by Chloe Walsh
I barely had the words out of my mouth when the line went dead.
“I REMEMBER YOU BEING NEAT,” Hannah Walsh told me, and I couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped my lips.
“Neat,” I mused, taking a sip from my glass of water. “What a strange thing to notice.”
I was sitting in the stunning brunette’s kitchen, reveling in her company more than I thought I would. Molly was down on the beach. I guessed she was giving us time to talk, and even though I had spent almost four years in close quarters with her, this was the most Hannah and I had ever spoken.
Talking to Hannah was so much easier than I had anticipated.
She looked different to what I remembered.
Her figure was fuller – she wasn’t the skeletal woman I remembered – and her blue eyes had a sparkle in them that I had never seen before.
“Well,” Hannah chuckled, “we had a lot of time to be observant.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “Sorry. Flashback.”
“I like what you’ve done with your hair,” I offered, trying to distract her.
I understood what Hannah meant when she said the word flashback, and I also understood how important it was to distract yourself when those memories threatened to overwhelm you.
Hannah’s hands went immediately to her bob styled hair. In the nest Hannah’s hair was waist length – like mine.
“I don’t need to tell you why I didn’t want to keep it,” she told me knowingly. “It was the one part of my body I could remove. Cutting my hair was one of the first things I did, actually, when I left the hospital.”
Shrugging, I added, “I wish I could get rid of mine.”
“I could cut it for you,” she offered. “I’m a qualified stylist – well, at least that’s what I used to do…before.”
My head was nodding in agreement before my mind had a chance to catch up.
“You seem…happy now, Hannah,” I noted quietly. “You’re doing well for yourself.”
Hannah smiled. “I’m getting there,” she replied softly. “What about you, Mackenzie. Have you found peace?”
“I don’t know,” I told her honestly, fidgeting with my fingernails. “Some days, I find myself thinking about absolutely nothing. And other days the memories just…”
“Bombard you?”
“Yes.” I sagged in relief, deeply comforted by the fact that Hannah knew exactly how I felt.
“It happens to me too,” Hannah confessed, biting down on her lip. “But it’s getting much easier.”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m not supposed to be here,” I let slip. “It’s like I don’t fit in anywhere. Everything is alien to me. And…” My breath hitched in my throat, but I forced myself to say my thoughts aloud. “Sometimes I feel like I should have stayed in the nest. I’m so lost…”
“Do you want to know what I think?” Hannah asked.
I nodded.
Reaching forward, Hannah placed her hand on mine and smiled. “In this cruel, twisted, magnificently wonderful world, we only get one shot.” She squeezed my hand. “Those men took enough of that from us, Mackenzie. Let’s not let them take a second longer. Choose to live your life,” she encouraged. “And fight for your happiness. I guarantee you, that if you fight hard enough, you will find it.”
“Is that what you did?” I asked her. “Chose to live your life?”
Hannah seemed to have the whole survivor thing down to a tee.
I, on the other hand, sucked at it.
“How did you do it?”
“Life is for the living, Mackenzie,” Hannah replied. “And I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be one of the living.” her face reddened when she said, “I refuse to give those men – or any other man – the power to control my life. I will not let them keep me from taking risks, falling in love, and having every human experience I possibly can.”
I wished I could be like that…
“There’s this boy I’ve known my whole life,” I whispered, clenching my eyes shut. “And I love him… more than I should. He’s everything to me.” I paused and glanced up at her.
Hannah’s eyes were wide and kind and focused on me.
I found myself wanting to confide in her.
“But my feelings for him terrify me,” I whispered. “I love him so much that sometimes I feel like I’m losing myself in him. He has that much power over me… which is wrong on so many levels because I shouldn’t have to lean on a man – I shouldn’t want him to own me – to possess me.”
“When you’ve spent as long as we have leaning on no one but yourself, I think it’s kind of nice to lean on someone,” Hannah explained kindly. “It’s not weakness, Mackenzie. It shows strength. Loving despite the pain we suffered is a gift.”
