Chapter Thirty-Five - Cat
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Cat
ONCE I WAS in the shower, I called out to Jules. I heard the door open and then close before his shadow appeared on the other side of the curtain. It shrank down to half its height as he sat down against the adjacent wall. For the first few minutes, neither of us said anything. I just let the water rain down over my head, the drum of the water pressure against my skull silencing my circling thoughts for a brief moment. It took me til I was almost halfway through washing to finally work up the courage to reveal a piece of my soul I’d never bared to anyone.
“I saw the look on your face earlier,” I spoke hesitantly. “I know you put the pieces together after what Julia said caught me off guard. I’m sorry I kept another secret from you. I understand completely if you’re upset with me. I can’t blame you if you don’t want to stick around when I continue to keep things from you. It’s just really hard to talk about. Hard to admit the truth because there’s no one I lied to about the situation more than myself.
“The first couple years of her life, I told myself I could be okay with just being her sister. To pretend that she didn’t grow inside me for nine months. I thought I could learn to live with what happened. Maybe my parents were right. I was only a child myself. How could I even raise one properly when I was clearly so troubled?”
If it weren’t for his shadow still sitting there on the other side of the curtain, I would have no idea if he was still there or not, he was so silent. I couldn’t see his face so I couldn’t judge how he was taking all this, but the curtain between us also emboldened me to keep going.
“Once she was no longer an easy going baby that stayed put wherever you set her down but a rambunctious toddler, that’s when I noticed it. That’s when a switch flipped for me. He didn’t hit her, but he’d do the same things to her he started on with me. He’d scold and berate her for the smallest things. Something as simple as being a kid and playing a little too loud would piss him off. She lived her life walking on eggshells, just as I did.
“I couldn’t do anything about it and it killed me. Little by little every day. He’d punish me and threaten to send me away anytime I got involved. Sometimes I just couldn’t help myself. She’s only four. What could a four-year-old do so wrong that could possibly deserve him screaming in her face? I knew it was only a matter of time before he escalated and she’d get the same treatment as me or my mom. I couldn’t just sit there and watch him steal her light like he did to me.”
Guilt overtook me as I beat myself up internally for my stupidity. How could I ever be so foolish to be tricked into thinking my best option was signing over my rights to my parents? Most of my childhood, I was led to believe that I was the problem. Seeing the perfect, most innocent sweet girl in the world face the same treatment I had sobered me up real quick. I would never forgive myself for the first years of her life, though. She was my daughter, and it was my job to protect her. And I failed. I only prayed those memories would fade.
“The only way I survived was by burying my feelings deep down. Telling myself she was my sister and only that. I didn’t think it would be so hard. I spent my whole pregnancy detached from reality, barely holding onto my will to live. If I’m completely honest with you, I had every intention of killing myself as soon as it didn’t involve taking an innocent life with me. But the very second I saw her, it changed everything. I couldn’t leave her all alone. It felt like every bone in my body was breaking at the same time when I signed that piece of paper.”
Sobs began to wrack my body as I remembered what it was like to sign my soul away. My heart broke irreparably that day. Yeah, I had her back now, but that didn’t change the damage that was done. It’s like the way some people say when a traumatic event happens somewhere, it can scar the land. You can try to build the happiest place on earth over it, but that won’t stop it from being haunted by tormented ghosts of the past.
“This is why I didn’t tell you. Not because I don’t trust you, but because it rips back open the hole in my chest to even think about it. It’s bad enough I have to relive every moment of it when I close my eyes. It fucking hurts and it never stops hurting because it’s the biggest mistake I’ve ever made and I’m not even the one who suffered the worst consequences of it all.”
I crumpled to the floor of the shower and wrapped my arms around my knees as I began to hyperventilate. Immense emotion washed over me that the water pouring over my body couldn’t soothe away. All of a sudden, the curtain ripped back and Jules climbed into the shower with me fully clothed.
“What are you doing? Your clothes are getting soaked!” I gaped at him from the floor.
“I don’t give a fuck,” he growled as he sat down in front of me and pulled me into his lap.
I curled into him as he wrapped me up in his embrace and stroked a calming hand down my wet hair. The shock of him getting in with me with all his clothes on was enough to stop my ragged breathing, but it took a minute for my sobs to subside.
“I’m so sorry, Jules,” I whispered.
“Shh, don’t you dare apologize to me one more time,” he murmured against my hair where he was placing soft kisses. “We don’t have to keep talking about it, Kitty. It’s okay, I get why you kept it a secret. I was never upset with you. I could just see how much it affected you and wanted to be there for you.”
