going in the following months, the only way I’d justified what I’d done. At some point, that feeling had faded completely. I hadn’t owned up to what I’d done, but I hadn’t been able to blame Cecilia. Not for any of it.
“I don’t know that I’ll ever forgive you,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that I stopped loving you. Loving you just is, it always has been.”
I let her words sink in. Our relationship may have imploded years before, our lives going in completely different directions, but in this one way, we were still the same. Loving Cecilia wasn’t a choice for me either, it just was.
Finally, I nodded. “You know, you scared me there for a minute.”
“I scared myself,” she replied, her eyes haunted. “When that guy came into the room, he was looking for Olive.”
My body tensed until even my toes pressed hard against the floor.
“He kept asking where she was,” she said, her arms tightening around the baby. “I guess he hadn’t seen her on the bed because of the blankets.”
“That was smart,” I said, my voice gravelly. I cleared my throat. “I saw the way you’d put the blankets over her.”
“I knew if I yelled for help, I’d wake her up,” she said softly. “So, I didn’t.” Her eyes met mine. “I didn’t make a sound.”
I closed my eyes in understanding and disgust, imagining the beating she’d taken before I’d gotten to her. It had to have been nearly impossible to stay silent. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do the same thing.
“When it was over—” She shook her head. “It was like I couldn’t force myself to speak. The words were there, but—”
“Understandable,” I said roughly. “If I’d known all it took to get you talking was needing to set the record straight about our past—I would’ve brought it up in the car, even with your mom there.”
Her lips tipped up at the corners at my joke. “I think it was the lost puppy expression on your face that did it.”
“Liar,” I teased. “You just couldn’t resist the urge to argue with my version of the story.”
She shot me a tired smile. “It still feels like they’re everywhere,” she confessed, looking at the window. “Like Drake’s just waiting for the right moment.”
“No one knows we’re here,” I replied. “We’ve been super fucking careful, okay? I swear to God, Cec, we’ll end this. You and Olive are safe.”
“I don’t think anyone is ever safe,” she mused with a sigh. “Look at me—I moved a thousand miles away from the chaos, and still ended up right in the middle of it again. I’m so fucking tired, Woody.”
The nickname hit me with the force of a sledgehammer.
“Then rest, baby,” I said gently, reaching out to run my thumb over the soft skin of her cheek. “I’ll be right here, keeping the monsters away.”
Chapter 17
Cecilia
Even though I believed that no one knew where we were, my paranoia that we were being watched never faded. It didn’t matter whether I was inside the crowded house or sitting on the deserted beach, that feeling never left. I had trouble sleeping at night, and usually had to rest during the day in order to function. I lost more weight, even though I tried to make a conscious effort to eat. Basically, I was a mess, which only added to the guilt I felt every day we were at the beach house.
I knew everyone wanted action. They wanted to end the threat to me and Olive so they could get on with their lives. Instead, we holed up in the beach house for almost two weeks in an attempt to give me some time to recuperate and get my footing again. It didn’t seem to be working, though. I was still as exhausted, anxious, and depressed as I’d been when we arrived, the only difference is I’d found my voice again.
“Family meeting,” Eli called cheerfully from the back door, interrupting my hour of staring at nothing. “We’ve got news.”
“I’ll be right in.” I brushed the sand off my legs and heaved myself to my feet. Even while the rest of my body seemed to be consistently weary, thankfully, I was healing from Olive’s birth. My clogged duct had cleared out and my vagina no longer felt like a war zone, which, I had to be honest, was a huge relief. You always imagine that things are going to be wonky for a while after pushing a human out of there, but until you’re in the midst of it, you don’t realize just how tore up you’ll be. I liked that part of my anatomy, and at some point, I was going to want to use it again.
“What’s the big news?” I asked as I stepped inside the house. Everyone was gathered around the kitchen area, leaving barely any room to stand.
“Olive smiled,” Mark said, grinning at me. “Heard my voice and smiled.”