“I’ve been in love with Cade since I was ten,” I sniffled. “And I know he loves me too…but I can’t help but feel like he deserves better than me. Someone pure and clean.”
“You know, before the nest, I had only been with one man,” Hannah admitted in a voice barely more than a whisper. Her blue eyes were wide and full of unshed tears. “We had been together since high school, and he was the love of my love. In the beginning, during my first year in the nest, I used to think that I had ruined everything. That I had dirtied what we had.”
“You didn’t ruin a thing,” I told her in a passionate tone, feeling incredibly defensive of her. “You didn’t choose any of it.”
“Exactly,” Hannah shot back with a smile. “I didn’t choose it, and neither did you. We bear zero responsibility for those vile bastards actions.”
Pushing her chair back, Hannah climbed to her feet and smiled. “I want you to meet someone,” she announced before disappearing out of the kitchen only to return a few minutes later with a tall, blonde-haired man by her side.
“Mackenzie, this is Luke,” Hannah declared with pride. “My husband.”
My jaw dropped open. “You’re married?”
Both Hannah and Luke nodded in confirmation.
“Hannah and I were married fresh out of our senior year of high school,” Luke told me, remaining perfectly still by the kitchen door.
I gaped in confusion. “But that means…”
“I was a married woman when they took me,” Hannah offered sadly. “Luke has stuck by me throughout this whole ordeal.”
“How did you two survive it?” I asked, dumbfounded. I was completely shell-shocked.
How had I not known this?
“The heart wants what it wants, Mackenzie,” Luke said. “And sometimes, if you’re lucky enough, it can overcome all obstacles that stand in its way.”
“Yes,” I replied, as hope soared inside of me. “I guess it can.”
“If there’s anything I’ve learned,” Luke said. “It’s that you don’t give up on people. You don’t give up hope. You don’t give up on love. It can come back. I know it. I’ve seen it, felt it, and touched it.” He turned to look at his wife. “I am looking at my second chance right now.”
“DOESN’T SHE LOOK GREAT, Uncle Mitch?” Molly announced when we arrived back to Uncle Sam’s house later that night.
Dad froze the moment I stepped into the kitchen, fingers clutching the newspaper he had been reading.
“Your hair,” he shook his head in surprise. “You cut it all off.”
I nodded.
My bright blonde waist-length hair was gone. In its place was a short pixie haircut. I couldn’t have looked any more different.
“It feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders,” I confessed with a small smile.
I meant it.
I had left a chunk of the sadness inside of me back at Hannah’s house.
“You look wonderful,” Dad announced in a gruff tone. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’m ready to face my demons,” I admitted.
Molly grinned proudly and I found courage in her enthusiasm.
“I’m ready to go home, Dad,” I told my father. “I’m going back to him.”
Dad paled. “Mickey, I really don’t know if Preston the best place for you right now.” Jerking to his feet, Dad started to fret. “Maybe you should stay here with me,” he half offered, half begged. Dad was beginning to panic. I could hear it in his tone of voice. I could see it in his eyes, the fear and anxiety, as he hovered around me. “Where I can take care of you.”
Reaching up, I pressed a kiss to my father’s cheek, surprising the both of us with my rare display of affection. “I’ll be fine,” I told him and I meant it. “Don’t look so worried, Dad.”
I wasn’t going to let Emily chase me away again.
I had to stand my ground this time.
I needed to believe that I had done nothing wrong – like Hannah believed.
It was crucial for my future.
If I ran now, if I fled Preston, I figured I’d spend the rest of my life running…and I was done being that town’s doormat.
But my father’s facial expression caused the butterflies in my stomach to flutter around like crazy.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he choked out. “I care too much about you to let that happen.”
Dad was afraid for me when I needed him to be brave.
I needed to lean on his bravery and draw strength from it.
“I need to do this, Dad.” Cade had asked me to fight, and finally, having listened to Hannah and Luke’s story, I was ready to do that – for him, and for myself. “I love him too much to let him slip through my fingers again.”
