Saturday, January 15th
Cat
“I need you both to sit down,” my dad says through the speaker of my mom’s phone at breakfast this morning.
My mom and I were about to sit at the small kitchen table together. The smell of the freshly brewed coffee lingered lazily in the air and the chocolate croissants were still warm when my dad called.
My parents talk several times a day, catching each other up on the day and the various goings-on of their three kids. So his call, in and of itself, is not a reason for concern. His voice, though—tight like a stretched rubber band—causes the soles of my feet to prick with anxiety and my heart to plummet into my stomach as though I’m on one of those sudden-drop rides at the carnival. Something is wrong, and I have a pretty good inkling it has to do with Adam.
“We’re sitting,” my mom tells him tersely, her eyes glued to me, observant, watchful. “What happened?”
“The sheriff is looking for Adam,” my dad says. “I don’t have too much info, just what Carson was able to share with me this morning.”
I assume the Carson my dad is talking about is Carson Clements. He’s a good friend of my parents’ and a sheriff’s deputy in my small North Carolina hometown. He was also the deputy who reported to my home the night of Adam’s last act of violence against me, when the bruises on my throat were only just beginning to appear, but my eye was already swollen from where Adam had punched me. Deputy Clements was one of the few people to remain steadfastly on my and my family’s side after Adam was kicked off the football team, lost his scholarship to Duke, and was sentenced to six months’ probation for assaulting me the night of my high school’s winter formal not quite a year ago.
“Remember the girl I told you about?” my dad asks. “The girl who I thought was Adam’s new girlfriend?”
“Yes?” my mom answers.
“Adam put her in the hospital last night. Carson kept using the word allegedly, but I have no doubt about it.”
“Oh my god, what happened?” The words tumble out of my mom’s mouth as her back goes ramrod straight.
“Carson said Adam and this girl—her name is Annalise—were at some party last night. I guess they got into a fight. Adam beat her up so badly they needed to airlift her to Durham to perform emergency brain surgery and relieve the pressure in her skull.”
My mom gasps loudly, the sound reverberating off the walls of our small kitchen, while I clasp both my hands over my mouth, my eyes wide as they lock on my mom.
“She’s apparently in the ICU on a ventilator. There were a ton of witnesses who saw what happened. He ran, though; of course that little weasel ran,” my dad spits as if the mere thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. “Adam’s in big trouble. The sheriff tried to collect him at home early this morning, but, not surprisingly, Adam was nowhere to be found. His parents say he didn’t come home last night, but I wouldn’t put it past them to hide this prick somewhere. Anyway, the judge issued a warrant for his arrest.”
“They can’t find him?” my mom asks, worry flaring in her eyes.
“Well, they only just issued the warrant and are beginning to look for him. Listen, Kitty,” he says, garnering my already undivided attention. “I’m not saying Adam’s going to come looking for you, okay? But I want you to be vigilant nonetheless. I don’t trust this kid, and I won’t be able to sleep soundly until I know he’s behind lock and key. I just… ugh, I hate that I’m not there with the two of you…” He trails off, the frustration in his voice sharpening his words like fragments of glass. “I don’t want you to go anywhere alone, okay? I want you to listen to your mom, observe your curfew, and have your phone on you at all times. I—”
“No problem, Dad,” I say. “I promise I’ll be safe.”
“Kitty is really good about all those things, Bobby,” my mom says, giving me a tiny smile.
“I know, I know.” My dad sighs again. “I just… He’s made his way to New York before with little to no consequences.”
“But this time there’s a warrant out for his arrest. The sheriff is actually looking for him. It’s different from last time. I’m sure they’ll find him soon, or he’ll get picked up during a traffic stop. Bobby, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she says to my dad, though she doesn’t take her eyes off me. I can tell she’s attempting to make me feel more at ease, too.
I can’t honestly say that it’s working. I know what Adam is capable of, and it suddenly hits me how close I came to being in Annalise’s shoes. There were no witnesses when Adam started hitting me the last time—we were alone in a room when he became violent. It was only when he had me by the throat, pushing me back against the dresser, and his repeated blows to my face caused the dresser to shift loudly enough that it caught people’s attention. But nobody actually saw him hit or choke me. Not that night.
