Chapter Nine - Cat
CHAPTER NINE
Cat
I STARTLED AWAKE , gasping for breath and shaking with sweat. I hadn’t had nightmares about that night in two years and now, with all the stress I was under, they were back. This was not something I had time to deal with. Not right now.
Maybe it was brought on by seeing Jules and Dom again. Whatever it may be, I just knew I would be laying awake a long time now, terrified of falling back into the same dream and picking up right where it left off. As bad as the first half was, it was what followed that really tore my heart right in two.
My jolting awake hadn’t woken Sadie up thankfully, but I found myself needing to use the bathroom. I didn’t want to wake her up just to go with me, so I made the decision to go by myself. There were plenty of soldiers milling about on night watch, so I felt safe enough for a quick trip.
I slipped out of the tent and headed to the outer part of the stadium. After I used the bathroom, I was officially wide awake. I’d always struggled with insomnia. Once I was up and moving around, I knew it was going to be impossible to fall back asleep.
Instead of going back to the tent to toss and turn, I decided to walk around for a bit and explore. I took the stairs up and eventually sat down in the back row of one of the upper level seating areas to people watch. I wasn’t the only one having a hard time sleeping, apparently, because there were still a lot of people puttering around. I wondered how many people here had seen horrors similar to what I had or if they were among those who thought this was simply a flu virus gone crazy.
It was nice to get up here for a minute and be by myself. I felt safe all the way up here above everyone else. Pulling my knees up to my chest and hugging them tight, I tried to chase away the chill in my bones my nightmare had left me with. I hated remembering anything to do with that night.
My life had changed irrecoverably. I had lost everything and then some. Sometimes it felt like I had ‘hurt me’ stamped across my forehead. I tried to remind myself I had taken my power back. No one was ever going to do anything like that to me ever again. Just ask Harry how well that worked out for him.
“Hey there, trouble,” someone suddenly spoke up from behind me, startling me so badly I nearly jumped right out of my skin.
I turned around to see who it was and was met with a sight that rendered me speechless for a moment. Dominic had managed to find me and sneak up right behind me without me noticing. He was always tall for his age, but he’d managed to get even taller since the last time I saw him. He had to be well over his previous height of six feet even, now.
He was leaning over the railing with both his muscly tattooed arms casually thrown over it. His deep brown hair had been just past his shoulders in high school, but now it was short on the sides with more length on the top that was artfully slicked back. Before, he always had it covering his face, but now his high cheekbones and emerald green eyes were proudly on display. He looked really good, I couldn’t even try to deny it.
“Boo,” he said with a devilish expression. He flashed me a devastatingly handsome, shit-eating smirk.
“What the hell!” I exclaimed. “Not really the best time to go sneaking up on people, you know? There’s infected running around biting people if you haven’t heard.”
“Oh believe me, I’m aware, but how else was I supposed to get near you if I didn’t? You took one look at us earlier and booked it out of there. Poor little Cat, always running away scared with her tail tucked between her legs. Not so easy to get away from us here, though, is it?” He tsked, then stood up to his full height, looking down at me.
“It would have been if you didn’t come looking for me. I’m not even remotely in the mood for this tonight, Dominic. Please, just leave me alone,” I replied flatly.
While I might have entertained this conversation on another night, my nightmare didn’t leave me feeling very willing to rehash the past. I just wanted to sit here and lick my wounds in peace. I didn’t need him here looking to rub salt in them.
“We haven’t seen each other in four years and that’s all you have to say ‘please leave me alone’. No ‘Hey Dom, how have you been’ or ‘My goodness, Dom, look how hot you’ve gotten,’” he poked, trying to get a rise out of me. I guess some things don’t change, but I wouldn’t let him get the reaction he was looking for.
“Hey Dom, how have you been?” I mocked, staring back at him blankly.
“Well, now it’s not the same,” he said with an over-exaggerated frown, chastising me some more.