“It was probably gas,” my mom said.
“It wasn’t gas,” Mark argued.
“That’s the news?” I asked. The look on his face was adorable, but I’d been hoping for something bigger. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that she’d been smiling at random for the past few days.
“No, that’s not the only news,” Forrest drawled. He looked like he was about to either start laughing or roll his eyes. “Wilson and that woman from the FAM have been doin’ their thing—”
“Turns out Kaley is a hacker,” Lu said, grinning. “Between her and Wilson, they’ve been all up in FAM’s shit. Bank records, Web history, you name it, they’ve seen it.”
“And?” I asked.
“Looks like Warren kid is off on his own,” my dad said. “While the group is trying to find out what happened, he’s been puttin’ ’em off, wheelin’ and dealin’, and generally makin’ himself look real guilty.”
“That’s good news,” Eli said when my expression didn’t change. “Means there’s an opening for a few words from a concerned party.”
“You’re going to make contact?” I asked, my stomach twisting with anxiety.
“Wilson is,” Mark said, his eyes meeting mine. “On your go-ahead.”
“Why mine?” I blurted.
“Because it’s your ass in a sling,” Forrest said. “We think this is the way to go, but if you’re not comfortable with it, we’ll find another way.”
“Is there another way?”
“I can find him and take care of it,” my dad said flatly. “Give me about a week, and this is over.”
“And then you’ve got a target on your back for every racist white kid on the west coast,” Cam retorted.
“No one would see me,” my dad said, brushing him off.
I looked at Mark again. “What do you think?” I asked quietly.
“I think we make contact,” he said firmly. “We’ll go from there.”
“Okay,” I said with a nod.
Forrest immediately pulled out his phone, and the rest of us spread out around the house and outside. The place was way too small for eight people and a baby, but somehow, we were making it work. Thankfully, we’d had some breaks in the nearly constant rain, so we could at least hang outside occasionally.
“How you feeling?” Mark asked, dropping down next to me on the couch. Olive was curled up against his chest sleeping, and I couldn’t help but lean down to look at her face. She was such a calm baby, it was amazing to me that she didn’t seem to realize that she was surrounded by turmoil.
“I’m okay,” I answered as I leaned back up. “I hope Wilson
contacting the militia doesn’t backfire.”
“Either way, Drake Warren’s a dead man,” Mark said with a sigh, leaning back against the couch. “Only thing up in the air is who’s gonna do it.”
“Maybe I should have let my dad—” I stopped mid-sentence and shook my head. “I’m not putting that on his conscience.”
“Not sure it would even be a blip on his radar,” Mark mumbled dryly. “You just worry about you, yeah? We’ll do what we have to.”
“We don’t even know where he is,” I pointed out. “I don’t know how any of you are going to find him.”
“That was the other part of Wilson’s news,” Mark replied.
“What?”
“The Campbell girl.” He smiled, and a hundred memories raced through my mind of when he’d given me that exact same look, right before he’d gotten away with something he shouldn’t have. “She’s a serious hacker. She got into Warren’s cell phone.”
“No fucking way,” I breathed.
“Yep. They’re keeping an eye on it, and they know exactly where he is.”
“Where?” I asked instantly.
“Central California, last time I talked to Wilson.”
I let out a long breath. He was hours away.
“Those burner phones my dad always gives me suddenly don’t seem so crazy,” I murmured.
Mark laughed. “What?”
I shook my head, relief and something like hope making me feel almost dizzy. “Every time I see him, he gives me a burner phone and tells me to stop using a plan,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “He even sent me one in the mail a few times.”
He laughed again.
“I just gave them away,” I said with a shrug. “Why the hell would I need a burner? No one is looking for me, or hacking into my shit.” I widened my eyes and lifted my eyebrows.
“Jokes on you,” he said teasingly.
“I still don’t understand how all of this happened,” I said, shaking my head.
“You’ve got a big heart,” Mark replied. “And you always see the good in people.”
Craving Cecilia Page 20