Our Cracked Pieces (The Pieces Series Book 2)

by M. E. Clayton

  “Lorcan! Paul!”

  Fuck. Paul.

  I wasn’t sure how long we fought for, but soon, I had his shirt in a death grip, my right fist wailing away at his face. There was blood everywhere, but I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, I hadn’t spilled enough of his blood.

  It wasn’t until I felt a bunch of hands and arms wrapping around me, pulling me off Mr. Hostettler’s body, that I finally stopped. “Mr. Cavanaugh!”

  It took a while for me to stop struggling, but when I finally did, and sanity came back into play, the room was crowded with teachers breaking up the fight, and students being nosey.

  “What in the hell is going on here?!” Mr. Hilton, the principal, yelled. “Jesus Christ, Paul, are you okay?” Mr. Hostettler was busy trying to steady himself.

  “Oh, my God…oh, my God,” Vanessa kept chanting, and she was lucky I abhorred violence against women.

  “What in the hell happened here?” Mr. Hilton asked again. He looked over at me, his expression clearly placing the blame on me already. “Mr. Cavanaugh?”

  “Lorcan…” I turned to look at Vanessa, and it was all there in her eyes, she was begging me not to say anything. But if she thought I was going to go to jail, and ruin my chances of graduating because of her, she was wrong.

  I looked back at Mr. Hilton and told him the truth. “I kicked his fucking ass. And if you’re going to have me arrested for it, then do it, and quit wasting my time.”

  Mrs. Johnston was tending to Mr. Hostettler but looked over at me. “For God’s sake, why?”

  Looking back over at Vanessa, I said, “Because he got my girlfriend pregnant.”

  The collective gasps of shock filled the room. Mrs. Johnston took a step back from Mr. Hostettler in stunned disgust.

  Mr. Hilton finally broke the silence. “Paul…Paul, is that…that true?” Mr. Hostettler paled, guilt written all over his face, and Vanessa’s anguished cries only added as confirmation.

  I looked back at Mr. Hilton, and for the first time in my life, used my parents’ clout. “Decide if you want me arrested more than you want a scandal at your school, Mr. Hilton, because if you think my parents are going to let an arrest slide, you’re wrong.”

  With that, I waited patiently as Mr. Hilton made up his mind.

  Chapter 11

  Rowan~

  It was almost midnight, and we were all gathered in the living room. After I had agreed to let Grayson wake our parents, I had asked for a small reprieve, and he had granted it, letting me take a shot shower before facing my parents. And when I had gone into the bathroom, looking in the mirror, a shower had been the right decision. I had looked like a mess, and this was going to painful as it was, I didn’t need to look like a wreck on top of everything else.

  After my shower, I had dressed in a pair of pajamas and one of Grayson’s old, oversized hoodies. As one of the most comfortable pieces of clothing around, Grayson always passed down his old hoodies to me. And right now, being surrounded by his comfort made me feel braver than I really was.

  Had I really been a brave person, I would have never put myself in this mess. I would have called Officer Connors’ bluff and dealt with the fallout like an adult.

  But I hadn’t.

  Looking at my parents, I could tell they were doing their best not to freak out. But how could they not with their son, who was supposed to be across the country at school, waking them up in the middle of the night to tell them their children needed to talk to them.

  My dad looked panicked, where my mom looked anxious. As a woman and teacher, she probably thought I was pregnant. My dad, as a man and a lawyer, he probably thought I killed someone. It didn’t help that Dad was a criminal lawyer. He’s seen a lot.

  Grayson was sitting behind me on one side of the couch, while my parents mimicked our positions on the other side. My dad sitting behind my mom, his hand on her thigh, showing support even though they had no idea what they were facing.

  “I…” Clearing my throat and taking a deep breath, I felt my brother’s hand come up and squeeze my shoulder. His quiet show of support reminded me that we had good parents. We had parents whose love was solid and unconditional.

  We had a strong family.

