Taking Control (The Control Duet Book 2)

by Lindsey Powell

  I’m giving myself tonight to wallow, to feel sad every time I see the purple bruises that mark my neck, to look into the dull and lifeless eyes that have plagued me for months.

  Tonight, I’m too tired to push past all of the emotions inside of me.

  “You want a drink?” Cal asks as he clicks the kettle on.

  “Please,” I say with a soft smile.

  He busies himself wiping down the worktops as I let my eyes roam around the room. Pale grey walls, black worktops and a terracotta-coloured tiled floor. The colours don’t match, and it looks like this place could do with some much-needed life injected into it. It’s almost as if someone started the work and then couldn’t be assed to finish it.

  “What are you thinking?” Cal says, bringing my attention away from the God-awful tiles as he sits opposite me, placing the drinks down.

  “Just that this kitchen could look really good… Not that it doesn’t already… I mean…” My voice fades off as I struggle to find complimentary words about the décor. “The kettle is cool.”

  The kettle.

  Good save, Lucy. Not.

  Luckily, Cal starts to laugh before my anxiety levels can shoot up at the possibility of offending him.

  “I only bought this place a few weeks ago, so the décor is nothing to do with me,” he informs me.

  “Oh.” I didn’t even know that he was buying a house because I was too busy getting beat on by my fiancé, too wrapped up in my drama to know any different. I feel like a shitty friend all of a sudden, and the guilt wraps around my throat, squeezing tighter than Michael’s fingers ever did.

  “Hey, where did you go?” Cal says as his hand covers mine, his thumb moving over my knuckles slowly. I watch his thumb for a few moments, wishing that I could turn the clock back and make different choices. But I can’t, and hindsight is a wonderful thing.

  With a deep sigh, I tell the truth. “I’m so sorry I’ve been a shitty friend to you. I’m so sorry that I let myself be manipulated by a monster, by someone I trusted, and by someone that ultimately tried to destroy me. I’m sorry that I continued to stay with him, to try and be some sort of fucking hero that could find her own way out.

  “I’m sorry for putting you second. I’m sorry for being too much of a coward to speak out. But most of all, I’m sorry for myself. Sorry for the woman that I have become, and for the woman that I lost along the way…” My voice fades off and sobs rack my body.

  I feel Cal’s arms go round me and then I’m being lifted from my chair and carried. I don’t care where, I’m too distraught to question it.

  I cry as Cal lays me down on a mattress.

  I cry as he puts a cover over me.

  I cry as he lays beside me, holding me, letting me have this moment to weep for all that I have lost.

  I said that I would give myself tonight.

  I promised that tomorrow would be a new day.

  And I let the darkness cloak me as I sob for the Lucy that I desperately miss.

  Chapter Thirty

  The Watchman

  Cal

  Watching her weep kills me.

  Watching her pain obliterates me.

  Watching her grieve shatters me.

  I held her until she passed out from the tears, from the exhaustion that continues to play havoc with her mind and her soul.

  I hate feeling so helpless.

  I hate that I didn’t try harder to get her away from him.

  I hate that it took me so long to admit my love for her.

  I left to go travelling when she was with Tom, and I came back to find that she was suffering a different kind of horror altogether. Tom was a douche, but Michael is the devil.

  How could any man put their hands on a woman? Hurt them. Make them bleed. Turn them into someone that is so scared for their life, but at the same time make them too scared to leave.

  I don’t understand it.

  I never want to understand it.

  There is a difference between loving someone fearlessly and loving someone dangerously.

  Fuck.

  I sit up and run my hands through my hair, desperate to know how to help Lucy.

  But I already know that I can’t help her until she has helped herself.

  Her road to recovery isn’t going to be an easy one.

  She thinks that she’s weak, a coward, broken, but she couldn’t be further from the truth.

  She’s courageous, brave and strong.

  I won’t run from her again.

  I’ll be by her side until she decides that she doesn’t want me here any longer. I hope she never decides that, but I will always respect her wishes.

  I love her, always have.

  Now, I just have to show her that I am worthy of her loving me back, in the same way that I adore her.

  She needs to love freely, have her voice be heard and have a man that will worship her.

  I’m that man, it just took me a while to figure it out.

  I can only hope that she thinks so too.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Distraction

  Lucy

  It’s been three days since I left the hospital, and two days since I promised to fight my demons.

  As I stare at the walls that are now painted in a warm yellow, I know that I have just been distracting myself instead of facing up to the turmoil that festers inside of me.

  I’ve distracted myself with paint, and Cal’s kitchen. I’ve given it a fresh new look that is more inviting than the cold grey walls that looked so dull and lifeless.

  Colour, it makes things pop, and this kitchen sure does pop.

  “Wow,” I hear Cal say behind me as he enters the kitchen.

  “Do you like it?” I ask as I gesture around the room with a small smile on my face. He surveys the room for a moment, and I instantly feel like I have done wrong. “Shit, you don’t like it. I’m sorry, I’ll paint the walls grey again, I didn’t mean to––”

  My voice is cut off by Cal walking towards me and placing his finger gently over my lips.