There had been prior instances of Adam becoming violent, slapping and hitting me, pulling my hair, shoving me, but nobody stopped him, and nobody said anything to the cops the night of the final assault. They all kept quiet, and some even said I deserved what I got. Eventually I started to believe them, thinking that if only I hadn’t made him wait, hadn’t turned down his repeated efforts to have sex with me, hadn’t led him on, he wouldn’t have hit me all the time.
It wasn’t until Ronan told me that nothing that happened to me was my fault, that I was right to set boundaries for myself, that I began to shed the lies, began to relieve myself of the burden. Except, there were still the compromising photos Adam had… has of me. Sure, some of them were taken without my express consent—I’m sure of it—but others? Some of the pictures sure do seem to depict me willingly exposing my breasts to Adam. The existence of these pictures haunts me still, though not as much as the fact that I continued to send nudes of myself to Adam even once Ronan and I got together. It was by no means voluntary, but that doesn’t mean I’m not thrown into the depths of guilt when I so much as think about it, especially given that I’ve never sent even one topless picture to Ronan in our seven months together, not even after we finally said “I love you” to each other.
“Maybe we should think about letting Cat have her car in the city,” my dad says, and my ears perk up. “I’d feel a lot better if she didn’t have to rely on subways when it’s dark out.”
I look to my mom hopefully.
She cocks her head to the side. “That might not be a bad idea. Kitty usually gets chauffeured around by her friends, but she has had to rely on public transportation more since Ronan left.”
“Even if he was still around, I wouldn’t trust some seventeen-year-old kid to keep my daughter safe,” my dad says gruffly, adding a chill to the already frigid energy in the room. “We’ll figure out what to do about Cat’s car. But Kitty, in the meantime please just be careful, okay? Be aware of your surroundings and, more importantly, say something if things feel off, okay? The last thing I want is for you to ignore that gut feeling of yours like you did in the past. No more secrets!”
I press my lips together, neither nodding nor shaking my head. I’m not going to lie to my parents and tell them I won’t keep secrets. At least not outright. I guess I’m lying by omission, but it’s better than the alternative. No way in hell am I going to tell my father that my ex-boyfriend has pictures of me naked. He got agitated just hearing about Ronan driving me around; what is he going to say if he finds out his little girl sent nudes to some eighteen-year-old?
My parents conclude their phone call while I try to enjoy my chocolate croissant. My mouth is dry, devoid of all moisture like I’ve swallowed desert sand, and frankly I’ve lost my appetite with the news of Adam’s recent misdeeds. That poor girl. I hope she makes it out okay and that, once she does, she’s met with more grace and kindness than my neighbors showed me during the apocalyptic cataclysm of my relationship with Adam. I wonder how similar her story is to mine, how deeply stuck she was in her relationship with Adam. I doubt this latest incident was their first. Does he have pictures of her like he does of me?
The buzzing of my phone in my pocket distracts me from my rumination. It’s a welcome diversion—I hate how much of my emotional energy Adam still consumes. He doesn’t deserve even one iota of headspace.
I answer Steve’s call. “Hey, Stevie. Is everything alright?” Though we’ve been spending a lot of time together and even talk regularly, it’s not normal for him to call me out of the blue, especially on a Saturday morning.
“I need a favor,” he starts with a heaviness in his tone that causes my forehead to wrinkle.
“Anything.”
He exhales deeply. “I just left Vada’s and… if you can, I’d love it if you could head over there? I just… I just ended things between us.”
I feel my shoulders go concave. “Oh, Stevie,” I sigh deeply.
Admittedly, I had been wondering if things were heading in that direction, especially after their intense argument last weekend and Vada’s tearful confession to me in the car on our way home. It’s plain to see how much Steve has been struggling, how much he’s been affected by what happened to his little brother, how huge of a toll it’s taken on his mental health. And even though none of us wished for this result, I think we were all just waiting for either Steve or Vada to call it quits. As much as I hate to say it, I think it was inevitable.
“I’m so sorry.” It feels like the end of an era, like a shift in the universe, and I wonder how their breakup will affect the dynamic of my tight-knit friends’ group. It would be crushing to lose either of them, if they no longer felt comfortable enough to spend time with each other and thus their friends.
“Yeah. Me, too. She’s really upset.”
“I bet. She loves you, you know?” I don’t know why I say it. I know he knows she loves him. A part of me hopes that Steve’s decision is reversible, or at the very least temporary. Maybe it’s just a break rather than a breakup.