  “I need your help,” I told them. “I made a terrible mistake, and…and that led me to make another one, far worse.”

  Mom asked the question of her assumption. “Are you pregnant, Rowan?”

  I shook my head. “No, Mom. I’m not.” I could see the tension leave her shoulders, but Dad was still looking a bit panicked. If I wasn’t pregnant, then that opened a whole new world of possibilities.

  “Then what’s going on, Rowan?” Dad asked. “You can tell us, sweetheart.”

  With a ragged breath, I grabbed the courage I knew I needed to get through this and told my parents everything. While I was all cried out, emotion still broken through during my recounting of the events that have led me here, and there was no mistaking the pain in my voice. The regret was there, along with the confusion and exhaustion.

  I told them everything, very much like I had done with Grayson.

  And as embarrassing and as painful as the details were, the one thing I’ve learned by having a lawyer for a father was that, no matter how damning or upsetting, the truth was paramount to your defense. The truth mattered. The truth really did set you free. And if you were going to pull the people you loved most into your fight, they deserved the truth. So, I told the truth.

  All of it.

  Every single humiliating bit of it.

  When I was done, my mother was in tears and my father…well, my father had jumped from the couch, and unknowingly copying my brother, he started pacing and ranting. “I’m going to kill that sonofabitch. I’m going to fucking murder him,” he hissed.

  “Dad-”

  “I don’t give a fuck that he’s a cop,” he said to no one in particular, and that’s when I knew I was losing him. Dad didn’t curse like this. Dad was the type of man who set the example. Mom was the one with the fiery temper, it’s where Grayson got his fierceness from, but I think the woman in her was identifying with what this has done to me, and heartache was trumping her temper right now.

  I felt Grayson stand up from behind me. “I’ll do it,” he volunteered, and that’s when Mom finally snapped out of her heartbreak.

  She stood up and grabbed my father by his shoulders, putting his pacing to a halt. “I agree he needs to die, but Rowan comes first,” she said. “Right now, we need to focus on the repercussions of what the girls did and protect them from the fallout.” Her hands cupped his face. “Rowan also needs help, Stanley. She needs us to help her.” Looking over at my brother, she repeated herself. “Rowan needs us, Grayson. Her feelings are what matter right now.”

  It broke my heart to see the two men I loved most in the world deflate with their inability to avenge me. Men were fixers. They were doers. They were protectors. And I had snuck through their masculine need to provide and protect and let myself get caught up in something terrible.

  But Mom was right. While I was a victim in all this, I didn’t want to take the girls down with me, and I needed my dad to do what he could to protect them from what we’d done. There was also the glaring fact that it was my word against Officer Connors’, and who was going to believe me over a cop.

  “Mom, Dad?” They both looked over at me. “It’s…it’ll be my word against his,” I pointed out. “And who’s going to believe me over a cop?”

  The entire room went still at that.

  Dad finally came and sat down next to me, his hand squeezing the shit out of my knee. “Sometimes, you have to look past the winning to see the point of it all,” he said. “Even if we lose, you still made him have to answer for his actions. Publicly.”

  “I’m so sorry, Da-”

  “Stop it, Rowan,” he said fiercely. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You made a teenage mistake, like a million other teenagers around the world, that’s it.”

  “C
an…can you two give us a moment?” my mother asked of my father and brother, and though you could see it tearing them up to grant her request, they still did it. Quietly filing out of the living room, they left me and Mom to talk.

  She sat down where Dad had been sitting, and her blue eyes were filled with so much emotion, it was kind of hard to look at her. “If you go through with pressing charges, you’re going to have to share your experience with strangers, Rowan. You understand that, right?” I nodded. “But before we get to that, I want to ask you something that I didn’t feel should be asked in front of your father and brother. I’m not sure they can handle it right now.” I nodded again. “You said it’s your word against his, but…is there anything about your experience that…there’s no way you could know unless you’re telling the truth?”

  At first, I was confused about what she was asking, but as I mulled her words over in my head, I finally understood what she was asking. She was asking if there was anything identifiable about him that I’d only know from what he’s made me do.