  “I love it,” he says and my heart flutters amid the pounding that threatened to raise my anxiety levels.

  “Really?” I ask, hopeful. Fuck’s sake, I sound pathetic, but this is what I have been made into. A woman that doubts daily.

  “Really,” he says with a nod. His kind eyes make me want to cry.

  No, Lucy, no crying.

  I’ve done enough of that to last a lifetime, and I know that there will be more to come in the near future. As in, tomorrow, when I have to go to the police station and give a more detailed statement. I’m already dreading it, but I know that I have to do this if I want to get justice for myself, and for anyone else that has been through what I have. I know that it won’t actually make much difference to other women who have been trapped, controlled and belittled, but it makes me feel stronger knowing that if I can speak up, then others can too.

  “I thought I’d do the lounge next,” I say to stop my thoughts from overloading my brain.

  Keep busy.

  Distract the mind.

  “What’s wrong with the lounge?” Cal says with his eyebrows raised in question.

  “It’s blue, Cal.”

  “What’s wrong with blue?”

  “Nothing if it’s a light, airy colour for a lounge, but you haven’t got a light, airy colour. You have a dark blue which just makes the room feel cold,” I admit.

  “I guess this means another trip to the paint store, huh?” Cal says, his smile lighting up his face.

  Fuck. I shouldn’t even be thinking about how good Cal looks right now.

  “You don’t mind me injecting some life into this place then?” I say off-the-cuff but am blown away by Cal’s quiet answer.

  “There was no life until you.”

  I freeze for a minute, just replaying those words over and over in my head.

  “There was no life until you.”

  “There was no life until you.”

  He feels t
hat way because of me, and I didn’t do anything to make him come to that decision. I didn’t make him bring me here, be there for me, or ask him to look after me. He’s made all of those decisions on his own.

  Freely.

  Without pressure.

  If he wants me here, then I need to damn well start embracing that and stop thinking that he is just putting me up because he feels sorry for me. Cal is my friend, and friends do this type of stuff for each other. God, Michael really has distorted my perception. Bastard. I need him to pay for what he has done.

  Rage. It flows through me like wildfire and consumes the very part where my heart beats, making it pump a little faster.

  One minute I feel like I’m no good, then the next I’m feeling all sentimental over friendship, and then I end up on anger? It’s like I travel from one emotion to the next in the blink of an eye. It’s exhausting, and it’s like being on a fucking merry-go-round that I can’t get off of.

  “Lucy, you ready to go?” Cal says, pulling me back to the here and now as he stands at the kitchen doorway, ready to go to the paint store. Such a simple, mundane task, but one that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Simple and mundane would satisfy me for the rest of my life.

  “I’m ready,” I say in answer to him, but also in answer to myself.

  I’m ready to fight this.

  I’m ready to try and start letting go of the pain.

  I’m ready to let myself feel more than I should for Cal.

  I’m ready to try and get back to the old me, the one before it all went to shit.

  I’m ready to live again.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Talking to a stranger

  Lucy

  “This is a safe space, a space in which you can talk freely and start to work through your thoughts and feelings, a space where there is no judgement and no pressure. We can go at your pace, you’re in control here, not me.”

  Ava.

  My therapist. The one that was recommended to me after I gave my police statement the other day. My moods have been so up and down, so I decided that it was time to talk to someone other than Cal and Kim. They’ve been great, but I can see that they are struggling with how to help me, but the real problem here is, they can’t. I have to help myself.

  So, here I am, ready to divulge all of the ugliness that lives inside of me to a stranger.

  Ava is pretty with brown curls that fall just below her shoulders, green eyes that are warm and friendly, she’s tall, dresses like a boss, and exudes a confidence that I long to feel. She’s forty-one years old and has been a therapist for the last ten years, specialising in domestic abuse. It’s something that shouldn’t exist but happens on a daily basis for thousands of women all over the world.

  “I don’t even know where to start,” I say, my hands trembling with nerves.

  “You start wherever you feel most comfortable,” Ava says, a kind smile on her face.

  Wherever I feel comfortable.

  Where is that?

  I have no idea.

  But I guess my mind decides for me as I start to talk.

  I begin with when I first noticed that I had become a domestic abuse victim, and with how by the time I noticed, I was in too deep, couldn’t see a way out and thought that I could make it all better if I just behaved and did as I was told.

  I let the words roll off my tongue, I pluck tissue after tissue out of the box on the table beside me, I allow the tears to fall and my mouth to expel all the nastiness inside.

  I talk and talk and talk.

  Ava doesn’t say a word. She just sits there, writing the occasional note on the pad of paper in front of her.

  It’s like I’ve opened up a faucet that I can’t shut off.

  I feel dirty as I recall the bath tub and the handcuffs. I feel unworthy as I recall how I would curl up in a ball and silently beg for my life. I feel stupid that I didn’t go with Cal when he came to try and save me.

  I go through the full range of emotions, much like I’ve been doing for days, but instead of masking it like I try to do around Cal and Kim, I let go and don’t hold back.

