Chapter 20
C H A P T E R20
Plot twist
Cade
The Present
2:31 a.m.
M y world felt thrown off its axis from Ella’s revelation.
Of all the things I expected her to say, this I did not see coming.
My girlfriend had been pregnant.
I replayed prom night and how we snuck out of the venue after getting crowned prom king and queen. We spent the next few hours locked in a state of bliss, making love in a hotel room. I forgot condoms and Ella wanted us to fuck bare.
I pulled out every single time, but apparently not well enough…because Ella actually got pregnant with our baby.
And although pulling out wasn’t a foolproof method to prevent a pregnancy, I should have known better, despite both of us consenting to screw without protection.
I lost Ella weeks later, but she lost me and our baby. I knew we shouldn’t compare sufferings, but her loss was grander than mine. Only now was I coming to terms with the amount of trauma Ella harboured from the summer.
My heart broke again. This time, for my Ellie.
The one who always fought and cared for her loved ones like a fierce lioness. The one who wanted to grow old with me and start a family.
She didn’t deserve this.
Suddenly, I understood the pure dolor Ella felt when she found me with that other girl. Suddenly, I understood why she shut me out. Ella was unable to see my face or listen to my voice when she was dealing with the aftermath of a miscarriage. On top of a boyfriend whom she thought cheated on her.
I forgave her for all of it.
Fuck, I forgave her even before I came to Initiation Night.
I once told her that she could break my heart a thousand times. It was the truth. It was hers to break, hers to mend, hers to love. Now and forever.
I used to think heartbreak was the most hurtful thing I had experienced. Not even Julius’s assault could compare to the pain of loving and losing my girlfriend. But as I pressed a hand against Ella’s head and heard her sniffle, I knew it was the realization that she miscarried and I wasn’t there to help her get through it.
That was the most hurtful thing.
Locked in an embrace, we lost sense of time and our surroundings. That’s usually what happened when we were in the same vicinity. The edges of the world blurred around us until our visions tunneled and we only saw each other.
Ella—the strongest, bravest, wildest girl—was all I ever saw.
Despite holding her in my arms, we still felt lightyears away.
The only thing left to do now was tell her my side of the story.
“Ella?” I exhaled slowly.
She lifted her head from my shoulder.
We were so close, our breaths mingled. I wanted to kiss her so bad. I was dying too.
Her tongue peeked out, wiping over her bottom lip. Leaving it slick and inviting. Resisting Ella was damn near impossible. Though I pushed aside those thoughts and concentrated on what mattered most. Acknowledging her pain.
“Yes?”
“I’m truly so sorry,” I said again. “I wish things could have been different.”
“Me too.” She stepped away and without her warmth, I was back to feeling cold. Empty. “We should probably head out. I’m sure we lost the competition and it’s probably already three a.m.”
I glanced down at my watch. “No, we still have time. We should finish this.”
Ella heard the double entendre in my sentence. She stiffened and turned around, giving me her back. “I’m in no mood to continue this competition, Cade. I’m depleted. Mentally and emotionally.” Bending down, she snatched the discarded baseball bat and flinched. “Ouch. Shit!”
I rushed to her. “What’s wrong?”
“I cut myself on broken glass.” Ella angled her hand towards her flashlight. A crimson slash in her palm had blood trickling over her skin.
Damn me for shattering that glass globe in anger. “Fuck, show me.”
Blood didn’t make me squeamish. But blood on Ella did.
I hissed through my teeth when she extended her hand. “You need to get that cleaned and bandaged right away. The nurse’s office is right around the corner. I’ll take you.”
It wasn’t deep enough to need stitches, but I didn’t want her driving home with a bleeding hand.
Stubborn as ever, she shook her head. “I’m fine.” Reaching into her little crossbody purse, she pulled out a few tissues and bundled them against her palm. They instantly turned scarlet. “This will do until I get home.”
No, it wouldn’t. “Ella, please. Let me take care of you.”
For a second, I thought she would oppose.
But there was no spark left in her. None of that fire from when we started Initiation Night.
She sighed, resigned. “Okay.”
I successfully broke down some of her walls, but I hated the dejected air surrounding her. This was still a win, though. And if I had to spend the rest of our time in this godforsaken place resurrecting the old Ella I loved, I’d gladly do so.
I inched my hand her way.
She stared at it.
I was giving her the choice to accept me for I had yearned to hold her hand for weeks.
And when her fingers hesitantly reached out for mine, I released a breath I didn’t realize I was holding in. Tension coiled deep in my muscles evaporated like mist.
We wove our fingers together.
Calmness seeped through my pores.
“Let’s go, sweetheart.” I squeezed her hand the way I did every time I got off my motorcycle, every time I tugged her closer for a kiss, and every time I made love to her.
Then I veered us out of Room 208 and walked down the vacant hallway, towards the nurse’s office.