  And there was.

  Chapter 12

  Lorcan~

  I had left school, and as soon as I had gotten home, I had texted the guys to let them know I was okay, and I’d talk to them later. I knew what happened would be all over the school by now, and I didn’t want the guys worrying.

  I had also sent Molly a text, telling her the same, but I expected her home any moment now. Since Molly couldn’t beat up a pregnant girl, her only other option was to come check up on me. Because, trust me, if Vanessa weren’t pregnant, Molly would be in jail right now.

  Now, I was in our home gym, trying to work out everything I still had left in my raging blood. Had the teachers not pulled me off Mr. Hostettler, I was sure I would have killed him. I wouldn’t have stopped hitting him until I’d dispelled all my rage, and with my blood still boiling the way it was, he would have been dead before I had settled down.

  How could I have been so fucking blind?

  I’d see the signs, but I never imagined, in a million years, that Vanessa would be fucking a teacher. A married one, at that. While I had suspected the cheating, I never suspected she would have gotten wrapped up in screwing a married man.

  And the fucking pregnancy, Jesus Christ. I had believed her wholeheartedly when she had told me the baby was mine. That fucking bitch had let me hold her and comfort her and make fucking promises to her, knowing the entire time that the baby wasn’t mine. Hell, from what I had overheard, she was doing a lot more than fucking Mr. Hostettler, she believed he was going to leave his wife and kids for her. She believed they were in a forever-kind of relationship. While I had been trying to come up with ways to make our long-distance relationship work, she had been planning a life with her married teacher.

  How fucking stupid was I?

  Even suspecting that she was cheating, I still gave Vanessa the benefit of the doubt because I’d had no proof. Even knowing that my feelings weren’t as strong as they should be, after all this time dating her, I still wasn’t going to toss away a two-year relationship frivolously. That wasn’t how I worked. I believed in loyalty and commitment. I believed if someone was worth your love they were worth the effort.

  Until they proved that they weren’t anymore.

  “Lorcan!”

  I kept hitting the punching bag because I knew it wouldn’t be long before Molly found me. This was always my go-to when my temper was threatening to drown me. And I’ve been to enough anger management counselors to know that I needed an outlet for my anger.

  I always would.

  I stopped the bag from swinging as soon as Molly came rushing inside the gym. “Lorcan, oh, Christ,” she rushed out. “Are you okay?” Poor thing looked so worried. “What the hell happened?”

  My chest was heaving with exertion when I asked, “What’d you hear?”

  “That…that you admitted to beating up Mr. Hostettler for getting Vanessa pregnant,” she answered. “But no one knows for sure because Mr. Hostettler and Vanessa were mum after you took off.” Her face was so full of concerned confusion. “And something about Mr. Hilton suspending you pending an investigation or…something to that affect.”

  And that was the thing, even if Mr. Hilton wasn’t keen on having me arrested, Mr. Hostettler always had that option. Especially, if he ends up fired over all this.

  He did fuck a student, after all.

  “What the hell happened, Lorcan?”

  “I saw Mr. Hostettler pulling Vanessa into that storage room thing, and I got a bad feeling over it. I followed them, creeped inside the room, and then overheard Vanessa demanding he leave his wife now that she’s pregnant with his child.”

  Molly’s eyes widened, and she let out a stunned gasp. “What?”

  I just nodded. “She even mentioned how I thought the baby was mine.”

  Shock gave way to anger really quick. “I’ll fucking kill her,” Molly spat.

  “You can’t,” I said. “She’s pregnant, remember?”

  Molly arched a brow coolly. “She won’t be pregnant forever.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Molly Doll,” I lied. “It’s over and I’ll be out of here in two months.” I was going to West Texas A&M, while Vanessa had chosen Temple University in Pennsylvania. There would be plenty of real estate between us for me to forget she was ever a part of my life.