“I know. And I love her, too, but… I don’t know. Things haven’t been good. I’m not good. And I feel like I’m just doing more damage. I don’t want to hurt her anymore, which I know I’ve been doing. It’s not fair to her. I need some time and… I don’t know.”
“I get it, Stevie. You need to focus on you right now. Have you thought about this idea of maybe seeing a therapist?” I ask, even though I feel a little bit like a broken record. Maybe it’s because my mom is a psychiatrist and I know how beneficial it can be to have a neutral person—someone uninvolved in your struggles, someone who’s not inherently invested or biased—to talk to.
“Yeah. I talked to my dad about it. We talk a lot, actually.” He chuckles. “Honestly, if there’s anything good that came from all this crap that happened it’s that my dad is home all the time now,” he says in a way that gives me the impression he’s talking more to himself than me. “He said he’s going to talk to Ran’s therapist about it next week.”
“That’s great.”
“We’ll see. I just know something needs to happen because I really don’t feel like myself right now. And it’s so dumb because, like, I’m fine, right? I never got hurt, but here I am, acting like a whiny little baby.”
“You really need to stop saying these things. You’re suffering from trauma, Steve. Yeah, okay, you didn’t get hurt like Ran did, but that doesn’t mean the things you’re feeling aren’t valid. It doesn’t negate that your whole life has been upended—everything you knew to be true wasn’t. You weren’t able to leave for college like you had planned, you’re learning some terrible things, you almost lost your little brother… and your dad is home all the damn time now. That’s, like, constant supervision. Those are all valid reasons to feel like absolute crap.”
He chuckles at my rather lame attempt at a joke, and I’m glad I was able to bring some levity to our conversation. “Thanks for being so supportive. I really appreciate that. And I’m glad you’re in Ran’s life. He needs you.”
I feel the heat climb up the back of my neck before it winds its way around to flush my cheeks. “I need him, too,” I say earnestly. “Okay, so I’ll head over to Vada’s. I’m surprised she hasn’t texted me yet.”
“Yeah, she was really upset,” Steve says, ashamed. “I’ve never seen her cry this hard. I tried to console her, but she told me to leave. I wanted to respect that…”
“I’ll be at her house in a few minutes. Are you going to be alright, though?” Vada wears her heart on her sleeve. I have no doubt the emotions will pour out of her as she grieves the loss of her relationship with Steve, and I sense this may actually allow her to get to a healthier place quicker. I worry more about Steve’s ability, or perhaps willingness, to allow himself to feel the loss and grief.
“Yeah, I’m… I’m actually going to head to Murphy’s in a little bit to hang out with Zack and Shane. I won’t be alone. I promise.”
I’m relieved to hear this, and even more relieved that this plot twist has not, as of yet, affected Steve and Zack’s close friendship. After all, Zack is also Vada’s twin brother. His allegiance is twofold.
“Okay. Stevie, please, please let me know if you need anything at all. I’m here for you.”
“I know. Thank you, Cat. Oh, hey, when you talk to Ran tomorrow: don’t tell him, okay? I don’t want to add to his plate. I don’t want him to have to worry about this, too, and I know he will if he finds out about this.”
I make a face. I might be able to keep certain things from my parents, but I hate lying to Ronan, even by omission. The secrets I keep from him related to Adam already keep me up at night. How am I supposed to keep something as big as his brother’s breakup from him? “I’ll try, Stevie. But I don’t want to outright lie to him. What I will promise is that I won’t bring it up to him first. Does that work?”
He exhales deeply. “Yeah, okay. I guess that works. Will you please tell him I said ‘hey?’ The guy keeps his check-ins with my dad to the absolute bare minimum so he can spend all his time talking to you, so I never get a chance to speak with him,” Steve chuckles.
“Do you need me to put him in his place?” I ask with a giggle. “You know I made him reserve time to talk to Shay a couple of weeks ago. I can do the same for you,” I say, smugly tugging at the sleeves of my hoodie as if I’m fixing a cufflink-clad button-up underneath a tailored suit jacket.
Steve laughs. “Only you hold that kind of power over my little brother.”
I join in his laughter. “I do indeed feel powerful.”
“Well, Almighty Cat, you don’t need to ‘put him in his place.’ I think Ran seeks out exactly what and whom he needs most right now, which is very obviously you. I’m not going to impede his healing. If that means I can’t talk to him until he’s back home, so be it. Just tell him I miss him, I guess.”
