Confined

by Barbi Barnard

  Confined

  Title Page

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Book Links

  Confined

  By

  Barbi Barnard

  Copy write

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright 2017 © Barbi Barnard

  Edited by: Jo Powers

  Cover design by: Patricia Maia at Maya's Teasers & Designs

  Photo from CanStock images

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  Back Blurb

  Confined: [Kuh n-fahynd]

  Adjective

  Limited or restricted

  Unable to leave a place because of illness, imprisonment, discipline, etc.

  Being in parturition; being in childbirth.

  Origins of confined

  Confine + ed

  Life has thrown JoJo a big curve ball...her story is dark; her journey to the light is fractured. . She must return to where it all started. When your life is turned upside down and inside out, when things become unbearable, when wrong become the norm, where do you go? How do you begin to live again after your fears become reality? JoJo is rebuilding her life, one moment at a time. With the help of others she is moving on and growing. She wishes for a normal life without the paralyzing fears, JoJo’s story has many twists and turns...people are there to help her, she needed only to reach out to take the offered hand. Will the memories she worked so hard to conceal finally come to light? Is she facing her problems head on? Or, will her world peel away like the layers of an onion and take on a life of its own? Can a person survive and grow if they’re confined?

  Content Warning

  Please note that there are memory scenes in italics of an intense sexual situation that may contain rape, and violence. Skipping these scenes will not detract from the story.

  Table of contents

  Title page

  Copy write

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter One

  The judge banged his gavel; it gave a final, resounding echo off the oak paneled courtroom walls. I stared down at the table, expertly avoiding the smug grin of my now ex-husband. Shock radiates off me like the energy wave from a nuclear explosion.

  I can’t believe the judge ruled in his favor, I thought.

  Wait, who was I kidding, of course he did. The dammed judge was probably a close friend of the family – some golf buddy or country club brother.

  My lawyer, a wet behind the ears doe-eyed blonde, fresh out of law school placed her icy hand on my bare forearm. “I’m so sorry,” she murmurs, her lavender eyes swimming behind a veil of tears. “I really thought we had a chance.”

  I fight to keep my own tears at bay. So did I or I thought? “Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “I kind of figured we didn’t have a snow ball’s chance in hell of winning. At least not when the judge is your new B.F.F.” I nod toward the front of the courtroom where Kyle Weston is standing, his head down, lips moving at the judge’s ear.

  Francine, my lawyer, groans under her breath. “Give me twenty-four hours,” she says, “I can file a motion, and we’ll-”

  I hold up my hand, effectively silencing her tirade. “It’s not worth it.” I’m not worth it, I think as the tears threaten to spill again. “Thank you for all your help.” I grab my bag and hurry out of the courtroom not bothering to look back.

  He's the past now, no matter how much it hurt and there were a million new things I have to worry about. Like picking Emma Grace up from the sitters and figuring out where we were going to live, how I am going to pay for it, and oh, I have to find a job too. In this economy. That’s kind of like, well… if I’m being frank, fucking impossible.

  Tears well up all over again and I furiously rub them away as I hurry toward the bright red Nissan parked along the curb. I groan as I notice the parking ticket tucked under the windshield wiper, fluttering in the breeze. Reaching the car I rip the offending ticket out from under the wiper blade and stare at it, the tears that had been threatening to spill all morning finally breaking free. They stream down my face leaving twin black rivers of mascara and eyeliner in their wake.

  “No, I am not going to cry; crying doesn’t solve a damn thing.” I crumble the ticket and shove it into my purse. The car was in Kyle’s name, let the great state of California arrest him for an unpaid parking ticket. The bastard owed me at least that much.

  I fish my keys out of my purse and slide behind the wheel of the one thing I’d been permitted to keep - the cherry red Nissan 370z Coupe. The engine purred to life as I pulled away from the curb. The CD in the player hummed and Nickelback poured softly out of the speakers. I jabbed the radio dial trying to get away from the song because, contrary to its lyrics, I didn’t feel alive.

