Chapter 3 Cece
Chapter three
Cece
His bike is parked between the two houses.
Fucking finally.
I sit at the kitchen table sipping on my coffee and catch Cash talking to my sister before she gets in her car to leave.
Cash turns and begins making his way to our front door.
The sight of him doesn’t give me the butterflies it usually does.
Instead, I’m seeing him in a whole new light, and it’s not one I’m particularly fond of.
Turns out he thinks he knows how to handle me, just like everyone else around here.
Apparently after taking me home the other day, Cash decided to take my car keys with him.
To give me some sort of time-out. Then, because I didn’t answer my phone, he also decided I didn’t need them back until today.
To say I’ve been a little pissed at him is an understatement.
He’s always been on my side, always been there when I needed him.
And now it seems he’s taking the side of everyone else in this damn town.
Oh, poor Cece, she can’t take care of herself.
Oh, poor Cece, she had a hard life and doesn’t know how to deal with it.
Oh, poor Cece, we’re so worried because she isn’t opening up.
What the hell does anyone want me to say?
If I told them the truth about what I went through and what being in the clutches of those bastards did to me—made me relive—they would never look at me the same. I can barely look myself in the mirror these days.
Cash knocks on the door, then opens it without waiting for me to answer.
“Cece,” he calls.
“In here,” I say, and he walks in, closing the door behind him.
When Cash strides into the kitchen, he’s wearing a tentative smile as though he’s not sure what kind of reception I’m going to give him. As soon as my gaze latches onto his, I shoot him an icy stare and continue to sip my coffee. His smile disappears, and he nods.
“You’re mad,” he says. It’s not a question, but a statement of fact.
Cash has become adept at reading me over the last couple of years. The years he spent being my friend and not acting like I was someone who needed to be fixed. Guess he’s finally caught up with everyone else.
“Gee, you think?”
“Look, Cece—”
I slam my coffee mug on the kitchen table, causing liquid to splash over the rim. “Who the hell do you think you are? You had no right to steal my keys and not bring them back when I asked you to.”
His jaw tightens. “You mean demanded? I’m not at your beck and call. I called you all morning and you refused to answer the phone.”
I huff out an unamused laugh. “So you thought you would punish me by stealing my keys and making sure I couldn’t go anywhere?”
“You needed a day to calm the hell down. A day where you couldn’t run off and go wherever it is you’ve been spending your time, or go get more booze to numb yourself.”
“That wasn’t your call to make. How I handle my life is my decision,” I say through gritted teeth.
“If you were actually handling anything, I would agree. But you’re not, and it’s become apparent to everyone that this has gone on for far too long.”
“Again, not your call. I don’t have time for this.” I hold out my hand. “Keys,” I demand.
Cash looks at me for several beats, then it’s almost as though I see him deflate—see the fight leave him—as he reaches in his pocket and pulls out my keys.
“What is going on, Cece? Talk to me,” he pleads.
Part of me wants to. Part of me is desperate to tell him all the awful things that have been going through my mind for the last six weeks since the kidnapping.
How the only thing that I want in life is to wrap myself around him while I’m on the back of his bike.
How it’s the only time my mind is clear.
But I know it’s not going to work this time.
He saw me when that disgusting man was on top of me.
He saw me curled in on myself after nearly being raped again.
He saw a small part of what I went through for years before the Black Roses came to the compound.
Before the kidnapping, he’d only heard small bits and pieces from me and possibly my sister.
But he saw. Cash was my safe space, and now that’s tarnished, just like everything else.
“You want to help? Or you want to fix me like everyone else?”
“We care about you. I care about you.” He slaps his hand to his chest.
I shake my head. “Really? Because it looks like you want to manage me. You want me better, so everything can be wrapped up in this nice little bow for you. Just like my sister does. Newsflash—it’s not going to work. Nothing is going to magically change me.”
And you will never understand how badly it hurts that you can’t fix this, that I can’t fix this.
