Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kendall
“Who was that?” Leo leans in from my left as I am working on the old Chevy.
“No one.” I shrug him off.
“Didn’t look like no one,” he adds. I need to calm down, I need to stay busy, and what I need more than anything else is for everything Aaron said to not be true.
I need to go back in time and erase our night, because that was the night that everything shifted. That is the night that made all the things I’ve ever told myself change. The not needing someone, the never give myself that chance to be vulnerable to any man again.
There’s only one other person that knows what happened to me and that is the man who did it. But I’ve seen the stories, I’ve read the articles. I know how hard it is to convince anyone you didn’t want something when you put yourself in that situation to begin with.
I walked into that party, I flirted, I drank, and I went upstairs.
I was angry at my mother, I was a little girl pretending to be a woman.
“Boyfriend,” Leo pushes and I snap.
“Back off.” I hold out the screwdriver.
A hated memory at the front of my mind. I vowed to never let my guard down around any man again. It’s why I’ve controlled every sexual experience I’ve had since. I say when, I say where, and I say it’s over when it’s over.
“Point made.” Leo again retreats to his stall and gets back to work on his own job.
I plug my ears with my earbuds and turn the music up high, drowning out everything around me and hoping more than anything I can drown out the memories too.
Truth is I don’t even remember much from that night. I remember going upstairs with a guy I’d met earlier that day. I was sixteen pretending to be an adult. I was full of anger and rebelling.
The next thing I know I woke up the next morning in a room I didn’t recognize, naked and alone. When I snuck out the back door and walked two miles to get home, I cried the entire way.
When I reached the field that separated me from the back of my house, I chose to forget it all. And it took the entire length of that field to build the wall around my heart.
By the time I climbed into the shower, I’d become a different version of myself.
I’m hardened, I know this. But I was a girl, living in a man’s world, without a mother. I didn’t know what to do, and now knowing that I chose wrong, but being unable to change that. It’s what I did, and this is who I am.
Two months later I met Adley, and from there, I met the rest of the girls.
Every single day since I’ve been thankful. Because truth be told had I not met her I don’t know where I’d be. They are the reason I didn’t go completely dark. They are the reason I have any amount of good in me at all.
“Girls’ night is now underway,” I say as I enter Adley’s kitchen holding two bottles of tequila high.
The sound of the blender hit me the moment I opened the door and the smell of tacos filtered the air. You can never go wrong with tacos.
Most everyone is already here but Lexi and Sutton, who planned to ride together. We all know something is up with Lexi. Though we are all waiting for her to share, we are pretty sure we’ve figured it out.
Sutton is such a trooper still coming to our ladies’ nights, pushing through them, unable to drink.
As I make it into the kitchen and place the bottles on the counter I hear the sounds of hammering and freeze. Adley notices and I pick up immediately on the way she worries her lip.
“Adley,” I growl her name as I move closer to the window that overlooks the backyard. Immediately my stomach feels like it drops to my feet and I grip the edge of the counter so hard my knuckles whiten and my fingers ache.
“Are you serious?” I say more to myself than anyone else but Adley is the first to respond.
“I told them they aren’t allowed in here, they have a fridge in the garage with beer. They promised,” she adds as I stare at the familiar truck with the familiar logo. The same truck that was waiting outside of the shop only three days ago. Driven by the same man that refuses to give up.
“We won’t bring up anything about you know who, if you promise to stay and ignore the fact he is even here,” Sophie tosses in trying her best to reroute my thoughts.
“Though I am still not sure why we are avoiding the topic,” Jillian says and I close my eyes tight.
I hear someone whisper yell at her. “What? Aaron isn’t some bad guy.
He’s very good-looking, all tall, tan, and manly.
I swear those arm muscles have muscles. The dimples make him seem boyish and sweet, but that smile tells an entirely different story.
The boy is not a boy, he is a man. And from what we’ve all heard bits and pieces of, he did everything right.
So again, I am not sure why we are avoiding telling her that she should ride that train all the way to the border and back as often as she can. ”
I want to laugh at her and if she was giving this lecture to anyone else other than me I would. I’d probably be adding all my own little comments too.
“Jilly.” I hear the sound of something slapping someone before Jillian whispers.
“Whatever,” she huffs and the blender kicks on once more.
I release a slow breath, one I hadn’t realized until right then that I was holding.
Then I turn around and face them all as they each give me a different look. Seriousness, irritation, and even sympathy…and I hate them all.