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Lindie had tried to make me perform after Dad left, and I botched the performance on purpose. She punished me, and I botched it again. Eventually she gave up. No amount of pain was incentive enough to get me to play in competitions. Those were my rare moments with my dad and I wouldn’t allow her to ruin those memories, no matter what she did to me. It was one of the rare battles that I’d won.
“Who’s Lindie?”
“My mother.”
His eyebrows furrowed, and he looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but the teacher saved me by starting class.
Chapter Thirteen
~Justin’s POV~
I plopped down in my chair for third period, my head still pounding, but not as badly. I was careless while swimming laps, my thoughts wrapped up around Cadence’s presence. I didn’t know what to make of that. Being distracted during flip turns was dangerous, which was why I had a headache, and received a long lecture from Coach, who had unfortunately been on pool duty and seen the mishap. If it were swim season, he would have had me doing the flip turns over and over until I proved to him that I had it down pat. Frankly, once the season started up, I had a feeling he was going to make me do just that.
I laid my head down and closed my eyes. Once again, Cadence’s image popped up, but this time, it was her in the nurse’s office, talking about pain and taking medication. Then the image changed to Cadence in gym class, telling me she had to sit out due to an injury. I didn’t push then, but now I regretted it. How severe was her injury that she had to take pain medication? What had happened to her? It had to be much more than she was letting on, not that she was giving me much. Cadence was an extremely private girl. The fact that she even let us into her house yesterday had surprised me. I had been waiting for her to tell us to fuck off.
Someone slapped my shoulder, jarring me out of my thoughts.
“What?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Bryan asked as he settled into the seat on my left. “Did you eat after swimming?”
I thought about the empty wrappers from the high-carb bars stuffed in my bag.
My response was a grunt, too tired and confused to be able to give him a proper response. I wanted a nap, but it seemed every time I closed my eyes, Cadence was there, waiting. There was something in her beautiful honey-colored eyes that I recognized. That scared the shit out of me. I was too familiar with that something, lived with it for a good chunk of my life until Toby’s aunt took me in. Cadence’s something was different though, twisted in a different way than my own experiences. That confused and angered me.
Hurt. She was hurt, healing still. And the way she watched us, she didn’t know how to interact. Isolation? The wariness in her when we were around caused an ache in me. She was nearly broken. There was a whole mess of something to unwind inside of her.
I glared at my desk, the need to talk to her nearly overwhelming me. Class hadn’t started yet. I could slip out, go to her class, drag her out, and get answers. But were they mine to get? And if I pushed her, there was no telling what she’d do. I didn’t know her well enough. I only got a sense that she was defeated. And sometimes it seemed like she held on to a deep-seeded guilt that was consuming her.
Either way, there was one thing I knew for sure from the scene in the nurse’s office. A lot more than she had let on during gym.
“Cadence is hurting,” I said, glaring at my desk.
“What do you mean?” Paxon asked. His brows were furrowed as he tried to understand where I was coming from. While I had been consumed with the thought, for them, I was coming out of left field.
I straightened up and looked at my two childhood friends. They didn’t see it because it wasn’t part of their pasts, but it was mine. Yes, she physically hurt, but she was also mentally beaten. I innately knew that as soon as I met her, but I had pushed the signs away because I tended to overthink things. But her reaction when I helped her stand up was enough. The pale face. Her dull eyes as she fought her pain. Cadence was already quiet around us, but today there felt like there was more distance.
“She seemed fine to me,” Bryan said with a frown. “Maybe it’s that time of the month?”
Paxon whacked him over the head. “Dude, seriously?”
Bryon shrugged. I shook my head. Bryan could be a little too blunt sometimes.
“That isn’t what I meant,” I said.
“Then say what you mean.” Bryan rolled his eyes, always impatient.
I sighed. “I think someone hurt her. When I went to the nurse’s office this morning, she was there. They mentioned pain and she had to take medication. Didn’t you notice her breaths were off? The way she winced when she moved wrong. She fidgeted too much, like she couldn’t get comfortable. She looks exhausted too.”
Paxon and Bryan fell silent, finally taking seriously what I was saying. I could see they were remembering how she looked and acted this morning. Paxon’s eyes widened as they met mine. He was overlapping his memories of her with the ones he had of me before I moved in with Toby and his aunt, Laura.
For six years, I acted how she did. They just didn’t understand the signs until it was almost too late.
“Maybe she had an accident this morning,” Bryan tried to explain. “There’s no reason to jump to abuse.”
“She doesn’t like being touched,” Paxon said. “She flinches a lot if we move too fast when near her, like she’s waiting for the hit. Fuck.” Paxon yanked off his beanie and played with it, leaving his blond hair a mess.
Bryan’s face paled, and his mouth thinned out as his already dark eyes turned black. “We don’t know that, and we shouldn’t sit here like it’s true. If anything, if we think there’s something, then we need to talk to Cadence.” Bryan shook his head furiously, and I knew exactly what memory had hit him hard.
