Shy Kinda Love

by Deanna Eshler

  As if reading my mind, Kade says, “Stop thinking of an escape. You are going to trust me—maybe not right now, but we’ll get there, one piece at a time. First you’ll trust me with this,” he says while tapping my head. “Then this.” He lowers his hand and places it over my heart. “Once you trust me with both of those parts, then you’ll feel safe enough to trust me with your body.”

  Kade moves himself so that we are eye level and our noses are only an inch apart. He lifts my chin so my mouth is almost touching his. I can feel his slow and even breaths against my lips. He leans in that last inch, but tilts his head a little to the left so that his mouth meets the corner of my mine. He pulls back slightly and repeats the kiss on the other side.

  I’ve forgotten everything we were talking about and now only care about the distance between my mouth and his. I want to close that distance, this time with his mouth in the center. Unconsciously, I do lean into him, but he pulls back and shakes his head. “You are going to open up to me first. I want you to have no doubt, when I kiss you, that I’m kissing the real you. Not the girl you put out there for everyone to see. I want you to have no doubt that I’m staying. When I kiss you for the first time, it will be with the understanding that we are together, and neither of us is going to run.”

  I have no idea what to say. I stare at him, lips slightly parted, and brain complete mush. Then I go with the truth. “I don’t do relationships, Kade… because I run. I always run. You need to know that now.”

  “I know,” he says, clearly patronizing me. “Just try this, Filly.”

  “Stop calling me Filly,” I tell him. “That’s the stupidest pet name ever.” He chuckles again, only making me more angry.

  I look up at him and catch a glimpse of my clock. When I see it’s almost four I stand up so fast I practically knock him over. “I have to meet Isaac at the barn. I have to go.”

  As I grab my keys off my dresser, Kade grabs my other hand. He looks down into my eyes, taking his time before he speaks. “You come to me tonight,” are his final words. I can see him take in a deep breath, as if resigning himself to something. Then he nods, drops my hand, and walks out of my room.

  This boy can make my brain stop working and make my thoughts race. He can also stop my heart and make it compete in the race against my thoughts. Kade continues to surprise me every day in the way he looks at me, the questions he asks, and the way his touch makes my body heat. If there were ever a guy that I wish I could let be my superman, it would be Kade Cross.

  Chapter 22

  When I get to the barn and see that Isaac is in an unusually bad mood, I force all my own issues to the back of my mind. This time is for Isaac, and for Tanner. I don’t ask Isaac what’s wrong, because I know how hard it is to talk, so I let the horse be the therapist.

  “Okay, Isaac, so I was thinking I’d like to put a saddle on Tanner today. I’m not going to ride, it’s too soon for that, but I want to see how he responds to the transition.”

  Isaac furrows his brow. “Transition?”

  I nod. “The process of saddling a horse isn’t just about preparing him physically to ride. We also expect the horse to make the transition, mentally, from relaxing playtime, to ‘it’s time to work.’ I can tell that Tanner was once a well-trained horse, so I know he’ll understand what the saddle means.”

  I lead Isaac to the pasture where we easily catch Tanner. Over the past couple weeks, we have made great progress in our relationship with the horse. I allow Isaac to lead Tanner, as I direct him into the barn. “I’m not sure how he’ll respond to the idea that we’re preparing him to ride.” Then I ask, “Can you think of a time when you had to make a transition from one line of thinking to another, and it was hard for you?”

  Isaac doesn’t respond until we have Tanner in the cross ties and we have begun brushing him. Then, his response is so quiet, I have to strain to hear him. “Yeah. When I’m with my mom, then I have to go back to the group home.”

  Knowing he won’t continue without prodding, I ask, “What’s that transition like?”

  I hear him take in a deep breath before he replies. “When I’m with her I have to worry about taking care of us; protecting us. Whether it’s from the people in the neighborhood or the drugs. I have to make sure that we’re safe. I make those decisions. I’m in charge.” He pauses and goes to choose another brush before returning to the horse. “When I go back to the group home, I don’t get to make any decisions. Everybody tells me what to do.”