I was holding the hand of the girl I loved and she gave it to me willingly.
Though I was elated this instant, I knew this feeling might be short-lived.
Because our next stop?
It was my personal hell.
Ella
C ade’s fingers threaded with mine sparked a tendril of jubilance in my veins. I’d always loved the feel of his slight calluses against my softer skin.
The fondest memory I recalled of those hands was when they mapped the lines of my body like they were travelling on an endless road, leaving trails of goosebumps in their wake. Caressing me in the kind of places where the sun didn’t shine but where the stars did…until I was love drunk, floating on a cloud of ecstasy with his name on my lips.
Cade tugged me along the third floor hallway. It fostered a spine-chilling ambiance that was straight out of my favourite gothic romance novels. The light emanating from his torch lit up our path, while mine hung uselessly by my side.
I was too caught up in the pain radiating from my bleeding palm and my earlier confrontation with Cade.
“You saw what you saw at the party and branded me a cheater. There are always two sides to a story, but you played judge, jury, and executioner before hearing mine.”
Those words bounced inside my skull with startling lucidity. I didn’t want to hear Cade’s side before. Now uncertainty crawled in my mind. The sheer conviction in his voice had me thinking that perhaps I missed something…
And that was a scary thought because I was firm in my beliefs regarding what I saw. Him. Her. On the bed. Red-stained kisses.
“You’re so sure of what you saw, huh?”
Did I see wrong? The high from my newfound pregnancy and then the plummeting heartbreak I experienced in the same night had my rationality crashing like a series of dominoes. I wasn’t in the right mindset when I caught him, let alone when I ran away from the party.
“You think you have it all figured out, but did you stop to think, for one second, how out of character it would be for me to cheat on the love of my life?”
I did find it out of character for him, which was why his betrayal hurt the way it did.
“You were supposed to trust me…love me. Instead, you cussed me out, slammed the doors in my face, and all but pushed me out of your life like I was trash.”
Whenever I stepped out on my balcony, that memory often replayed in my mind like a film. Now as we inched closer to the nurse’s office, I remembered it again.
The whistling wind screeched as I flung open the doors, finding a wary Cade standing on my balcony. His hair was mussed by the summer wind and his gaze held a look that basically said, ‘I’m lost without you.’
It cut me to the quick. I steeled myself and glared at him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
It had been three nights since Josh’s birthday party. Three nights since I caught him in his bedroom with another ‘pretty girl.’ Three nights since I miscarried our baby. He didn’t know the last tidbit and he would never find out.
“Please, Ella,” he pleaded. His hands gripped the balcony banister with knuckle-whitening strength, stopping himself from reaching out for me. “Give me five minutes of your time. Let me explain.”
Hadn’t he done enough damage? Now the asshole actually had the gall to show up at my home. He was lucky I didn’t tell my parents that we broke up. Otherwise, my papá would murder him for how he hurt me.
“Spare me your bullshit excuses. We’re done, Cade. Get the fuck out, you cheater.”
Cheater .
I never thought I’d associate Cade to that word in my entire life. He was faithful to me. Until he wasn’t.
Pain splintered through my body. I choked on a gasp and the onslaught of tears. Was he here to beg for another chance? Or was this a sick ploy to torture me some more?
“It’s not what you think — ”
“I caught you red-handed in bed with her!” I lost the fight with my tears. They rivered down my cheeks. “You had her lipstick stains all over you! There’s nothing to explain! I know what I saw!”
He finally tried to grab me. There were dark circles under his eyes and he looked extremely haggard. “Please, Ellie. I’m sorry—”
I raised a hand to his face, silencing him, and thundered on, “You’re despicable! I gave you everything—my love, my trust, my loyalty—and you stomped all over it! You make me sick!” I yelled, voice breaking. I fisted the roots of my hair, shaking my head to erase the image of him standing before me. Looking apologetic. Looking weak. Looking like a fucking cheater. When that didn’t work, I pushed at his chest to get him to leave. From my sight and from my life. “Don’t think you can beg for a second chance because you’re not getting it! If I ever see you here again, I’m calling the cops!”
He seemed shocked at my outburst.
“Please don’t do this, Ella. Just hear me out. Five minutes,” he said desperately, backing away reluctantly when I shoved at his chest again. He was almost at the edge of my balcony. Almost gone. “We made a promise. You and me. Ride or die. I love—”
I slammed the doors shut in his face.
But I still heard the muffled word he uttered. “You…”
Then I closed the curtains to block him out and ran for my en suite where I vomited in the toilet bowl.
I finished the night crying into my pillow.
Wishing I never laid eyes on Cade.
Wishing I never gave him my all.
Wishing I never, ever fell in love with him.
With Cade’s monologue from Room 208 and the revisit to the moment in the balcony, which I saw in a new light, for the first time ever…I doubted my decision to shut him out.
