“Hey that’s just what I do.”
“Get outta here.”
After breakfast I put on my thinking cap, I was mapping out our dating agenda like some sort of chart but it’s what was needed for now. I had to keep coming up with ways to bring her new life. A life where the most important thing on her mind was what she was going to do for fun. With anyone else I would find this shallow and weak but for someone who’d been robbed of even the barest semblance of joy it was just what she needed. Today was going to be pool day, just a quiet day hanging by the pool and relaxing. That way we’d get to spend time together and she’d get used to being around kids her age. I would also use the time to break the news to her about school. I had no doubt dad would work his magic and get her in, if not I’ll just have to change my plans as to where I was going because there was no way she was putting her life on hold any longer and no way in hell we were going to be apart.
KADYN
“Kadyn you up?” I rolled over in bed and stared up at the ceiling. Matthew had just called to find out when I was coming to his house. Between yesterday and this morning I’d been waiting to awaken from the weird dream I’d fallen into but the mountain of clothes on the daybed across from my bed was testament that it had all been real.” Yeah dad I’ll be right out.”
It was near to impossible for me to accept that any of this was real, that my life could change so drastically in a complete three sixty degree. Things like this just didn’t happen in real life, it certainly hadn’t happened in any of the cases I’d researched looking for hope. Why should it happen for me? I had given up believing in miracles a long time ago, when no one could help me at every turn, when the law that was supposed to protect seemed more interested in protecting my tormentor and his rights than mine. I’d pretty much resigned myself to a life of hell. The best I could hope for was to make it out alive when all was said and done.
The fear was not only for me, I’d feared for my mom as well. What would become of her, stuck because of finances in a house right next door to someone so evil? There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think of these things. Now this Matthew Steele was giving me something else to think about. Could I trust it, but how could I? What about the first time Bruno finds me? Matt might think he’s willing to deal with this now but the reality is way different. No one wants to be caught in the crosshairs of a madman and I had no doubt that he was crazy. That was part of my fear, how do you reason with someone who was so convinced that he was right? The very thought of him makes my skin crawl. I hate knowing that he thinks he owns me or that he has any control over my life. But each time I gear up myself to fight, to move out from under that shadow of darkness, I lose the battle and fear wins out.
It sure would be nice to give into Matt though, to allow myself to believe that it were possible to have the life of a carefree young woman. Going off to college and doing all the things I longed to do; but it would hurt more to taste that life only to have it snatched from me again as it surely would. I looked over at the beautiful things he’d bought me yesterday and my heart ached. It couldn’t be, as much as I might want it to be I couldn’t let him destroy his life like this. Things had moved so fast in such a short time, and though the attraction was instantaneous it could go nowhere.
He would be one more thing in a long line of things that I would deny myself. My life wasn’t meant to be normal, I wasn’t meant for days of sunshine and laughter. I ignored the pain in my heart at the lost, it just couldn’t be. I could never put that beautiful person in danger; and he was beautiful. He’d given so much of himself already, so aimlessly, without seeking anything in return. Not just the shopping, but also the things he said, the way he was willing to stand between me and the dark. I felt anger that this man was once again robbing me of yet another thing that I so badly wanted, but even the anger wasn’t enough to overrule my fear. It was like I’d told Matthew, I’d learned that lesson well, there was really no point in fooling myself or in getting my hopes up.