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But I cut him off, not interested in a word he has to say. “I am not your babe. If I were, you would have been by my bedside. You would have been the first face I saw when I woke up to this god-awful nightmare.” The tremor in my voice displays my emotion, but I push it down as far as it will go because I refuse to show weakness. “But you weren’t. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a part of my past I wish to leave forgotten. Don’t you ever surprise me again.” I focus my seething anger on Stella.
How dare she do this to me.
“I think you need to talk.” She and her suggestion can go to hell.
Laughing maniacally, I fear I’ve finally snapped. “And I think you need to stop telling me what to do. You gave up that right when you kept this”—I point at a cowering Calvin—“a secret. How could you? How could all of you?” I am done with this family. With this home. I am especially done with this stranger who thinks he has any right to touch me.
Calvin storms forward, but I recoil, holding up a single finger. “So help me God, if you touch me, I will break your hand.” He senses my threat isn’t empty and surrenders.
“I’ll give you some time to calm down.” But I am way past that.
The more Calvin speaks, the more I want to throttle him. There is no way I was engaged to this man. Was I freaking crazy? Anything is possible, I suppose, because it seems I am constantly questioning my sanity. “I don’t need to calm down. What I need is for all of you to forget me…just as I’ve forgotten you. Goodbye. Don’t ever call me again.” I turn on my heel, not caring that I take off in a dead sprint.
Only when I yank open the door and fly down the front steps do I allow the tears to flow. When I jump into Cayden’s truck and speed down the driveway like the devil is at my heels, I permit the ugly sobs to overtake me.
My body shudders as I pull over to the curb, shedding frustrated, angry tears. I am furious at myself for allowing her to get to me. This was just another game to prove she is in control. She may have let me move, but tonight was her way of ascertaining that she is the puppeteer and I am merely her puppet. Here for her amusement only.
I slam my fists against the steering wheel, over and over again. I played right into her hands.
Wiping away my tears with my thumbs, I promise myself these are the last that will fall. Not one single tear will be shed for someone who doesn’t deserve them. I put the truck into drive and make my way home.
The drive occurs on autopilot as I follow the GPS, my mind racing. I can’t focus on a single thought. I kick myself for not gathering as much information on Calvin when I had the chance. But I know enough. His absence for the past six months speaks volumes. If he loved me, he would have never left my side.
I’ve never been happier to see my tattered home because it screams warmth. It’s my safe place, and after tonight, I need all the safety I can get. Killing the engine, I breathe a sigh of relief when my feet touch the ground.
The constant energy that nourishes this magical place races through me, and I know there is only one place I need to be. I walk wearily, my heavy heart the compass as I make my way over the hill to the oak tree. The red ribbon flaps in the wind, waving me over and welcoming me back.
Being here soothes my demons, and it’s no wonder it was the first place that ever felt like home. Ursula said Calvin was going to take me home. I can’t imagine that being anywhere but here.
Taking hold of the coarse rope, I turn my back to the lake and lower myself onto the swing, wanting nothing more than to escape.
Cataloging everything I’ve learned, I’ve come to a conclusion that makes me feel a touch better. It’s no wonder I was some sex-crazed, drug fiend. I needed the drugs and the random hookups to deal with the fact that I was engaged to a dipshit named Calvin. Even his name is stupid. What the fuck was I thinking?
But that’s the problem—I don’t think that I was. What event led me down the path that I took? What made me turn into the horrible person that I was?
“Peyton?”
How does he know I’m here? Like a moth to a flame—am I his true north like he is mine? It’s time to find out.
“Hi.” I keep my eyes lowered as I swing gently.
“How’d it go tonight?” Cayden knows; he can read my broken appearance for what it is. But he never assumes.
