Chapter 14 Kat
Kat
I’m exhausted when we get back to my house and the heartache is too much to deal with. The night has been far too long. “I just want to lie down,” I tell Cill as I lock up behind us.
The keys hit the table and then I check my phone again. No reply from Reed. He left without a word, but Cill’s car and keys were waiting for us in his place.
“On the couch, or in bed?”
“In bed.” I need to be completely horizontal or I won’t make it. Everything we talked about at the restaurant feels unfinished and painful. It’s like a chilled dread that simply won’t go away. Being on my feet one more second can’t happen, though.
We both take quick turns in the bathroom and when I come out Cill is standing at my bedroom door. “I’m not sleeping anywhere else tonight.”
That scares me, because it means he wants to keep talking too. And if we keep talking, I’m going to have to tell him all of the truth. There’s a part I left out. A part that still hurts to talk about.
Yeah, he yelled at me because I was the only person there.
Yeah, he was stupid and then angry and there was nothing we could do about it.
Yeah, we were all dealing with the loss of his dad.
Yeah, without his dad there, I wasn’t welcome at the club.
But there’s a piece he’s missing.
The bed welcomes me with its soft sheets and blankets I picked out with Lydia when I first moved in here.
I burrow against the pillow while Cill climbs in next to me.
He takes out his phone, and I see Reed’s name on the screen.
Text messages. Cill glances over them and puts the phone facedown on the table.
I move in closer to his side and let him put his arm around me. He reaches over and turns off the light.
With the room dark and quiet, I thought I’d be able to give in to the weight of the day and pass out. Instead my thoughts race and apparently so do Cillian’s.
“Was it something specific I said that drove you away?”
Thump. My heart is heavy with every beat.
“No … I just missed you and what we had before,” I begin, and I know it sounds awful as soon as the words are out of my mouth.
“I didn’t mean that I was trying to replace you, or …
or that you could be replaced. But I missed you.
I was a wreck without you. I felt like there wasn’t a reason to keep going.
I’d wake up in the morning and think about going back to sleep for the entire day. ”
Cill rubs my back. “I thought about that too.”
I roll over under the sheets and scoot closer to him, resting my cheek against his chest. He’s quick to wrap an arm around me, holding me there.
“There wasn’t really anyone else who understood.
Reed was the only other person who missed you like I did.
Well, almost as much. I couldn’t talk about it with anyone from Cavanaugh.
I didn’t even want to be back there. I would have been totally alone without Lydia and Reed, and Lydia didn’t understand the way I was feeling. ”
He doesn’t say anything. I know how this must sound. Me, complaining about how difficult things were for me when he was the one who truly suffered.
“I’m not comparing it,” I murmur. “I know it was hell for you. You never should have gone away.”
“It was worse than hell.” Cill must have so many things bottled up inside, but he doesn’t add anything else. I wait for a while to make sure.
“It was about missing you,” I explain, hating how stupid it sounds. “It was about trying to live with that emptiness. That’s all it was.”
His hand moves again on my back. “When did it happen?”
I wish I could just fall into the darkness with him and forget all of this ever happened.
The sheets rustle as I maneuver under them, playing he won’t push me away.
Denying the past won’t get rid of it. It won’t change what I did with Reed.
All it will do is force me to spend more energy pretending that my life played out differently. I don’t want to do that.
“The first time was after your dad died.” Reed and I had both gone to the funeral.
I felt like my dress was choking me. The service was filled with people from Cavanaugh Crest and all I wanted to do was escape.
I didn’t want to keep the life I had. “The funeral was hard. Reed was devastated that you couldn’t be with us.
He said it was fucked up that you couldn’t be there. He wouldn’t drop it.”
“How long after?”
“A few weeks.” I steel myself to continue. “Then you stopped answering my calls and when I went in, we had that fight.”
Anger spills out of him. “So you thought it would be better to fuck my best friend?” I begin to pull away, but Cill holds me tight. “Kat—I’m sorry. Fuck.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”
“It already happened,” Cill says. I get the impression he’s repeated this to himself many times over the past four years. “It’s done. It hurts like hell, but it’s done.”
The words are right there, wanting to be heard, but he continues instead, “Not being able to see you was the lowest moment in my life. And then you stopped coming altogether.”
I can feel him hesitating over a question.
“Just ask,” I plead. This is so damn painful.
It’s the hardest conversation I’ve ever had because I need us to come out better after this.
I can’t lose him again. Cill’s the only reason I’m not crying already.
I sure as hell want to. The tears are nearly ready to flow. The guilt churns in my stomach.