“And what about Emily?” My father demanded in a desperate tone. “What about the baby?”
“The heart wants what it wants, Dad,” I replied, repeating the words that had affected me so much. “And if I’m lucky enough, it can overcome all obstacles that stand in our way.”
My father stared at me for what felt like an eternity before letting out a heavy sigh. “Alright then,” he declared almost dejectedly. “It looks like we’re going home.”
My brows rose in surprise. “Dad, you don’t have to come.” Swallowing deeply, I added, “I wouldn’t expect you to…”
“If you’re running, I’m running with you,” Dad replied. “And if you’re brave enough to face your demons then, by god, I’m sure as hell facing them with you.”
WALKING TOWARDS MACKENZIE, I stepped into her personal space, leaned forward and pulled the wire of her headphones from the stereo they were attached to.
Ron Pope’s ‘A Drop in the Ocean’ blared through the silence, causing my body to tingle all over.
I stared into her eyes, unmoving, as the words of the song blasted around us.
She kept eye contact with me, frozen on her knees on the bed, breathless and looking more beautiful than I’d ever seen her.
Emotions so strong hit me directly in the chest, and I let out a harsh breath. “Why did you do this to me, Kenz?”
Raising her face up, her mouth was a hairs breath from mine. “Do what, Cade?” she replied in that sexy as hell raspy voice.
With my hands on her hips, I breathed harshly, wanting nothing more than to close the distance between us and claim her mouth with mine.
“Why did you leave me?” I breathed, wanting to push forward and press my lips to her more than I wanted my next breath. “You broke me...”
Mackenzie let out a sigh and pressed her forehead to mine. “I didn’t leave you, Cade.”
“But you did leave me,” I admitted in a torn voice. “Again.”
“You’re wrong.” Her breath flooded my senses and I could practically taste her minty breath on my tongue as she pressed one small hand against my chest. “I’m right here.”
With a sigh mixed with lust and defeat, Kenzie wrapped her arms around my neck and let me kiss her deeply, opening her mouth to take my tongue.
“I’m going to love you longer… harder… better than any of the others,” I whispered against her lips, feeling completely and utterly consumed by her.
Consumed.
Mackenzie consumed me heart and soul.
Everything inside of me, every fiber of my being, was directed and anchored towards Kenzie and her wellbeing.
Her tongue stroked mine in an erotic dance of pleasure. Her body relaxed, became pliant in my arms, as my hands travelled all over her, savoring her.
“I want you so badly,” I whispered between kisses, shedding my clothes quickly.
Pushing Kenzie down on her bed, I rested above her, tugged her skirt up around her waist, and pulled on her panties with forceful fingers until they came away in my hands.
“I love you,” I husked as I pushed into her slowly. “There’s only so many ways I can tell you – show you. Just believe me. Please… believe me baby.”
“It’s you,” she whispered, green eyes snaring me, pulling me in. “I want you for keeps.”
I grabbed her hand and held it between our bodies.
“Feel it, Kenzie,” I choked out, pressing the palm of her hand to my chest. “It’s yours. If you leave me again you may as well stick your fist in here and take it with you. You’re the reason it beats.”
A pain struck me then, a hollowing ache in my temple. “Then why did you leave me…”
The pain in my head intensified, blurring my vision, and I felt myself falling, moving further away from her…
“Christ.” Gasping for air, I threw the bed covers off my body and jerked to my feet. I took a quick glimpse at the clock on my nightstand and saw that it was just after one in the afternoon. Fuck, that dream wrecked me – it had been wrecking me every damn night for the past month. It was the reason I tried to avoid sleep.
Knowing I didn’t have a hope in hell of falling back to sleep, I rubbed my weary eyes with the heel of my palm and grabbed my phone from my nightstand before heading downstairs.
When I reached the bottom step, the sound of the television blaring in the sitting room drowned out the horrific fucking flashback of Kenzie’s haunting voice.