Some people deserved a second chance.
But did you really need a second chance if you never truly lost your first one?
I was actually suspecting Cade hadn’t, and that messed with my head more than anything. An odd sense of guilt settled in my stomach like cement.
“We’re here.” Cade’s voice yanked me back to the situation at hand.
The broken glass. My bleeding palm. The nurse’s office.
“The door’s unlocked, so someone’s been here already.” Cade tugged me inside the room. “C’mon, Ellie.”
Once inside, he closed the door. The nurse’s office felt too small for both our presences and demons. Cade surveyed our surroundings with a critical look. Like an Initiator may be hiding, ready to pull another prank.
“There’s no one else,” I mumbled. “Just us.” Speaking of… “Cade, don’t you find it strange that we haven’t seen a single person in over an hour? It’s not normal.”
St. Victoria was a ginormous campus, but we were a big team of Initiators every year. Crossing paths with other teams happened quite often.
Cade grimaced. “I know. I was thinking that too.”
Fear dribbled into my system. “Do you think someone found out students were here after hours and reported it to the authorities?”
“I don’t know, Ella.” He shook his head. “And I don’t care. The only thing that matters to me is getting your cut bandaged.”
Cade directed me towards the single bed in the nurse’s office and I sat down while he rummaged through drawers for medical supplies.
Staring out the bay windows, I watched the outside world. It was a murky blur with torrential rain decorating the stygian sky, the medley of thunderbolts and lightning breaking the inky canvas every few pulses. The sight and sound were a mirror reflection of my heart’s inner turmoil, and the vagary of the weather was a depiction of Cade’s and my relationship. Temperamental and persistent despite the odds.
Cade parked himself on a backless stool and wheeled closer to me, bringing with him antiseptic wipes and gauze. He already washed his hands at the sink and snapped on a pair of blue exam gloves. “How do you feel?”
Are you asking about my hand or my heart? Because both hurt tremendously .
“Exhausted,” I answered truthfully. “I’d give anything to be in my bed right now.”
During his rummaging, Cade found a spare candle, which he lit with his Zippo and placed on the table next to the bed. The candle provided a mellow glow that softened our little bubble. “I’ll take you home after this so you can sleep. Did you drive here?”
“No, I hitched a ride with Callie.”
With nimble fingers, Cade tore open the square package of antiseptic wipes and tended to me calmly.
Day or night, whenever I hurt myself, he was there to save the day.
Some things never changed.
I hissed in a breath from the burn when Cade wiped my cut. “I know, I know, babe. It hurts. I’m sorry.”
The tenderness he displayed while dressing my wound nearly undid me. I focused on the gauze he wrapped around my palm instead of the endearing way his brows puckered and the way his lips parted in concentration, giving him a youthful boyishness that only presented itself when he was around me.
In front of the world, he was quiet, lethal, and every bit Montardor’s merciless fixer. Behind closed doors, he was my smiling, gentle, mischievous princepin. The one who laughed with me, held my hand, championed all my ambitions and dreams, and promised to love me until our deaths and beyond.
That’s what drew me to him like bees to honey. The duality of him. The ruthless mob prince and the playful bad boy. Two sides of one coin. Mine to treasure.
As Cade finished bandaging my wound and disposed of his gloves, two prominent thoughts struck me.
Though what if you were never betrayed, Ella?
What if there was more to the picture…and you failed to see it?
When Cade glanced in my direction, he saw the conflict on my face. I was battling with the need to walk out of this place and never look back, or stay right here forever, where the only people to exist were him and me.
“What is it, Ella?”
I debated asking the question weighing on my mind since the summer. Then I reminded myself no more what-ifs . “Why wasn’t I enough for you, Cade?”
Why were you with that girl? Why did you need her when you had me?
It looked like he lost some one-sided battle with himself when his eyes closed and he whispered, “You were enough. You’ve always been, sweetheart.”
I fisted his leather jacket and dragged him closer. “Then why did you cheat on me, Cade?” I spat, shaking him. “Why do you talk like you aren’t guilty, dammit!”
“Because I didn’t cheat!” Cade snapped, pure agony coating his vocal cords. “You were everything to me. I would never fucking cheat on you. I loved you!”
I loved you. I loved you. I loved you.
A broken sob escaped me.
Cade heaved out a shaky exhale and uttered words that shocked me to my core. “I was drugged the night of Josh’s birthday party.”
I flinched, rearing back as though I’d been slapped.
No, no, no.
Please, tell me I didn’t just hear him say that. “W-What?”
Cade peered at me with so much vulnerability, my heart squeezed. “I never cheated on you. I would rather die than hurt you like that, Ella.”
Stunned, I sat before him, struggling to digest the bomb he just dropped. “Tell me what happened. All of it.”
Cade inhaled a deep breath and finally told me his version of the night that changed everything for us…