  Really though, they just hit too close to my freshly wounded heart. The track quickly changed, feeling bitter about waking up alone gave way to a peppy Madonna song. I sigh in relief and head toward the sitter’s house, mentally preparing myself for Emma’s attitude about even having to go to the sitter in the first place.

  She fought me tooth and nail this morning until I finally snapped and screamed for her to quit being a pain in the ass and just get the hell in the car. She flipped her long brunette hair over her shoulder and snidely remarked, “That’s why daddy’s divorcing you,” as she slid into the passenger seat. As the door shut I would have swore she muttered, “Because you’re a bitch,” but I might have imagined it.

  I signal and turned into Margie’s subdivision, waving to the scruffy security guard who waves me through. Margie was a friend of Kyle - well her husband was at least - and we were friendly, but I wouldn’t call her a friend. Well maybe just a little, she did agree to watch Emma while I was in court this morning.

  As I pull into her driveway, I can hear the kids, Emma Grace as well as her three kids. When I knock on the door, Margie opens it and smiles up at me. “Hey,” she chirps in a voice that sounds like tinkling bells. “I was just telling Emma you should
be here soon. How was court?”

  I stood in the foyer for a second trying to find the perfect description for just how imperfect court was this morning. Finally, I said, “It didn’t go well.”

  Margie frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Thanks,” I reply, wringing my hands together. I don’t like the way her sympathy feels, it’s like I went mucking around a sewer all night and am now standing in her foyer dripping the filth on her pristinely polished floors.

  “I’ll, um, go get Emma Grace,” she says and then scurries off toward the backyard. A door off the kitchen opens and the sounds of outside filter into the large house - a lawnmower, birds chirping, a dog barking just up the block. The door shuts again and the tell-tale sound of Emma’s flip-flops comes toward me. My ten-year-old daughter rounds the corner with such a look of discernment on her face I know what I have to tell her will not be pleasant. I roll my shoulders back and smile at her.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” I say cheerfully. “Did you have a nice visit?”

  Emma looks from me to Margie then back to me. “Yeah. Can we go now?”

  I nod at her then say, “Thanks, Margie. I appreciate you watching her.”

  “No problem,” is muttered as she us ushers to the front door. “See you later.”

  No, probably not, I think to myself. Aloud I say, “Sure thing. Have a good weekend.”

  Emma Grace has gotten into the car, buckled her seat belt, and is now sitting there with her bird-like arms crossed over her chest protectively. I force the frown off my face and get into the car, starting it wordlessly.

  She and I are silent the entire way home. Then the inevitable happens in a completely earth shattering way. As I pull into our driveway, the bumper of the Nissan comes stunningly close to kissing the ass of a battered yellow moving van. Emma’s eyes go wild as she takes in the van, the moving men, and the plethora of boxes loaded into the back of the van.

  “You’re kicking him out?” she breathes, eyes wide as saucers.

  I sit there helplessly, unable to tell her that it is we, who are in fact being kicked out. Up at the house, the front door opens and Kyle walks out, his chest swollen with the cocky arrogance of a man-child who got his way. Emma pushes open the door and runs to him crying, “Daddy!” as her hair trails out behind her in a shimmering flag of brunette curls.

  I watch as this stranger hugs my daughter then looks at me, his glance beckoning me wordlessly. I get out of the car, the urge to run away and fight swirling in my stomach, each one battling to be the more dominant emotion. “Kyle what’s going on here?” I ask, motioning toward the moving van.

  “They’re packing yours and Emma Grace’s things. They’ll take you where ever you wish to go.”

  At this, Emma’s arms fall down to her sides and she glances up at Kyle. “I don’t understand,” she says, perfectly echoing my thoughts.

  “We’re being kicked out,” I say without emotion. “Your father has decided he no longer wants us and has kindly packed our things and put us out, and the greatest part is that he doesn’t care that we have nowhere to go. Isn’t that so nice of him?” The sarcasm drips off my voice like honey. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but it would be better in the long run, if she saw him as the bad guy who kicked us out, who didn’t want us anymore.