  “That must be really hard.”

  “It’s like I have no control; like I’m a child,” Isaac answers, his voice rising as his emotions take over.

  “That makes sense,” I say, “but I have to ask… doesn’t it sometimes feel good to not have to be in charge? I mean, you’re only fourteen.”

  Isaac just shrugs and continues to brush the horse for a couple minutes. Then he decides it’s my turn to be under the microscope. “What about you, Shyanne? Do you have transitions that are hard?”

  “Yes, Isaac, I do,” I say, thinking about my transition from being alone, to having friends. And once again I’m reminded of the similarities between this young boy, this broken horse, and me. Isaac, when he returns to the group home and has to put his trust in the adults around him. Tanner, when he leaves his herd to be with us and he has to trust that we will make decisions that will keep him safe. And me, choosing to be with my friends and in a relationship, hoping they will not hurt me and hoping that I can minimize the damage that I will do to their lives.

  Isaac peeks over the horse at me and give me one of his mischievous smiles. “I guess you’re not gonna share that with me?”

  “No, Isaac, I’m not,” I tell him. But I smile.

  We finish brushing Tanner in comfortable silence, then I go fetch the saddle, laying it on the ground for Isaac to see. I take Tanner out of the cross ties, hooking a lead line on his halter. Paying close attention to his body language, I lead him to the saddle, allowing him to smell it.

  “What are you doing?” Isaac asks from the other side of the horse.

  “We have to take this one step at a time,” I explain. “We let him smell the saddle, and watch his for signs of anxiety. If his body language is telling us he’s stressed, then we end the session there. We don’t push him further than he’s ready for.”

  Isaac nods. “It’s not about whether he’s physically comfortable with the saddle?”

  I shake my head. “No, not yet. I mean, we’ll get there. When we do eventually put the saddle on him, we’ll have to watch if that triggers any anxiety. The feel of the saddle could bring back bad memories too.” When I finish, I notice that Isaac’s posture has gone from relaxed to rigid. I replay my words over in my head.

  Very cautiously, I ask, “Do you have physical triggers?”

  Isaac doesn’t answer right away, and I don’t push it. I just stand quietly; petting Tanner as he plays with the saddle. He is biting on the girth, and moving his head back and forth, causing the saddle to slide across the floor. After a couple of minutes Isaac asks, “If the saddle does cause him to have flashbacks, will he ever be able to be ridden again?”

  I feel the tears prick the back of my eyes, and a lump forms in my throat. I can’t cry for this boy who has obviously been abused, because that won’t help him right now. So I push back the emotions and try to give him hope.

  “Yes, Isaac, even if Tanner has had bad experiences while being ridden, he can heal from that.” I think about that first time at The Hole, when Luke approached me, touching my waist. I froze, and nearly had an episode in the middle of the bar. Then I think about the fact Keegan and Gemma hug me all the time, and Kade has even slept in my bed while holding me. I smile. “It will take time, but once we convince his mind that we won’t hurt him, his body will follow.” And his heart, I think to myself.

  Chapter 23

  After finding my own answers in the exercise with the horse, I decide that I’m going to tell Kade as much of my story as I can. I
’ll let him decide where we go from there. What terrifies me the most is that I’ll have to tell Kade all of the details I run from every day. I have never shared those details with anyone, so this is another first for me. I’m afraid that he’ll look at me with sympathy and disgust, and any chance we had for a future will be lost in that look. Lost in my past.

  After I shower and tell the girls I’ll talk with them tomorrow, I make the trip across the hall. I knock on their door once, then open it slowly. That’s how comfortable we have all gotten with each other; it’s as if we share one big house. As I start to open the door my chest squeezes and I feel like someone took all the air out of the room. I know it’s just my anxiety so I walk through and close the door behind me, taking in the oxygen I know is there. It’s after eleven and no one is in the living room or kitchen, so I make the walk to Kade’s room. Giving myself no time to think, I walk to his bed, pull back the blanket, and climb in next to the warm body I have come to need so much. Without speaking, Kade lifts his arm, waits for me to curl up next to him, then he wraps his arm around my back and rests his cheek on the top of my head. With that, my chest no longer feels tight and the air returns to the room.