Far off in the distance, almost so far we can’t hear it, a police siren disturbs the city.
“And you still have feelings for him?” Cill asks although it’s not so much a question, just a known truth.
I don’t lie to him. “Yeah … I still have feelings.”
“Did he wear a condom?” Cill asks.
I knew he would say that, but my stomach drops. “No.”
“You could have gotten pregnant.”
My teeth lock together like they don’t want to let out the words.
I don’t want to give voice to the words.
Every day I’ve tried to come to terms with this.
To accept it as something I did that’s not any better or any worse than anyone else’s actions.
But it is worse, because it was Reed. Because Cill had lost his freedom.
I still had mine, and I used it to royally fuck up.
I can’t speak. The longer my hesitation lasts, the surer he’s going to be.
“You told me not to hold back,” Cill says gruffly. “Now you don’t hold back.”
“I did.” There. He knows now. I said it, and he knows. “I did get pregnant.”
As he props himself up to stare down at me, I fall to the sheets, the tears flowing, but nothing else does. “Hellcat …”
I’ve made it this far without breaking down. That won’t last forever.
“I found out two months in when I miscarried.”
Cill sucks in a breath. The shadows that line his face highlight the pain in his expression. I swear I see him wipe under his eyes just as I look at him, but I can’t be entirely sure because he leans down to kiss the crook of my neck the moment I think he’s crying.
I made a mistake and I suffered it alone.
Besides watching Cill get arrested, the miscarriage was the worst experience of my life.
At first I didn’t know what was happening.
I hadn’t been paying much attention to my cycle because I couldn’t bring myself to care about anything.
Everyone knows that stress can cause you to be late.
That’s what I thought, if I thought about it at all.
Then the bleeding started. The pain was what made me realize it wasn’t normal. I was only eight weeks along but it hurt so badly I couldn’t stand up. Every time I tried, I’d get dizzy. I thought I might die in my own bathroom.
Nobody else was there.
I wasn’t talking to Reed after what happened. It was awful what we’d done.
Cill wasn’t talking to me either. We had the fight and then I went silent and he gave me the silent treatment back.
So when I realized … all I thought was that I deserved to go through that pain alone.
Lydia was at work with her phone off.
I caved and called the only person who could take me to the hospital, but Reed wasn’t answering. And the person who I wanted to hold me and promise me it would be okay was locked in a prison cell.
That pain hits me all over again and I push Cill’s arm off me and try to stand up. Cill won’t let me leave. He pulls me back into the bed with him.
“I have to go,” I say, my voice thick with tears and shove my hand against him. “I don’t want to do this in front of you.”
His strong arms wrap around me and pull me close to him, bringing me into a comforting warmth.
With his lips brushing a kiss in the crook of my neck, he whispers, “That’s not true and you know it.
” Without an ounce of fight in me, I give in, letting him pull my body as close to his as possible as he runs his hand over my hair.
“You missed me like I missed you, Hellcat. Don’t try to lie to me about it. ”
“Why should you watch me cry over this? It was my mistake. I deserve to work through the consequences on my own. You shouldn’t feel sympathy for me, Cill. I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway.”
“Yeah. You were hurting and you tried to seek out comfort. You think I can blame you for that? I did the same damn thing, only there was nowhere to go but inside my head. I’m partly to blame for all this shit happening anyway.”
“No you’re not.”
“I could have seen you sooner,” he admits. “After the fight. I thought if I put you out of my mind, the time would pass quicker. It was bullshit. And by the time I got over it, you had stopped coming.”
“I felt too guilty to come. I couldn’t look you in the eye knowing what I’d done.”
“I’ll look you in the eye any time,” he says, and I finally let myself melt into his arms.
“Will you be able to do it in the morning?” I question. I don’t know if I’d be able to, if I were him. I might get up and walk out like he did that first night he stayed.
“I’d look at you any damn morning, Hellcat. I don’t care what happened.”
“Yes you do, Cill.”
“I care. But I only care because it’s you. I want you to be okay.”
Deep, even breaths are all I’m able to focus on and the warmth of his chest against my back. I listen to his heartbeat for a while. A long while maybe, his arm a comforting weight around me, holding me close and refusing to let go. His breathing steadies long before mine does.
“That’s it,” I tell him. “I didn’t do anything else while you were gone. I hope you can believe me when I say that.”
“Hmm?” Cill asks sleepily. I blink up at his face. It’s mostly hidden in the dark, but I’m pretty sure his eyes are closed.
“I’m glad you came back,” I whisper, and then I curl up against him and fall asleep too. “I love you, Cillian.”