Chapter Ten - Dominic
CHAPTER TEN
Dominic
I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND why, after all these years, Cat can’t just tell the fucking truth. Out of all the people in the world, I didn’t understand why she thought I wouldn’t be able to understand however she had felt. If she hadn’t wanted a relationship with Jules, obviously, I would have gotten it. Even back then, I’d been pretty set in my ways of tending to keep things casual, but at least I was honest and upfront about it.
I made it a point to try my best to never lead anyone on. What I had a problem with was feeling like she had just used Jules as an easy way to detach from her problems. She let him confess his feelings for her, kiss her and even kiss him back. All just as a means to make herself feel better during a moment of weakness. After all that, it was just a slap in the face to go and sleep with Scott a month later.
My irritation definitely didn’t have anything to do with the fact that I was jealous I wasn’t one of the guys she had chosen for either of those things. I had felt the first stab of jealousy the night after she slept over Jules’s house and of course he couldn’t wait to tell me all about it the next day. Sitting there and listening to him recount all the details, like it wasn’t eating me up inside. I had been in love with her since the first day I met her, but always shoved those feelings down deep for the sake of not messing up what the three of us were to each other.
I’d never had friends like them. With six kids and no one to help watch them, my mom was always bouncing around from job to job. Without fail, they all eventually got tired of dealing with the accommodations a single mother of so many kids required and she was let go. Before fifth grade, I had moved and switched schools a total of seven times.
It seemed like as soon as we’d get settled down and I was finally getting comfortable, it was time to leave again. Being the oldest, I had the most responsibility too. While most my age were out simply being kids, I was busy raising my younger siblings.
Eventually when we moved to Efferville, my mom met a guy at work and we finally got to stay somewhere for good. He liked the younger kids, said they were easy enough to deal with. The dude stepped up to play perfect happy family with them so I was free from babysitting duty at least.
He and I didn’t get along, though, so I learned to make myself scarce. I’d just go out, walk around after school until dinnertime, so all I’d need to do there was to eat and sleep. On one of those walks, I happened to go down Cat and Jules’s street. He recognized me from school, invited me to play and the rest was history.
I’ll never forget her that first day. With her adorable little pigtails, still dressed in her fancy Sunday church clothes but covered in dirt from playing outside. I thought she was the prettiest thing I ever saw. The more I got to know her, I only fell deeper until I was completely head over heels.
I never told her how I felt because I never got the vibe she felt the same way. It always felt like I was more of a goofy older brother to her. One time, the three of us were playing truth or dare. Jules dared her to kiss me and her response was, and I quote ‘Ew, gross no, never mind: truth’.
Then she chose Jules as her knight in shining armor and man was that a bitch of a pill to swallow. He told me how she had said she wanted him, was practically begging him to take her, but how he wanted to wait. Told me all about a big plan he was devising, to take her somewhere special for her sixteenth birthday in a few months. He’d ask her to be his girlfriend and then they’d lose their virginity to each other.
I sat there with a big stupid smile on my face, happy for him on the outside but about to lose my lunch in reality. I wanted her to be happy, too. After all, she deserved it after everything she’d been through at home. In the end, she scooped his heart right out of his chest alongside mine and anger took over naturally, fueled by my saltiness at not being chosen by her myself.
The night of the party I wish we had never fucking agreed to taking her too, I was by myself when the video came through. I had been looking for her after I saw Mallory no longer by her side. My phone pinged during my search with a group chat that looked like it had at least a hundred other numbers added to it. All that was in the message thread was a single video. I pressed play and as soon as I realized what it was of I was immediately sick.
I went back to the party only to see Jules storming off towards the car and dragging Cat by her arm, drunkenly stumbling along behind him. She was crying and trying to explain herself to him, but he wouldn’t hear it. She’d tried to start on me, but I was too furious for rational conversation.
I just told her to ‘get in the fucking car and don’t even dare say a single word’. Then held open the door, unable to look her in the eyes, and waited for her to get in the backseat. The ride back was absolutely silent besides her sniffling. We left her standing in front of her house, watching us drive away with tears streaming down her face.