  Emma looks up at Kyle. “Daddy is that true? You’re kicking me and Mom out?”

  Kyle stares at me, his eyes shooting daggers across the space between us. I had the ridiculous urge to stick my tongue out at him however, I refrained.

  “Yes Emma,” I supplied. “It’s true.”

  Emma backs away from Kyle and into me. I wrap my arms around her protectively. “Why don’t you go wait in the car,” I say softly. She nods and shuffles toward the car without another word. Once the door is safely shut, I focus my attention on Kyle.

  “How could you do this to me, to her, to us? Where are we supposed to go Kyle? Huh, where?”

  He stood before me, a heartless statue with a stupidly styled leprechaun hair and eyes as green as the Emerald isle itself, staring down his artesian nose at me. “That’s not really my problem now is it? Nevertheless, if you’re really that worried, your father left you that dump he called a house. It’s all yours.” He practically throws the deed and a set of keys at me.

  My heart starts to race as I unfold the deed. Images of the past flash before my eyes, scenes from that night and all the subsequent days afterward wash over me. I fought the urge to vomit in the driveway. “Kyle you know I… why I…” my voice trailed off. I don’t know what I expected from him. Sympathy, compassion, care, or understanding, I have no idea, but if there was one person who knew about the past and what happened, it was him and he should know why I couldn’t go back to Mora.

  Then a realization washed over me. Dad passed away five almost six years ago. Who has been paying the property tax and homeowner’s insurance on the house all this time?

  Thoughts met voice and I said, “Why didn’t you tell me about this before? Fingers, under their own accord, smooth the deed. Eyes rake over the legalese picking out the plain English cryptically contained within: the house in the very tiny town of Mora, Washington was legally mine.

  “You didn’t need to know,” he said coldly. “Now you have a place to go.” And with that, he turns and walks away. The two movers, who’d stood motionless as they gobbled up the confrontation, scrambled to look as if they hadn’t been eavesdropping. I folded the deed back up and slid it into my purse. The taller, burlier of the two made his way over to where I was standing.

  “Miss?” he said awkwardly, clearing his throat.

  I glanced up quizzically.

  “We’re all finished. I just need to know where we’re headed.”

  I glance up at the sky, inhaling a lungful of the smoggy Los Angeles summer air. As I exhale, I look at the mover, Ernie his nametag read. “Mora,” I said. “We’re going to Mora, Washington.”

  ***

  Two days later, the red Nissan crosses the city limits into Mora. As I drive into town, the same weathered sign greets me, Welcome to Mora, it proclaimed just as it always had. The same weathered old men still sit in front of the barbershop, smoking cigars and talking about the “good old days.”

  I am surprised to see how much nothing changed in the ten years that had passed since I’d last been here. I’m not expecting mini malls or a Wal-Mart on every corner, but something aside from what was, always had been, and probably always would be.

  The trip through downtown took five minutes and before I knew it, I was turning onto the street that I’d grown up on. Emma glanced out the window miserably as the windshield wipers beat a steady tattoo on the windshield.

  “Why couldn’t we stay in L.A.?” she whined for the millionth time since leaving the city.

  “Because,” I said. “We didn’t have a place to live.”

  “So we’re moving into some stinky old house nobody’s lived in for like forever and where your dad died.” She paused, working her gum over her tongue and blowing a huge, cotton candy scented bubble. She held it for a second then popped it. “That’s just great.”

  The house is in better shape than I had hoped for. The lawn is neatly mown, the hedges, while needing trimming, are still relatively tame. The driveway is cracked and crumbling and there is a thick cluster of ivy winding its way up the side of the house, creeping toward the second story windows.

  The little brick house is quaint in a “welcome to your new life in rainy old Mora kind of way.” However, beggars couldn’t be choosers and a house in Mora was better than no house at all.