  I need this outlet, because it’s just for me. It’s not about anyone else in this room, and Ava doesn’t need me to try and be strong. This is my place to break down and put myself back together.

  When I stop talking, I just sit there and breathe, closing my eyes, enjoying the feeling of letting it all go.

  “You know, Lucy,” Ava begins, and I open my eyes, wiping away the last few tears so that she isn’t all blurry. “I’m not meant to have an opinion in here, but I formed one whilst you were speaking.” I suck in a breath and wait to see what she is about to say. Did I go too far? Should I have held back more?

  “You are strong, Lucy. Never have I had someone open up to me so quickly, and that speaks volumes. I can see that you want to put this behind you and try to get back to some sort of normalcy. I can see that you want to live and not dwell on the events of the past. Those marks that still mar your body, they’re your battle scars. They will remind you of who you are, of how you survived. Over time the bruises will fade, but you’ll still know that those bruises were there, and you will smile because you fought and won.”

  Fought and won.

  I never thought of it like that.

  Battle scars, not just ugly-ass marks upon my skin.

  I’ve been through my own kind of war and I’m still standing.

  “But, how do I forgive myself for being weak?” I say, looking to Ava for the answer.

  “You’re not weak, Lucy, but that’s what you’re here to figure out. Only you can forgive yourself, and once you do that, you’ll be able to live the life that you want,” Ava says.

  Again, it’s all on me.

  “What if I never can?” I whisper. I let the people I love the most down, I let myself down, and now I’ve got to try and crawl out of the giant vat of guilt that I’m bathing in all by myself?

  “Then you will never move on, and you’ll always be trapped with the man that put his hands on you,” Ava says, and fuck if her words don’t hit me where it hurts.

  I can’t be trapped with him forever.

  I don’t want to live with him living inside of me.

  I need to expel every single part of Michael that ever entered my heart.

  I will fight, I will forgive, and I will push myself to be someone that I admire.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Waiting

  Cal

  Waiting. It’s something I’ve learned to do. I used to be a whirlwind, bouncing from one place to another, never able to sit still as I tried to keep my mind busy, but now, now I’m okay with waiting.

  Because it’s for her.

  For Lucy.

  I would wait for an eternity for her.

  I’m stood at the bottom of the stairs whilst she gets ready. Tonight, I’m taking her out for a meal.

  It’s been a week since Lucy gave her police statement and it’s been five days since she had her first therapy session. Her second one was today, and the change in her in such a short amount of time is incredible.

  The first session, she came out broken and spent the rest of the day curled up in my bed. I’ve been sleeping on an air-bed since Lucy came to stay with me, and as much as she had tried to argue about it, I won’t give in. Giving her my bed is no hardship. I’ve slept on cold, hard floors and in the fucking grass on occasion during the time when I travelled, so an air-bed to me is comfortable.

  “Where are you guys off to tonight?” Sullivan asks as he appears from the lounge and leans against the door frame. I told him he could stay for one night, but he’s still here. Danielle hasn’t forgiven him, and I think he might be starting to see that she never will.

  “Just to the diner down the street.”

  “Pushing the boat out there, Cal?” Sullivan says.

  “Actually, I wanted to go somewhere that was casual,” I reply, a bit irked at his comment. “Unlike you, I’m not just trying to
get into a woman’s knickers.”

  “Like fuck you aren’t,” Sullivan says with a snort and I round on him.

  “What did you say?” My hands ball into fists at my sides.

  Sullivan holds his hands up, palms facing me. “Whoa, whoa, I was just joking, bro, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “You better not have,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Shit, she’s got you all tied up in knots, huh?” he says, but there is no joking in his tone. This time his words are sincere, and fuck if they’re not true.

  I run a hand through my hair and sigh. “She’s my friend, Sul.”

  “She’s more than that to you.”

  I am about to reply to him, but then I hear a clearing of a throat on the stairs and I turn around to see the most stunning vision that I have ever seen.

  Lucy is stood there, wearing dark denim skinny jeans, black high-heeled boots, a black vest top that clings to her curves, and a black fitted jacket. Her hair is hung down in loose waves, stopping just before the curve of her breasts.

  I look at her face, her lips, her eyes, all free of make-up, and she has honestly never looked more beautiful. Her eyebrows aren’t pinched together in question, her forehead isn’t creased with worry lines, and her mouth isn’t in a straight line. She’s smiling, looking fresh-faced and happy.

  Like the old Lucy used to look, before I went and left her to the wolves that tried to rip her apart.

  “Damn,” I hear Sullivan say on a breath behind me.

  Damn indeed.

  I watch her as she makes her way down the stairs, her eyes never leaving mine.

  Fuck. My heart.

  As she gets to the bottom, I gulp down the lump in my throat. If we were in another lifetime, I would be picking her up and carrying her to my bedroom like a goddamn caveman that hadn’t had a taste for decades. Instead, I have to control my urge to touch her, to caress her and make her mine, because she doesn’t belong to anyone, and I need to wait until she is comfortable to move things forward.