by Amanda Stone
It didn’t take long before we got to the area Kane had wanted to show me. The view was breathtaking. It overlooked the college and the town. The twinkle of the lights from the cars traveling below and the street lights made the town look almost serene. Like something out of a movie.
“Wow, Kane, this is beautiful,” I said as I slowly made my way to the edge of the rock to take a quick peak down.
Yep, just as I thought. High, we were very high. My stomach flipped from the sight, and I slowly backed away from the edge, yelping when my body connected with something.
“Is this how we are going to spend the rest of our lives? You always bumping into me?” We both smiled and Kane nodded toward a smaller rock off to the side. “You wanna sit for a little while? Take in the view?”
“Sure.”
We both had a seat, and Kane threaded his fingers through mine. I smiled down at our hands. It was like they were made for each other. They fit together like a piece of a puzzle.
“I haven’t been here in months,” Kane said as he looked out over the view. “I don’t know why, and up until this morning I hadn’t really given this place much thought. But then you were the first thing that came to my mind when I woke up this morning and it felt right to bring you here.”
“Thank you for sharing your special place with me and for your honesty back there.” I took a deep breath before I continued. “But since you were so open with me it’s only fair that I do the same.”
“Kelsey, I told you that because I wanted you to know me. The real me. Not the things that you would hear about me around school. You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not ready to. That’s not what this is about.”
I held up my hand to stop him. “I want to tell you, Kane, because honestly there may be times that I might try pulling away from you; and what I am about to tell you might explain why. All I have wanted for the past six years is to get away from my past and start over where no one knew anything about me. But I can’t keep this going with you like we are, and not be honest with you. It wouldn’t be fair for either of us. All my life I grew up watching my father beat my mother. She always tried to keep it hidden from me when I was younger. She would play it off like mommy and daddy were just playing, but as I got older I began to understand what was happening. None of my friend’s moms had bruises on them from playing with their daddies, and as I got older the beatings began to get worse. At first he would only hit or grab her in the places she could hide the marks, but over time he began to get angrier more often and started hitting her anywhere he could land a hand. She was so brave, though. I don’t want you to think she was weak because she never turned him in. My mother was the bravest person I know. She put up with him because of me. She never said it, but I know it’s true. She didn’t want to risk having to share custody with him. So as long as she was taking the beating she stayed.”
My voice began to crack but I kept going. “One night when I was twelve I wanted to go out with Jessi and her family for her brother’s birthday dinner. They had already invited me and my mom said I could go, but when my dad got home he was in a pissed-off mood and began cursing at my mom about how our spotless house was never clean enough and how she was lazy. I couldn’t take it anymore, and I finally snapped and started arguing with him. I began telling him how be better leave my mom alone or I would call the cops and tell them all the things he had been doing to her all these years. My mom was telling me to be quiet and to just go to Jessi’s; but once I got started I couldn’t stop.
All my hatred for him was spilling out of me, and I just kept telling him exactly what I thought of him and how he would end up in jail and we would finally be rid of him. He came at me with his hand drawn back to hit me, and when I cowered away from him, my mom stepped up between us and slapped him straight across the face. It was the loudest crack I had ever heard, and right away my mom knew things were going to get bad. She turned to me and told me to run. To get out of the house and get help and not look back. I didn’t want to leave her, but I didn’t know what else to do. So I ran. When I got to the door, I looked back and saw my dad grab my mom by her hair and yank her head back.” The tears were spilling from my eyes and I didn’t try to stop them. There was no point. “He grabbed her by her neck and began to squeeze. He was shouting but I couldn’t hear any of it. All I could hear was my pounding heart and my mother gasping as she tried to pull air into her lungs. I just stood there and watched as he squeezed her neck so tight and so hard that her face started to turn blue. I just stood there and watched as her body went limp in his arms and her eyes became unfocused. I just stood there and watched as my mother was murdered.”
My breathing was uncontrollable now as I tried to finish the rest of the story. “My father dropped to his knees with my mom’s body and began shaking her. Her limp arms flopped and her head fell to the side. When her empty eyes stared back at me, I knew in that second that my mom was gone. I couldn’t stop the scream that erupted from my body and that drew my dad’s attention away from my mom, to me. He laid my mom’s lifeless body on the floor, got up and began to stalk toward me. I scrambled to get the door open before he made it to me. I had just jerked it open when I felt him grab for my shirt but I rushed out the door screaming for help until my throat was raw. Some of our neighbors had been outside and raced over to me. I told them what had just happened and collapsed in the middle of the street. When I looked back toward my house, my father was standing in the doorway.
There was so much talking going on around me. People were asking me if I was okay, if my mom was okay, and calling 911 … but I couldn’t answer any of them. My father’s stare was all I could concentrate on. I didn’t look away until one of my neighbors picked me up and began carrying me toward his house. When I looked over his shoulder toward my house, my father was gone.” I looked at Kane. “So now you know my shame. I stood there and watched my father murder my mother. It was my fault he was so angry, and she sacrificed herself to save me and I just watched as he choked the life out of her.”
Kane’s hand was squeezing mine, not too tightly as to hurt, but more like tight enough to let me know he was there.
“Kelsey … I know you have probably heard this a million times but there was nothing you could do.”
I huffed and rolled my eyes. He was right. I had heard that a million times, and each time I heard it made me sick. It was my fault he was so angry and I could have done something, anything but I didn’t. I was a coward and I would have to live with that for the rest of my life. As I should.
“Kelsey”—Kane grabbed me by my shoulders, making me look at him—“you were twelve. There was no way you could have stood up to a man like that. You were lucky to make it out of there alive. I’m sorry about what happened to your mom but there was nothing. You. Could. Do.”
I buried my face in my hands and sobbed. I hated talking about that night. I hated bringing those memories back. It had been years since I had even spoken about that night. It never got any easier to talk about it.
Kane didn’t try to talk to me about it anymore. Instead he just sat there and held me ‘til my eyes couldn’t manage any more tears.
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 m
y 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.
When the sun finally filled my tiny dorm room, I pulled my headphones from my ears and laid my phone back on the table to get ready for the day. I decided to take another shower even though I had taken one the night before. I wanted to wash away the icky feeling that the sweat caused from my nightmare and I figured another quick shower couldn’t hurt.
While shampooing my hair there was a light tap at the bathroom door before I heard it open and then close.
“Um, hello?” I called and my fingers stopped massaging the shampoo into my scalp.
“It’s me, stupid. Who else would it be?” Jessi’s voiced carried over the rushing water of the shower.
“Well you never know these days!”
I finished washing, then rinsing my hair and turned the water off. I blindly felt along the outside wall for my towel before it was placed in my hand by Jessi. After I had wrapped it around my body I pulled back the shower curtain to find Jessi perched on the sink, her legs crossed at her ankles with a smile on her face.
“Spill it, girl. I didn’t bug you for details last night because I was a bit occupied myself but you’re giving me all the juicy details now. Where did you go?—how far did you go?” She waggled her eyebrows at me and I rolled my eyes at her.
“You know me better than that, Jess. I didn’t go far at all.” I paused and bit my lip. “But I will say this… he is an AMAZING kisser.”