Swallowing, I muster the courage to reveal my dirty little secrets and don’t bother with pretenses. “Apparently, I’m engaged to someone named Calvin.” Silence. So I continue. “And if that isn’t bad enough, the night Lacey and I went out for drinks, I found out that I was some bed-hopping adulterer who wasn’t opposed to snorting a line or two. No wonder I can’t remember. There is nothing good to remember.” Tears threaten to break free, but I sniff them away.
I have no idea what Cayden is thinking. I wouldn’t blame him for turning back the way he came. But he surprises me, just as he always does. “That’s not true.” His voice is powerful, my anchor in a punishing storm.
Finally lifting my eyes, I take him in, and instantly, the voices fade into the background. “What part? I’m not sure if you heard me, but I thought it was okay to be engaged to a man with no soul. Yet I also had no qualms about sleeping around on him. I apparently was some party girl who definitely did not live by the motto: say no to drugs.”
“I heard,” he counters, digging his hands into the pockets of his ripped jeans.
His cool composure irks me because I need to fight. I need to feel something other than this crippling, soul-shattering pain. Jumping from the swing, I storm over, adrenaline coursing through my veins. Cayden stands his ground when I close the distance between us. “Then tell me. Tell me how anything remotely good can come from what I just told you.”
A rumble crackles, filling the starless night with power. A storm is brewing. Just as it did when I first arrived. Throwing everything to the wind, I press both my palms to Cayden’s cheeks, desperately searching for the answers I know he holds. I promised to be patient, but I can’t, not anymore.
The electricity threatens to burn us both. “I haven’t even known you for two weeks,” I confess, feeling beyond juvenile. I’m an adult woman with a schoolgirl crush. But I continue. “So why do I feel…this?” There is no need for me to explain what “this” is. He’s felt it from the first moment we touched. But regardless, I can’t help but question my sanity time and time again.
He closes his eyes, attempting to shut me out. I’ve ventured too deep.
The sky cracks with thunder, sparking the heavens like a sign from above. The storm is moments away from drowning us both, but it also has the power to baptize us from our sins. “I know I’ve asked you this before, but I need to know…”
A lightning bolt slices through the darkness, warning this is it. No turning back.
The wind turns brutal, the storm punishing anyone in its path. But I ignore it. “Please, I just need to know the truth. For once,” I cry, my lower lip trembling. Cayden opens his eyes, and the color, the intensity, I know I’ve been lost in those orbs before. “Have we…have we met before?”
This is the moment Cayden tells me to stop with the conspiracy theories and drags me inside. The moment when he puts my uncertainties to bed once and for all. But when he draws his silence out, I know I’m about to receive a lot more than I bargained for. A simple word shouldn’t have the power to change the world. But it does.
“Yes.”
The heavens choose this moment to open with a downpour of punishing rain, which is ironic, considering I feel like I’m submerged. Even though the rain drowns us both, neither of us moves. We’re caught in a deadlock. Cayden has just revealed what I always knew to be true. But now that he’s confirmed my worst fears, I need to know why he lied.
I thought once Cayden told me the truth, things would become clearer, and maybe, just maybe, I’d remember. But now that I know the truth, I wish I didn’t because now I’m faced with another dilemma. Why did he lie? It’s been twelve days. Twelve whole days when he could have told me the truth. But instead, he chose to watch me suffer. To watch me question everything.
The truth was supposed to set me free, but it hasn’t.
The rainfall is heavy, and I can barely make out Cayden’s still form. But the steady rise and fall of his shoulders reveal my journey has only just begun. The need to flee suddenly overtakes me. The atmosphere ignites with a lightning strike, the sound spooking me, and like a wild horse, I turn and break free.
The muddy ground beneath me threatens to pull me under like quicksand, but I continue running. The lake has always been the magnetic force triggering this chain of events, so it only seems fitting I end it here now.
I sprint faster than I ever have before, slipping and sliding in the mud, but the closer I get to the body of water, the quieter things become. Cayden’s death-curdling screams compete with the punishing rain, but his anguish wins out in the end.
“Stop! Peyton. Stop!”