She moved away two weeks later without a goodbye or a single trace to track her down by, and that had been her greatest offense in my eyes. I tried to look her up, searched for her name and both her parents relentlessly, but each time it came up as unlisted. It felt like she was hiding from us on purpose and took every measure possible to not be found. At first we were still mad at her so it was easy to disguise our hurt and play it off.
It was her right to do whatever she wanted with her body and everything, but Scott? Of all people, why him? All throughout school, he’d torment any dude that was smaller than him. He’d picked on Jules for years. Then I got suspended for an entire week in seventh grade after sticking up for him and getting my ass handed to me. But because of a stupid fucking no tolerance policy, I got punished too. Make it make sense. She knew all this, yet still he seemed like a quality candidate to her?
After a while, the anger shifted into deep depression. Yeah, Jules and I still hung out every day and were thick as thieves, but her absence was glaring. He lost interest in girls whatsoever and I decided to ramp up the approach I’d been steadily taking for a while. Filling my time with meaningless hook ups and if they started to get feelings, I’d cut them loose. It wasn’t to be cruel. I’d just rather not waste their time if my heart wasn’t in it. It wasn’t even located in my chest anymore. I didn’t know where it was. Wherever Cat was, she’d taken it with her.
After a year of not hearing from her, I was thoroughly pissed off again. Fuck her for not even trying to reach out. I never knew her to hold back how she was feeling with us. She’d always told us exactly how it was, even if it wasn’t what we wanted to hear. Jules was still furious too, but had stopped wanting to talk about it entirely. Any time I’d bring her up, his jaw would tighten and he’d clench his fists, insisting I change the subject. I just wanted someone to commiserate with, someone to vent this pain to, instead of always having it fester in the back of my mind.
All the emotions I’d kept bottled up over the years were raging through me with renewed vigor after my interaction with Cat at the upper level of the stadium. Even after walking around for hours trying to calm down, I was still fuming. I had pictured that going better in my head. I didn’t expect her to tell me to go away and it instantly set me off.
The entire time I had quietly followed her up there, I was giving myself a pep talk about keeping my cool. I didn’t even tell Jules where I was going, just slipped out when he fell asleep. Then I went up a few levels and waited for her to appear, banking on the inkling I had that she might still have trouble sleeping.
“Where the hell have you been? You look like shit. Did you sleep at all?” Jules started questioning me when I breezed into the tent, trying to pretend like I wasn’t seething.
“No, couldn’t,” I mumbled dismissively. “Can you blame me after the night we had?”
“Guess you have a point there. I’ll lay off, I guess,” he replied, sensing I was in a mood and not wanting it to turn on him.
I moved over to the bag I had brought with us, luckily we had planned on making a weekend out of being in the big city. Although those plans had included a nice hotel room with two king-sized beds, not the current accommodations we were enduring. I was at least grateful to have a few changes of clothes, I just hoped the three days’ worth I had packed would be enough.
I didn’t want to be trapped in this hell hole any longer than necessary.
On my way back to the tent, I had found out they had unlocked the locker rooms so that we all could shower. My muscles were tense and tight as fuck after arguing with Cat, so a hot shower sounded amazing right now.
“I saw they unlocked the locker rooms if you wanted to take a shower. I’m gonna head down there in a few,” I said over to Jules.
“Yeah, just let me grab a change of clothes and I’ll come with you,” he moved to start rummaging through his bag.
When we got down to the showers, it was early enough that there weren’t many guys in there. Thankfully, because there weren’t individual stalls, just one big open communal area with sprayers lined up around the walls. I didn’t feel like swimming through a sea of dicks first thing in the morning before I’ve even had a cup of coffee.
When we had finished and were walking out, Jules and I almost walked right into Cat and her little blonde friend. They both took a leaping step backwards to avoid a collision, but then her friend was immediately coming back towards us, getting in my face and wagging her finger.
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you need to stay away from Cat!” She started scolding me.
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you need to mind your own fucking business,” I growled back at her.
“Well, it is my business when she disappears in the middle of the night, then I wake up this morning and she looks like she spent hours crying. She wouldn’t tell me what you said to her to make her that upset, but just leave her alone.” She poked a finger into my chest.
Ow, I rubbed the spot she’d just jabbed. She was tiny but that kinda fucking hurt. I looked over at Cat, but she was looking down at her feet. Still, I could see that her eyes were ringed in red. A piece of me felt like an asshole, a small piece, and the rest of me just felt selfishly glad she’d spent even a fraction of her time feeling the agony I had over the years.
