10. Skylar
He tried to seduce her.
Just the thought of Cade coming on to my aunt makes me nauseous as I lie in bed staring up at the cracked and yellow ceiling of my bedroom–a ceiling I thought I was going to be leaving behind soon. But now I’m not so sure.
How could he do that? There’s no way he could actually be into her. But that would make Beatrice’s story true: that he actually did try to get her to fall for him so he could get her money. And that would make him the biggest scumbag imaginable.
And what makes it even worse is that I didn’t pick up on it in the first place.
How could I have not seen it?
I guess that’s what sociopaths are good at though, right? Putting on different faces and manipulating people without regret to get what they want.
My heart feels like a solid block of ice inside my chest.
I want to call him and interrogate him like a police officer, but I’m terrified of what he might say. He might deny it all, but can I even believe him? And what if he just flat-out admits to it? What then?
A knock at the door nearly gives me a heart attack.
“Not now, Dad!” I call out.
“Are you decent?”
“Yes,” I breathe out. “But I’m just not in the mood.”
“It’s kinda big news, puddin’. Can I come in?”
I sigh. “Okay, fine.”
Dad opens the door but stays standing in the hallway. “So, uh…I just got some pretty radical news from my sister.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” I ask, not giving one single shit about it.
“Well, apparently she just got engaged to one of her new groundskeeper guys.” The ice around my heart shatters, driving shards into the flesh of my chest. I rocket up in bed in shock.
“What!?”
“I know right?” my dad says, shaking his head and grinning in disbelief. “Apparently she’s selling her house and moving to California. She’s leaving tomorrow. So I guess we won’t be doing Sunday brunch anymore, but we will have to go visit her for the really big holidays–”
“Yeah, that’s great, Dad,” I say, cutting him off as I grab my cell. “Listen, I have to call Misty about work tomorrow. Do you mind?”
Dad quickly takes a step back and pulls on the door. “Sure, not at all, puddin’. Just wanted to let you know about Beatrice. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Thanks.”
I force a smile as he backs out and instantly dial Cade.
But it doesn’t even ring. A strange message comes up saying the number has been disconnected.
“What the hell…?”
I try again, but the same thing happens.
Now I’m really sweating.
This can’t be happening, can it? Cade and Aunt Beatrice engaged? Here I was doing my best to try and find some kind of hole in the story and believe that Cade couldn’t have done what Beatrice said he had done, and now I’m hearing from Dad that she’s engaged to one of her workers and Cade’s phone is disconnected.
What reason would there be for phone being disconnected unless he had blocked me or gotten a new number so he could ghost me?
He really is a scumbag.
Terrifying sensations swell through my body. My limbs begin to tremble, and I collapse back onto the bed, letting my phone slip through my fingers onto the floor as tears spill from my eyes.
How could he lie to me like that?
What about the waterfall? I know when he looked at me–when he took me and laid me down beneath him and claimed me–that he loved me. I felt it in more ways than one.
It was something deep in my soul. It was a connection unlike anything I’d ever known. And it only grew stronger with every moment I spent with him.
He confessed so many things to me. He shared so much. And all I felt was truth. Honesty.
For it to all have been lies…it just doesn’t make any sense.
I watch as the teardrops fall from my eyes and darken the laminate at my feet. I try to stay quiet, but I can’t. Sobs choke their way from my throat and out through my lips, and it’s not long before I hear the sound of my dad’s footsteps returning from the other room.
“Sky? Honey?” He knocks but doesn’t even wait before coming in. He sees me crying and instantly comes over beside me and puts an arm around me to comfort me. “Puddin’, what’s wrong? What did Misty say? Did she fire you?”
I have to laugh through the tears as I shake my head.
“No, Dad. I’m sorry. I lied. I didn’t have to talk to Misty.”
“You didn’t? Well what happened, then?”
“I–I’ve got something to tell you, Daddy,” I say slowly. “And I’m not sure if you’re gonna be mad at me or not.”
Daddy just chuckles and uses his thumb to wipe away my tears.
“Don’t you worry, puddin’. I won’t be mad. Just tell me what’s happened that’s got you all upset.”
I take a deep breath and try to get ahold of myself, pushing aside images of Beatrice and Cade on a plane to California together or in her manor right now with their hands all over each other.
“That worker that Aunt Beatrice is engaged to…” The words are like poison spilling out of my lips. I take a deep breath that feels like nails penetrating my lungs. “I’ve been seeing him for a few weeks now.”
My dad looks back at me, shocked. “What? What guy?”
“One of the guys from her lawn crew. His name is Cade.” I sigh, fighting back more tears. “He owns the business actually.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this, Sky?”
“I should have,” I groan, holding my head in my hands. “But after what Beatrice said to me…”
My voice fades off as I think back to that day when Cade and I first met, when my aunt called me back up to the house and stuck her angry finger in my face and called me a bitch and told me to stay away from him and then slammed the door in my face.
Even now I can still feel the chill run down my spine from just how shocked and scared that made me feel.
“What did she say to you, puddin’?” my dad asks.
He cares for me so much. I never should have hidden this from him. Why am I such an idiot?
“I’m sorry, Dad. I’ll tell you everything.”
And with another deep, painful breath, I start from the beginning.
I start with the day I first met Cade. I tell him how Beatrice reacted and go on to Cade sneaking into my window (I leave out the details of what went on in the back of his truck, of course), to our “date” at the waterfall, (again leaving out the details), to him asking me to come and live with him and how I was ready go until Aunt Beatrice marched into the tattoo parlor and said what she said.
“I wasn’t sure if she was just lying to me or not,” I explain. “But she made a pretty convincing argument. And she knew things that he had said that made him look kind of shady.”
“So you think he just wanted to get in with you for my sister’s money?”
I shrug, feeling the despair coming back with a vengeance.
“I didn’t want to believe it, but then you come in here and tell me Beatrice is engaged to one of her workers and is moving to California, and I go to call Cade, and his number is just coming back disconnected…what am I supposed to believe?”
My dad slowly nods, his eyes moving back and forth, searching for another possible outcome to what could be going on that he could provide me with that would pull me out of this pit of anguish I’ve fallen into.
But then, as he turns back to me, I see he doesn’t have one.
“I’m so sorry, puddin’.” My heart sinks into my stomach. Tears pour from my eyes as my entire world shatters. “But maybe this guy just wasn’t the guy you thought he was.”