Flock (The Ravenhood)

There was never going to be an escape.

Stopped at the first light at the edge of town, I press my head against the steering wheel and inhale calming breaths, hating the fact that I’m still so powerless to the emotions this trip has stirred within me, even as the woman I’ve become.

Exhaling, I glance back at the bag that I tossed in the backseat after my decision mere hours ago. I thumb my engagement ring, rotating it on my finger as another stab of guilt runs through me. All hope of the future I spent years building was lost the minute I ended my relationship. He’d refused to take the ring, and I have yet to take it off. It hangs heavy, a lie on my finger. The time I spent here before has caused another casualty, one of many.

I was engaged to a man capable of keeping his vows, a man worthy of commitment, of unconditional love—a loyal man with a steadfast heart and warm spirit. And to him, I’d never been fair. I could never love him in the way a wife should love a husband.

He was a consolation, and accepting his proposal meant settling. One look at his face when I called off our upcoming nuptials let me know I had destroyed him with the truth.

The truth that I belong to another. That whatever remains of my heart, body, and soul belongs to a man who wants nothing to do with me.

It was the agony on my fiancé’s face that aided to my breaking point. He’d given me his love, his devotion, and I’d thrown it away. I’d done to him what was done to me. Disobeying my heart, my master and monster had cost me Collin.

Minutes after I liberated us both, I packed a bag and left in search of more punishment. I drove straight through the night, knowing there was no significance of time, that it doesn’t matter. Nobody is waiting for me.

Well over six years have passed, and I’m back to square one, back to the life I fled, my feelings running rampant as I reason with myself that leaving Collin wasn’t a mistake, but a necessary evil to free him from the lies I told. I’d wronged him making promises I could never keep, and there was no way I was making more, to love and cherish in both sickness and in health because I hadn’t disclosed just how sick I am.

I never told him how I allowed myself to be used, ravaged, and at times debased to the point of depravity…and that I’d loved every second of it. I never told my fiancé how I’d bloodlet my heart—starved it—until it had no choice but to beat in a distinct rhythm that only matched the thrum of one other. In doing so, I’d sabotaged my chances of recognizing and accepting the kind of love that heals, rather than hurts. The only love I’ve ever known or craved is the kind that keeps me sick, sick with longing, sick with lust, sick with need, sick with grief. The distorted kind that leaves scars and jaded hearts.

If I can’t grieve enough to cure myself in my time here, I’ll remain sick. That will be my curse.

There may never be a happily ever after for me because I gave my chance away by becoming attuned to the dark parts. Accustomed because of the year I freed my inhibitions, reacting to rejection and pain and losing all moral sense of myself.

These are things you don’t say aloud. These are the type of confessions women who command respect are never supposed to give voice to. Not ever.

But it’s time to confess, to myself more so than any other, that I’d hindered my chance of a normal and healthy relationship because of the way I was built, and because of the men who built me.

At this point, I just want to make peace with who I am, no matter what ending I get.

The hardest part of all of this isn’t the fiancé whose heart I broke. It’s the knowledge that the one and only man my heart’s ever been faithful to, I will never have.

Trepidation engulfs me as more memories surface. I can still smell him, feel the swell of him inside me, taste the drop of salt in his cum, see the satisfied look in his hooded eyes. I can still feel the unmistakable rush from the looks we shared, hear the rumble of his dark chuckle, feel the wholeness from his touch.

The closer I get, the more memories come crashing over me. My resolve to face what haunts me beginning to break away piece by jagged piece. Because I have some idea of what the true end looks like, and I can’t escape it anymore.

There may be no cure, no moving on, but it’s time to deal with unfinished business.

Let the ghost hunt begin.

PULLING UP TO THE MASSIVE iron gates, I punch in the code Roman gave me and gawk as the sprawling estate comes into view when I drive through. Acres and acres of neon grass littered with trees surround the massive house in the distance. The closer I get, the more I feel like a foreigner. To the left of this palace sits a four-car garage—which I forgo—choosing to park in the circular drive at the foot of the porch. Exiting the car, I stretch my legs. The drive wasn’t long, but my limbs grew heavier with every mile as I got closer. Though the house is impressive, it feels more like a prison to me, and today is the first day of my sentence.

Opening the trunk, I gather a few of my bags and head up the steps, scanning the pristine deck. Nothing about this place feels inviting, aside from the land it sits upon, and everything about it reeks of money.

Toeing the door closed behind me, I glance around the foyer where a lone table sits with a large, empty vase that I’m sure costs more than my car. There’s a grand staircase to my right and to my left, a formal dining room. Deciding to skip the self-guided tour, I cradle my phone on my shoulder as I haul my bags up to the second floor. She answers on the second ring.

“Hey girl, I made it.”

“This is bullshit,” Christy greets as I enter my designated cell and glance around. Inside sits a stark white four-poster bed my dad had delivered, along with a matching dresser, chest of drawers and vanity. It’s regal in taste, stark white, and nothing at all like me, which isn’t surprising. He doesn’t know me.

“It’s just until next fall.”

“That’s a year, Cecelia, a year. We just graduated. This is our last summer before college starts, and your mom decides to take time for herself?”

It’s not the whole truth, but I let her believe it for my mother’s sake because I’m still at a loss on how to explain it. The sad truth is my mother had a breakdown of epic proportions that led to her losing her job and scraping to pay bills she could no longer afford. Her boyfriend offered to let her stay with him, the operative word being her, not her bastard child. My mother and I have always been close, but even I don’t recognize her anymore. Despite my best efforts of being her good girl, she retreated into herself a few months ago, drinking White Russians day and night for weeks until she stopped getting out of bed. She’d all but abandoned me on her quest for a daily buzz. Though I’d tried, and desperately pressed for reasoning and answers she wouldn’t give, I didn’t know the first thing on how to help her, so I didn’t give her grief about entertaining my father’s proposed and conditional living arrangements.

Seeing her unravel like that was terrifying, and in her state, I didn’t want her going without, especially after all her years of being a single parent. When times became desperate, I asked my father to extend child support—just temporarily—to get her through financially, even though the money he sent monthly and without fail was a drop in the bucket for him—the cost of one of his tailored suits. He refused, and shortly before I graduated, he signed his last check, the act making it seem more like a final paycheck of services rendered like she’d been his employee.

In my wildest dreams, I can’t fathom how they ever coupled at any point, or how they could have been the two to conceive me because these are two people who had no business procreating. They are universal opposites. My mother is…or was until recently, a free spirit with plenty of vices. My father is a conservative with a critical tongue and militant self-discipline. From what I remember, his schedule is like clockwork and rarely changes. He wakes up, works out, eats half a grapefruit, and then goes to work until the sun sinks. His only indulgence when I was younger was a few tumblers of gin after a long day.. That’s the whole of the private information I know, due to his discretion. The rest I can look up online. He owns a Fortune 500 company that used to deal in chemicals but now manufactures electronics. His high rise is a little over an hour away in Charlotte, his primary manufacturing plant here in Triple Falls. I’m certain he built here because it’s where he grew up, and I have zero doubt he revels in rubbing his success in the noses of his former classmates, some of whom now work for him.