“Why do you even care? It’s not like I was the one who ended our friendship. You took Jules’s side and gave me the silent treatment after our fight,” I mumbled, getting up from my seat and beginning to move towards the stairs.
“Oh, that’s rich. I don’t remember you trying to talk to me after either. You guys kiss one night, throw off the whole dynamic of our group, and I’m the asshole for being forced to pick a side when you crush his feelings?”
I was almost to the stairs when he spat that at me. I froze for a second. It took a second for what he said to stop crashing over me in waves. When I finally came up for air, I flooded with icy anger. I wheeled around on him, taking a few rage filled steps back in his direction then stopping right in front of him.
“ I crushed his feelings? When I came back outside from using the bathroom, Mallory was practically draped around him. I didn’t see him trying to stop her from throwing herself at him. But no, I’m the bad guy. It’s always me. I’m always wrong in every single situation. You don’t even know half the truth of what happened that night. This is why I asked you to leave me alone. I can’t do this right now.”
I tried to turn away to storm off again, but he grabbed my wrist, spinning me around, releasing it, then caging me against the wall he was standing in front of a moment before. He stretched out his arms with both palms flat on the wall on either side of my head, glaring down at me. I tried to look under his arm, preparing to dart under it, but he dipped his head to block my view, anticipating my move.
“Stop trying to run away for one second, for fuck’s sake,” his eyes pleading with me. “Why won’t you just fucking talk to me?”
“I tried. I tried to talk to both of you that night,” I whispered, tears starting to sting my eyes. “You both wouldn’t even give me the chance to get a word out. The second that video got sent to the entire school, you guys stopped being my friend. I get that he made your lives miserable, that you hated his guts, but you don’t understand. And now it’s too late.”
That’s the thing about NDA’s. If you accept a settlement, you lose your right to tell anyone about what happened to you. Especially when the person who raped you is the star quarterback of your high school whose daddy has all kinds of connections. A boy with so much talent and a bright future surely couldn’t be responsible for such a heinous act.
I didn’t want to accept the money in exchange for my silence and dropping the charges, but my parents, combined with my lawyer, both didn’t think there was enough evidence to win in court. The police claimed the video was too dark and they ‘couldn’t be sure of the identities of the individuals’ in it. Because I was a minor and just wanted everything to be over and done with, I just agreed, even though I never saw a dime of that money.
“If I don’t understand, then make me. If I’ve got it all wrong then, please. Correct me,” he begged, no hint of sarcasm in his voice.
I just shook my head and cried even harder. I couldn’t. If it got back to Scott and his family I had told anyone, then he could sue me for their money back. Now that I was an adult, I’d be solely responsible for repaying the entire amount. It was more than I had saved and as a result I’d never get custody of Rhiannon. I’d rather have him hate me forever.
“Well don’t say I didn’t fucking try,” he said icily, all the raw emotion that was on display just a moment ago frozen over. He pushed away from the wall and me with disappointment written clear across his face.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed.
“If you were really sorry, you’d try to fix things. Not just with me, but with Jules, too. You’d stop lying to us and just own up to what you did. You broke his fucking heart, Cat. He’s never been the same.”
He took one last, long look at me before being the one to storm off himself.
The look in his eyes said maybe it wasn’t just Jules’s heart that was affected though, maybe he was speaking for himself as well. I knew personally mine was a bleeding mess in my chest after that interaction. I wish I could just be honest with them, let my secrets spill out of my soul so they’d get it. Maybe they’d finally see things from my perspective, or maybe they’d just be mad at the sheer magnitude of how many there were. So many more than I’d bet they’d ever even imagined.
It was for the best. I had to keep telling myself that. That chapter of my life was over and there was no turning back. If I kept repeating that, perhaps I’d start to believe it. After just being close to Dom, though, it made me miss him and Jules so much more. I walked back to the tent and climbed back into my cot with tears still flowing steadily from my eyes. I laid there sobbing silently until it was time to get up and moving for the day, but the rain cloud that just blew in to put a damper on my life was apparently here to stay.