Steve’s sweet words, the depth of the love for his brother, coat my insides like honey. “You’re a great big brother.”
A constricted grunt comes through the phone. “Could have been better,” he says, gritted. “Anyway, I’ll let you go so you can also be an incredible friend to Vada. Can you maybe text me later and let me know how she’s doing?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll talk to you soon, Stevie.”
***
I find myself at Vada’s twenty minutes later, knocking several times before she finally opens the front door.
She’s dressed in sweats, an oversized hoodie, slippers, and a robe. Her face is blotchy and tear-streaked, her eyes red and watery. “Aww, Vada,” I say, and pull her into my arms because there isn’t much else I can say or do. There’s not one thing, not one single word I could utter that would ease her pain, that would unbreak her heart right now.
The moment I wrap my arms around her, Vada dissolves into choked sobs and we just stand for a few minutes until I’m able to coax her back into the house and close the door behind me. I lead her to her room where I sit on her bed with her, allowing her to shed her tears, which ebb and flow as the time passes.
I speak to her quietly, reiterating my stance from last weekend. “You know it’s not because he doesn’t love you or you did anything wrong. He’s just struggling right now. He doesn’t want to hurt you.”
“But it still hurts,” she croaks with renewed sobs.
“I know. I know,” I say, stroking my hand over her hair.
***
I stay with Vada as the morning fades into afternoon, the weak winter light already diminishing. I hate how quickly it gets dark in the winter; I hate the cold and the dreary, wet weather. It makes me miss Ronan even more. It makes me feel lonely.
It’s just after four and I’m next to Vada in her bed, her thick down blanket wrapped around the both of us, an episode of some cooking show playing on Vada’s laptop. It’s nice because there’s absolutely no chance a cooking show could evoke any kind of unwanted emotion for Vada right now, and even though she looks tired and worn, she hasn’t shed a tear in over an hour. I consider that a win.
“How about I grab us some takeout?” I finally suggest when I’m no longer able to ignore that hollow feeling in my stomach.
Vada’s eyes wander from the screen to me. They’re puffy and red-rimmed. “Okay,” she croaks pitifully.
“Okay. Any special requests? Maybe a gyro from that Greek food truck on Deacon?”
She shrugs. “Sure.”
I nod, climb out of her bed, and make my way out of her room. I glance back at Vada, whose eyes have returned to her laptop screen, devoid of all emotion other than exhaustion. Well, at least she’s not crying.
It’s only a five-minute walk to the food truck. I order and pay for the food, then make my way back to Vada’s in no time at all. Maybe I should offer to spend the night at her house. I’d hate for her to be alone. I’ll have to let my mom know. I instinctively reach for my phone in my back pocket, but it’s not there. That’s right, I left it hooked up to the charger on Vada’s nightstand. I’ll just call my mom when I’m back at Vada’s.
I let myself back into Vada’s house, take off my shoes and coat, then make my way back up to her room. My phone begins to ring as I reach the landing.
“Hello?” I hear Vada answer the call just like she did on New Year’s, and I spot her still in her bed, my phone to her ear. God, if it’s my dad calling me to remind me to be careful and that I don’t have the best decision-making track record, I might lose it. Or maybe he’s calling to tell me he fixed my admission to Duke. I wouldn’t put it past him at this point.
Vada’s eyes meet me. “Oh, yeah, she’s right here. Hold on a sec,” she says into the phone, then holds it out to me as I walk into her bedroom with the bag containing our gyros.
“My dad?” I ask in a hushed voice, taking my phone from her hand to put it to my ear.
Vada shakes her head, shrugging.
I press my phone to my ear and chirp, “Hello!”
“You fucking little cunt. I knew you didn’t change your number,” Adam’s voice sears into my ear with a threatening rumble.
I feel the color drain from my face. My heart constricts, restricting the blood flow to my limbs, and my hands grow cold and numb in a fraction of a second.
Luckily, Vada’s attention is back on her cooking show, so I rush out of her room.
“I guess I should be pissed at you for lying to me, you sneaky little slut, but do me a little favor and I might just forgive you,” he says with a low chuckle.
“What do you want from me, Adam?” I whisper into my phone, terrified of Vada overhearing. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Hot tears make my eyes sting. I can’t believe this is happening again. I thought it was over.
He chuckles, though I detect no humor. “I guess you just have a special place in my heart. No girl quite compares to you.”