“I don’t know what he said either, but she’s probably just upset because the truth hurts. Doesn’t it, Kitty?” Jules piped up from beside me, his tone frigid.
Her head snapped up, eyes locking onto Jules’s as he stared daggers at her. Flinching at the pure animosity she saw in his face, it looked as if it caused her physical pain. She opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was a small squeak, so she went back to staring at the ground.
“What? Got nothing to say? Never thought you’d have to face us again, huh?” He said with his gaze still laser focused on her face.
“I don’t know what happened between you guys, but just back off, okay? She clearly doesn’t want to talk to you,” her friend snapped, getting in between them and shielding Cat from his fury.
She grabbed Cat’s hand and started leading her away towards the women’s locker room to escape. Jules’s arm shot out and grabbed her other wrist, stopping her from retreating for a moment. He gently pulled her closer while simultaneously leaning down to speak into her ear.
“I hope it eats at you every time my name or face crosses your mind. When you remember all the good times and how you’re the one who threw it all away,” he whispered, releasing her and then turning to walk away without sparing her another glance.
“Fuck you, Jules,” she called after him, hands shaking and tears returning to their place, running down her raw red cheeks.
Her glare shifted to me when his back turned, but I just put my hands up in mock surrender then followed after Jules. When I caught up to him, he didn’t say anything just tossed me a dirty look and kept up his quickened pace.
“And here I was thinking I was the heartless bastard, but damn, you just chewed her up and spit her back out,” I joked while trying to keep up with him.
“Why didn’t you tell me you talked to her this morning?” He spun on me with a wild look and an accusatory tone.
“I don’t know, man. It didn’t go well and I was still fuming. It’s not like I wasn’t planning on telling you. I just didn’t get the chance to yet,” I replied sheepishly, shrugging my shoulders.
“What did you say to her?” He grilled.
“Not much, really. She didn’t really give me the chance. She was sitting all by herself and told me to go away when I got near her,” I started to explain. “But I called her out for running from us earlier and tried to get her to explain herself. She claimed she tried back then but we wouldn’t listen, we don’t understand and it’s too late now. I told her to stop lying and own up to what she did. Apparently, that hit a little too close to home.”
“And?” He questioned, always knowing when I’m leaving something out.
“And I told her she broke your heart and you haven’t been the same since,” I admitted and he shut his eyes, dragging his palm down his face. “What? It’s not like she didn’t know that already! She knows exactly what she did. That’s why she’s stayed away all this time. She knows and she feels guilty. That’s why she was crying.”
“Yeah, but now she also knows how absolutely pathetic I am. Sulking over a girl who doesn’t want me back still, years after she rejected me,” he complained.
“You’re definitely not the one looking pathetic right now, that’s for sure. She all but crumpled into a heap at your feet before your last comment, then she was pissed the hell off.” I chuckled. “You should have stuck around to see the look on her face after that one.”
He winced, perhaps not enjoying upsetting her as much as I had. Never mind, the heartless bastard was still definitely me.
“What was with that little blonde attack dog she had with her, by the way?”
“I don’t know, but she’s stronger than she looks, dude. We might want to be careful with her. My chest is still sore.” I rubbed the now sensitive spot there and frowned.
“Oh, come on, you’re gonna let some random chick stop you from getting the answers she owes us? You know how many hours we spent on the internet trying to find just the smallest hint of Cat. Now she’s right here in front of us without the chance to run from us again. I don’t know about you, man, but I’m not that strong. We just have to get her alone without that tiny tyrant around so she can’t keep us away,” he looked to me for my agreement.
Even though she’d made it pretty clear she wanted us to stay away, I’ll admit, I’m not that strong either. Many nights I laid awake in bed at night racking my brain for a way to track her down, some leaf left unturned we’d somehow missed. Now, while the world was crashing down around us, we had been gifted with this last chance to make things right.
The timing had to be a sign, it had to be. We just had to keep our emotions in check the next time we tried to talk to her, promise to stay calm no matter what it was she had been keeping from us. I nodded, agreeing that I was indeed not going to give up so easily.