I stand from my chair and walk over to the counter, grabbing the keys before shoving past Cash.
“Where are you going?” he calls.
“None of your business.”
And I slam the door behind me.
A little over a year after being in Shine, I was driving home from the store in Ayre.
I’d picked up a bottle of wine, having tasted it for the first time at the clubhouse the week prior.
I liked the flavor of the white—crisp and fruity—but I loved the effect.
For the first time, everything dulled. I didn’t even feel the pang of jealousy at seeing one of the dancers from Midnight Rose hanging on Cash like I usually did.
He would never reciprocate the attention, but he never pushed them off either.
I’m not stupid; he’s a good-looking man with his blond hair that always has a bit of curl at the end of the longer strands.
I remember the first time I realized I felt something for him that went beyond friendship.
How it wasn’t something I’d felt before, though I recognized it all the same.
I also remember thinking that my attraction didn’t matter because he was a brother, over a decade older than me, and had no problem attracting other women.
More experienced women. Women who weren’t damaged like me.
What could he possibly see in me other than the broken girl he’d sort of taken under his wing?
That’s when I discovered how much wine helped numb those feelings—all of my feelings.
I’d gone to Ayre because there were ingredients that our local market hadn’t stocked, and I needed them for the turnovers I was planning to make.
As I was heading back to Shine—having learned to drive and been given my own car by Lucy only six months prior—I saw the sign for an old quarry and an arrow pointing down a gravel road off the highway.
I’d passed it plenty of times, but never thought much of it. On a whim, I took a right.
When the trees opened up to a vast empty space surrounded by the gravel ground, I stopped my car and got out, walking to the edge and peered down into a deep, wide hole.
Jagged rocks jutted around the sides of the giant pit.
Looking over the edge was almost dizzying.
If anyone fell into that thing, they’d never be able to get out.
It was silent. Completely empty. The place looked as though no one had been out here in years. I went back to my car and grabbed my bottle of wine, sat down at the edge of the pit, dangling my legs over the side, and unscrewed the cap.
From that day forward, the quarry became my place, my refuge.
I never saw signs of anyone else, and I would go out there often.
Probably too often, seeing as Lucy had mentioned me disappearing all the time.
I’d bring a bottle of whatever I was in the mood for out here.
I would drink, talk to myself, scream into the void, or sometimes sit and cry.
It depended on my mood. But out there, I could do it freely.
Then I would lay in my car for a while, sober up a bit, and when I felt up to it, would drive myself home.
And that was the extent of my existence for seven months.
About six months ago, I saw a flyer at one of the liquor stores I would frequent.
Every time I would leave with a bottle or two—okay, three—my eyes would catch on the flyer advertising a self-defense course.
It had these little pull tabs with a phone number.
A few were ripped off. My fingers itched to take the phone number.
To do something that would help me grow stronger, help me focus some of the rage I carried that, until that point, was only expelled at the quarry.
My sister often trains with her friends.
They practice various martial arts, work out, and practice shooting at the outdoor range on the Black Roses property.
She invited me along many times that first year.
But I never took her up on it. Then after a while, she stopped asking.
I never asked to go with her, though I liked the idea of training my body to get stronger, so that I’d never find myself in the position of being weak and unable to defend myself.
But one day, I tugged on that little scrap of paper and shoved it in my purse on my way out the door, with the bottles clanging in the bag as I made my way to the car.
It took me another month to call the number, and the warm voice of a woman answered on the third ring.
I told her where I’d seen the flyer and that I was interested.
She sounded pleased and didn’t mention the shakiness in my voice.
Her name was Monica and she said she was looking forward to meeting me.
I couldn’t remember the last time anyone told me that.
If anyone ever told me that. My life had become so small.
Until I called a number on that little piece of paper.
I shake my head to pull myself back into the present, turning into the parking lot of the small gym in a nondescript brick building.
The gym is on the first floor. Monica lives on the second, where she also runs her nonprofit that helps place women in jobs or gives them training to get a job after leaving an abusive situation.