  “You have no idea how happy I am to see you, Filly,” he whispers in my ear. I nod, knowing he was expecting me to bail on this conversation. I don’t speak right away. I just want to feel him, smell him, and breathe him for a few minutes before I lay my heart on floor at his feet. After those few minutes pass, I take a deep breath and begin.

  “Growing up, with both my mom and dad, my life was pretty normal. I had friends and I went to sleepovers. My parents would go to work every day and we would spend the evenings at home, like most families. My mom was wonderful. She would play board games with me, help me with my homework, and talk to me about all the things little girls needed to talk about with their moms. I can still remember every night at bedtime. I would give my dad hugs and tell him goodnight, then my mom would take me to bed. She would either read me a story or she would make up a story to tell me. I loved going to bed every night, just to hear my mom tell me a story and hold me in her arms.”

  I smile, remembering those nights. I trace the letters on Kade’s t-shirt as I go on.

  “When I was about eleven, I started to notice how much my parents fought and how that fighting seemed to be changing both of them. Our house was really big—I mean like… two stories, five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and live-in basement big. My bedroom was on the second floor on the opposite end of the house from my parents’ room. Several evenings during the week, after I went to bed, I would hear a car arrive and that person would come into our house. Being eleven years old, and curious, I would go look out the window to see the car, or try to see who was walking into the house. It was often someone different. Over time I realized it was the same four or five guys, but they took turns coming, never together. It was a few months after these people started coming around that my parents began to fight.”

  I sigh. “Their fights were also at night, after I had gone to bed. Again, being a nosy eleven-year-old—or almost twelve by that point—I tried to listen. I would sneak out of my room and down the hall to the top of the steps. If they were in the living room or kitchen I would be able to hear, but most of the time they were in their room.

  “I can remember one time hearing them argue about my dad’s friends, the guys that were coming over, and about money. Mom was crying, telling my dad we didn’t need the money and he needed to get out of this situation. My dad was telling her it was too late, he couldn’t get out. I remember her crying harder and hearing my dad trying to soothe her, but she would just start yelling at him again.”

  As I replay this story to Kade, I feel the carpet under my knees where I sat at the top of the steps. I can smell the remnants of the dinner that mom made that night still hanging in the air. I can hear the pain in my mother’s voice as she pleads with my father to find another way. I can taste the salt from my own tears as they silently release the pain of a little girl who knows her world is changing.

  Kade places his hand over mine, stopping my finger mid letter. I lift my chin, so I’m looking into his eyes when he asks, “You okay?”

  I press my lips together and nod. I draw in another deep breath through my nose and resume my tracing on his shirt. As I watch my finger, I disconnect from the story so I can go on.

  “The men never stopped coming. At least once a week I would hear a car and then our front door. Sometimes the men would stay for only a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours. Those late-night visits were never discussed during daylight hours. I don’t know if my parents assumed I was always asleep and didn’t know about the men, or if they were just pretending they never came.

  “Although they were never discussed, I could see the impact the visits were having on my parents. My mom tried to be the mom I needed, but she always looked so sad. My dad always looked remorseful. The biggest difference, though, was that my parents never spoke to each other anymore. Actually, they could never even exist in the same room. If I was in the living room doing homework with my mom and my dad came home, he would go straight to another room, only saying hello to me.”

  “One day, maybe six months after the fighting began, I came home from school to find a note from my mom. The note simply said that she had to leave. That she loved me, she would be back one day, but she had to go.”

  I feel Kade’s arm get tighter around my waist, letting me know he’s listening, but never interrupting. I blink back the tears and go on. “I was only a kid. I had no idea what was going on, why my mother would walk out of my life. I spent hours after that trying to remember something, anything, that would explain why she left. I always went back to the fights with my dad, that made the most sense, but it didn’t explain why she left me behind.”