  “It does matter, Lorcan,” she argued. “Vicious bitches like that shouldn’t be able to get away with ruining people’s lives.”

  “Staying with her and raising a baby I’d, one day, find out wasn’t mine would be ruining my life, Molly. Not this.”

  Before she could comment, the doorbell rang throughout the house, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the guys. And if it wasn’t all three of them, it’d be Josh for sure.

  “Come on,” I told her. “Let’s go see who it is.”

  Her grey eyes narrowed. “If it’s Vanessa, you better hold me back.”

  I wrapped my sweaty arm around my sister. “Sure thing.”

  Only it wasn’t Vanessa.

  Opening the front door, Molly at my side, it was two uniformed police officers standing on the other side.

  “Lorcan Cavanaugh?” the tallest of the two asked.

  I nodded. “The third, to be exact,” I replied with attitude.

  The second officer bristled. “You’re under arrest for the assault and battery of Mr. Paul Hostettler,” he said. “And it’s our understanding that you are of legal age, correct?”

  “Call Dad and Mom,” I told Molly, not answering what they already knew.

  Scrambling for her phone, Molly spat, “And did you arrest Mr. Paul Hostettler for fucking his teenage students?”

  The first officer grimaced a bit but ignored her question. “Please turn around, Mr. Cavanaugh, and placed your hands behind your back.”

  Doing my best to calm my temper, I did as he asked. This wasn’t a question of whether I was guilty or not, because I was. I was, and I didn’t need to add resisting arrest to my list of charges. I just hadn’t expected Mr. Hostettler not to try to hide what he and Vanessa had been about.

  I glance at my sister, and anger was bright on her face. “Dad? Dad, you need to come quick,” she said into the phone as the second officer started to read me my rights. “Lorcan’s being arrested.”

  “Come on, son,” the first officer said. “Let’s go.”

  I turned around and let them lead me to the police car. I wasn’t overly worried because I knew I’d be bailed out within hours, but I’d been hoping to avoid all this bullshit.

  The entire way to the police station, all I could think of was one thing: fuck women.

  Chapter 13

  Rowan~

  We’d been charged with the break-in.

  I’d been accused of making up the assault as payback.

  One case had been dreadful, but it had ended with a favorable outcome.

  The other had been excruciatingly humiliating, but it had also ended with a favorabl
e outcome.

  Probation and fines for one. Jail time and disgrace for the other.

  But I would never be the same again; I would never see men the same way ever again.

  Chapter 14

  Lorcan~

  I’d gotten arrested and charged with assault.

  I’d been accused of being a jealous asshole who misunderstood the situation.

  Vanessa had gotten an abortion to get rid of the evidence and protect her lover.

  Mr. Hostettler had quit to ‘seek other opportunities’, they’d said.

  My parents had paid the best lawyers in the country to expose everything, vindicating me.

  But I would never be the same again; I would never see women the same way ever again.

  Part

  II

  Chapter 15

  Rowan – (Eleven Years Later)~

  I loved being underestimated.

  I really did.

  I knew what people thought when they looked at me. Or, rather, what most people thought when they looked at me. At five-foot-four, I came with blonde hair, blue eyes, and the curves you’d expect would belong on a provocative blonde. However, I was way more than a blonde with big boobs and wide hips.

  A lot more.

  At twenty-nine, I was a graduate of Georgetown, and I’ve been working for Herman Corporate Auditing since graduating from Georgetown. HCA was one of the most honest, ethical auditing firms in the nation, and it didn’t discriminate their services. Whether it was a small business being run out of someone’s attic or huge business being run out of a skyscraper in the middle of Manhattan, HCA valued every customer.

  Within six months from graduating from Georgetown, I had secured a job with them. Not that I was spoiled, but my parents had let me go back home after graduation to get my bearings, and I’d been lucky as hell when I’d received a call back from HCA. Sure, they were located in Chicago, but our parents had raised us to spread our wings. They weren’t the smothering kind, so Grayson and I had guilt-free freedom from the home nest.