Just like most days in my life lately, graduation had come and gone in a drunken blur. I swear if it weren’t for the highschool diploma crumpled in a ball on the kitchen counter, I wouldn’t even have known I attended.
I wasn’t thinking clearly anymore. To be truthful, I had a feeling that I had lost my damn mind. It sure felt like that. I couldn’t make sense of jackshit and I was so unhappy
I wanted to fucking die.
Mackenzie was gone. I hadn’t heard a word from her for over a month, despite the numerous calls and texts and voicemails I had left on her phone.
Depression had well and truly set in and I didn’t give a fuck about anything anymore. I was empty inside. College was right around the corner and it could stay there for all I cared. I didn’t want it. None of it.
Half walking, half staggering into the kitchen, I closed the door behind me before reaching into the cupboard above the refrigerator for the bottle of whiskey I’d stashed there last night before I had stumbled upstairs to bed. Then I grabbed two shot glasses from the draining board before making my way over to the kitchen table. Sinking down on one of the chairs, I poured two glasses of Jack and set my phone down on the table beside one full glass before downing the other. “Happy birthday,” I drawled, tipping my empty glass in the air.
I continued to refill my glass until I had consumed the entire bottle of Jim Beam, and then I did something I probably shouldn’t have – I drunk dialed.
Dialing the number I had imprinted in my mind no matter how obliterated I seemed to be, I held my phone to my ear and waited until it rang out – like I knew it would.
“It’s me,” I slurred when I heart the beep. “You’re not answering my call, nothing new there considering you haven’t answered me the last fifty times I’ve called…Fuck!” Picking up the empty bottle, I threw it against the back wall, feeling nothing when it shattered to pieces. Nothing fucking helped this aching pain. “You broke me,” I spat. “Happy fucking birthday to us, Mackenzie…” I shook my head, trying to form some coherent thoughts. “You once said that I was the
only one you wanted with you when you faced your demons,” I hissed, rubbing my face with my hand. “But I guess that was bullshit, Kenz, huh?”
A loud ping sounded through the line, letting me know that I’d run out of time. Tossing my phone on the table, I let my head drop forward, as I struggled to reign in my raging emotions. “Come home, ”I choked out as tears burned my eyes. “Please,” I begged. “Just…come home.”
“Dude, do you want me to run home and grab my mom’s Michael Bolton CD?” Ezra’s voice filled the room seconds before he came into view. “Because this is getting pretty fucking pathetic.” Strolling into my kitchen, he took a seat at the table, sitting down opposite me. “What the hell are you doing to yourself, Cade?” he asked, eyes locked on mine. “Where’s your mom?”
“Working?” I offered, shaking my head. “Who fucking cares…”
“I care, you stubborn son of a bitch,” Ezra shot back. “And I’m sure as hell not sitting back and watching you go down this road again.”
“What do you want from me Z?” I slurred. I grabbed my hair and tugged, feeling furious and fucking useless all rolled into one. “I’m fucking broken here, man. I am in pain, Z.”
“I want you to sober your ass up,” Ezra replied in a level tone. “And take a damn shower. We have the Beam Bowl final tonight, dude, and you need to get your shit together.”
“Like you give a flying fuck about me,” I snarled. “You’re only here because of your precious football game.”
“Now you’re talking shit,” Ezra hissed, red-faced. “If I didn’t care I wouldn’t have been here every damn day for the past month trying to help your ass. Besides,” he added. “I have some pretty fucking awesome news.”
“Whatever,” I grumbled, uninterested. “I’m done, Z. I’m just…empty.” I didn’t say that lightly. I fucking meant every damn word.
“Come on, Cade,” Ezra snapped, slamming his fist down on the table in front of me. “Fucking snap out of this.”
I barely flickered an eyelid. “I can’t,” I confessed. It was the truth. I felt dead inside. “Just go home, dude…”
“Like hell I will.” Shoving his chair back, Ezra jerked to his feet and came around to my side. “Get up,” he warned, half dragging me out of my seat. “And get in the damn shower or I’ll put you there.”