“What did you do to your girlfriend?” I ask, as always feeling much braver when he isn’t standing in front of me, his wide stature instilling me with fear.
“Oh, you heard about that?” he asks with surprise, though he composes himself quickly. “I’m glad to hear you’re keeping tabs on me like I’m keeping tabs on you, baby.”
His use of Ronan’s pet name for me causes an ice-cold shiver to run down my spine. Then anger flares in my chest. “I’m not keeping tabs on you, Adam. I don’t want anything to do with you. Leave me alone,” I hiss into the phone. I’m agitated, scared—both of Adam and of being found out.
He laughs mockingly. “You just keeping telling yourself that, baby. You know you and I had something special, but you just had to go and fuck it all up. Fuck me up,” he says, his tone taking on an angry note. “It didn’t have to be that way, Cat.”
“What do you want?” I ask again, looking over my shoulder when I hear a sound coming from Vada’s room. “More pictures?” My voice trembles with the prospect of exposing myself to him again.
“Definitely won’t say no to those, although I wouldn’t mind a little video either. Let me see your tight little body, baby? Let me watch you touch yourself.”
My face contorts with disgust as acidic bile rises in my throat.
But then his tone becomes rigid. “I need money. And you’re going to send it to me. A thousand bucks would do it. You send it to me and I’ll leave you be.”
I crease my brow, completely gobsmacked. He wants me to give him a thousand dollars?
“Adam, I don’t have a thousand dollars,” I say, overcome with a sudden urge to laugh, wondering if he’s joking. I don’t, but this whole situation is so outside of the norm of what he’s demanded of me in the past that it’s almost comical. But could this really provide me with a way to get rid of him? Would he really finally leave me alone if I came up with the money?
“No? Well, how about you find a way to get it.”
“I… Adam, I don’t know how. I don’t have a job or—”
“Fine. I’ll just sell the pictures I have of you then. Lots of dudes out there who’ll pay good money for sexy little slutty Kitty Cat pictures, especially those you sent me last August.”
“You know they’re looking for you, right? For what you did to that girl,” I say in a desperate attempt to make him reconsider, to finally make him leave me alone, to end his torture of me. I’m sure there are faster, easier ways for him to get the money?
“Are you trying to threaten me, Cat? Because let me tell you something, baby, that bitch got what she deserved. Now, here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna figure out a way to get me my fucking money. You have until Wednesday morning to send it to my payment app under my old email. And in the meantime, so I can make sure you’re falling in line—you’re gonna march yourself to a bathroom—away from your little friend who so politely answered your phone for you—and you’re gonna take a fucking picture and send it to me. And you’re gonna keep sending them to me unless you want me to do to you what I did to that little slut last night,” he roars into the phone.
I swallow the sob clawing its way out of my throat. “Adam, please…” I whimper. “I have a boyfriend. Please don’t—” I begin to beg. I’ll try anything at this point.
Adam laughs. “The guy from the bar?”
“Yeah. He’s kicked your ass before, Adam,” I say as boldly as I can manage.
“He had help. It was hardly fair.”
Reminding Adam of the beatdown he took from Ronan seems to have thrown him for a momentary loop. “You know that’s not true. Nobody else put a hand on you; if anything they kept him from killing you.” If only Ronan was here right now.
“Well, maybe your pretty little boy toy needs to have an accident. I don’t like sharing.”
Adam’s not-so-subtle threat to hurt Ronan makes my body stiffen. I could tell Adam Ronan’s gone, that he isn’t anywhere close to me, that there’s no way Adam could hurt him right now. But that would expose me. I have no idea where Adam is, and I’m not about to tell him that my protector is gone.
I wipe the stray tear from my cheek, determined to do whatever it is I need to do to keep Adam at bay and Ronan safe. “Fine,” I say decisively, my voice thick. “I’ll get you the money.”
“And?”
“And the damn pictures.”
“That’s a good girl,” Adam growls with a demeaning smile in his voice.
“You’ll need to let me get off the phone.”
“Here are the rules going forward, Cat,” he says, his voice low, sinister. “You will not ignore me anymore, or I will put these pictures of you to good use. No more playing games! Don’t fuck with me, Cat. I know where your boy toy lives. I watched you go in and out of his house. I know you spent the night with him last year. And I know where you live, baby. Do. Not. Fuck with me! Now, be a good girl and get to work.”
He hangs up the phone without another word.