  “Anyway, that night when my dad got home I was in my room, eyes swollen from nonstop crying. Within a few minutes he must have found the note, which I left for him to see. I heard things smashing against the walls and him yelling profanities. He never came to check on me that night. My mom had abandoned us, and my father never came to see if I was okay. Looking back, I know that’s the day I began to shut everyone out.”

  I feel Kade’s breath in my hair, just before he kisses the top of my head. “I’m so sorry, Shy.”

  I nod slightly, but I’ve not even gotten to bad part yet.

  “Over the next few months my dad and I wandered through the house like it was a graveyard, rarely speaking to each other, and never speaking of mom. After about six months my dad seemed to be getting back into his old life. His friends were coming back around again in the evenings, to ‘take care of business.’ They were coming around in the evening, when I was still awake. Dad and his friend would go into the kitchen while I watched TV or played outside with the neighbors. After a year or so I got to know most of dad’s friends by name and some of them even talked about their families. I never asked or had any clue what kind of ‘business’ they were taking care of with my dad. I actually never thought about why the guys were coming around; I just saw them as my dad’s friends. Until one day when one of the friends started yelling at him when they were in the kitchen doing business. This guy was one who had only just started coming around. I was fourteen at that point.”

  I shiver involuntarily, and Kade pulls me even closer. I can feel his muscles becoming rigid, as if he knows what’s coming.

  “Anyway, this guy was yelling at my dad about backing out, telling my dad there was no way out. My dad changed his tactic and tried to take back what he was saying, telling this guy he understood and he was still in. The guy started stomping around the kitchen cursing and kicking the chairs. When he passed by the doorway between the kitchen and living room he stopped when he saw me sitting on the couch. I remember the guy’s response because of how his voice sounded. He went from uncontrolled anger to a soft, way-too-gentle tone when he saw me. He told my dad over his shoulder, ‘I know you’re still in, that was never the qu
estion. The question is, what will it take to help you understand you will never walk away?’”

  I feel Kade stiffen under me and I feel the rise and fall of his chest stop. He’s holding his breath, waiting for the next part of my story. Once I say these words he can’t unhear them. Just like I can’t unlive the story.

  I continue, knowing this is a bridge I have to cross.

  “I was fourteen years old the first time my dad pimped me out to save his own ass.”

  Kade sat up in the bed, taking me with him. “What did you say? What do you mean he pimped you out? What do mean the first time?” At this point he’s already off the bed and pacing around his room. “Tell me his ass went to jail and so did this guy!”

  Here is where the judgment really begins. “I never told anyone until a couple years later, then only Ryder.”

  Kade stopped and turned to look at me. His eyes were uncontrolled fury. For me? For my dad? “Wait, Shy, so you stayed there?”

  And there it is, the choices I made. He is not asking anything I’ve not asked myself every day, but seeing his fury, and probably disgust, brings me to a whole new level of self-loathing. I have just given the one person I think I could love the perfect reason to walk away and never love me. I am sitting at the edge of the bed with my feet on the ground. I was looking up at him until that question, and then I dropped my head in my hands and let the tears come.

  Sobbing, I answer, “I wanted my dad to love me. After that first time, the time I lost my virginity, my dad held me on the couch while I cried and he told me how sorry he was but how much he loved me for what I did for us. Kade, that was the first time in years he’d held me and soothed me the way I thought a father should. It’s sick and twisted, I know that now, looking back. He was the one who gave me to that creep, to take my virginity, violate me—then my dad comforts me and tells me he loves me. It’s sick!” I wipe at my eyes, frantically. “But when you’re a little girl whose mom walked away, who has dreamed of her dad loving and accepting her, and then he finally does that? As dirty and violated as I felt, the acceptance I was getting from my dad in that moment overshadowed the rest. I know I’m twisted and that I made shit choices after that… but my dad loved me, and I needed that… more than I needed to love myself.”