“No,” I put on a false bravado. “Now that you know the truth, I need you to understand why. Why I let them take her from me.”
I told him of the events leading up to me waking up in a coma and discovering I was pregnant while he listened with a horror-stricken expression.
“My dad didn’t want to bring ‘further shame’ to the family, so I had to hide my pregnancy and then after he told everyone Rhi was theirs. He told me if I didn’t sign over my rights when she was born, he’d involve child protective services and have me deemed unfit for trying to commit suicide while I was carrying her. If he did that, then Scott and his family would have found out about her and they would have been able to fight for visitation. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t sentence her to a life with a rapist for a father, so I decided on the lesser of two evils.”
I looked up at his face through blurry eyes, searching for any hint that he understood and didn’t think I was a terrible person. I did what I thought was necessary. What I thought was my only option.
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like to go through all by yourself,” he spoke finally. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you during all of that. I’ll never forgive myself for the way I acted that night at the party. If I had just stopped and saw past my ego for just one minute, you wouldn’t have had to do it all alone. You’re not the bad guy in this story, Cat, so please don’t think that you are and go too hard on yourself. Life has done that enough for you already.”
I was crying again, but this time it was because I was so overwhelmed by my feelings for Jules. I wasn’t used to having someone on my side these past couple of years. While I could never fix what happened with Rhiannon, at least one dream was coming true in having my relationship with my best friends repaired. And upgraded. I truly never thought it would happen, and it felt surreal to have him sitting here with me, holding me while I fell apart in his arms.
We were still maintaining eye contact, just sitting there staring at each other as water rained down over us. His eyes flicked from my eyes to my lips and then down lower and I saw his eyes heat once they fell on my naked body. He schooled his expression, thinking I’d missed it, but I leaned forward and captured his lips. I wanted desperately to feel anything besides this ache in my chest. He kissed me back with a slow and sensual kiss, his hands roaming my face and neck but not listening to my silent prayers to go lower.
He placed one last peck on my lips before rising from the ground and reaching down to lift me back up so that I was standing as well.
“We probably shouldn’t use up all the hot water, pretty girl. Dom will throw a fit and act like a big baby for the rest of the day if he has to take a cold shower.”
“Okay, okay,” I relented. “I just have to wash my body before I get out. I didn’t do it yet.”
He turned, grabbing the body wash from the shelf behind him, then held it in his hand for a moment. He looked from the bottle to my face, down my entire body, then back up.
“May I?” He asked bashfully, as if I wasn’t mentally pleading for his hands all over me just moments ago.
I smiled and gave him a nod. He wasted no time depositing the soap into his hand and grabbing one of my arms. He lathered up both arms first, focusing intently on his task until he got to my chest. He paused and held my gaze again briefly before continuing on when he found no apprehension there. I shivered each time his hands passed over my hardened nipples. His eyes were glazed over, pupils blown wide, as he moved onto my stomach. His large hands slid around my back, making sure not an inch of my skin was free from the suds.
He had done my entire upper body, so he now crouched down to get my lower half. When he was done, he was eye level with the one part of me that had been untouched so far. I stared down at him as he reached out and ever so gently trailed a hand up my thigh towards my center. His gaze was completely enraptured there, hypnotized with lust. He ran a finger up my slit and when it brushed by my clit, I let out a husky moan.
His lips parted and a moan of his own fell out before it turned guttural. The hand he had on my other thigh steadying himself tightened and his eyes screwed shut. I stared down at him in confusion. He looked almost in pain? He stood abruptly with his cheeks on fire and quickly rinsed the suds from his hands.
“I’ll let you get the rest,” he fumbled out. “I should get out of these wet clothes. Do you think you’ll be okay for a minute while I go change?”
I told him I’d be fine, and he scrambled out of the shower then beelined for the door. I didn’t know what had just happened. Did I do something wrong? He’d seemed to be enjoying himself until I went and spoiled it by not being able to bite back my moan. Sure, it was his first time exploring my naked body, but I’d gone down on him back at the condo. I can’t imagine my pleasure from him touching me made him uncomfortable. He’d told me that when he finally got to have me, he wouldn’t want to have to silence them at all.
If he was holding back because he thought I was in too emotionally vulnerable of a state, I was going to stab someone. I was getting sick of my discernment getting questioned. Perhaps I was using sex as a way to cope with negative emotions, but so what? It didn’t mean I didn’t have genuine feelings for either of them or hurt anyone.
If this was going to work between us, I couldn’t continue to be treated as a fragile doll. I’d been shattered plenty of times and repaired myself when left to my own devices. Most importantly, they couldn’t treat me as if they were more capable of making decisions for me. Never again would a man control what I did with my body.