Scent of a Nightmare, page 7
“Oh fuck.” Shane gasped.
“Cade!” Grandma croaked as she raised her hands to cover her mouth.
Ronnie fell to the floor gasping. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Me? You called Shane? Shane? You knew how hard this was for me. You had no fucking right Ronnie!” I yelled. My throat was hoarse at how mad I was.
“What about me?” Shane interjected. “Is she, mine Cade? Because if so, I feel like this is most certainly my fucking right.”
I glared at him, but didn’t say anything.
What do I tell him?
Your dad... he... she’s really your... sister?
Fuck that sounded worse.
Fuck.
“No. She’s not yours.” I told him. “She’s mine.”
I gripped at any kind of damage control I could muster.
“Am I her dad?” Shane pressed again. “I need to know Cade. This could ruin my life.”
Ruin
Your
Life?
Waylan couldn’t ruin anything if she tried.
“This is why she is mine.” I told him. “The fact you said she would ruin your life proves that you don’t deserve her. No, Shane. She’s not yours and no you cannot see her. Now leave and do not come back. Ever.”
Grandma gave Ronnie a rag and she pressed it to her nose.
“You need to go.” Grandma told Shane.
He shook his head. “You left. Six years Cadence. Not a word and now you show up with a little girl who is five years old and no doubt the same eye color as me. She even has the same hair color. It’s not looking good for you right now. What did I do to you to make you hate me so much? Was she why you left? Why Cadence? I loved you once. We could have made this work. One way or another. There were so many other options. You didn’t have to leave.”
Other options?
He loved me.
He wouldn’t if he knew the truth.
No one would.
I looked at his ring on his finger as he tugged at his sandy blonde hair.
“Nothing. You didn’t do anything. I... you need to go Shane. Go home to your wife.” I told him, beckoning at his ring.
Silence filled the void around us. No one moved and Shane sighed irritated. A flash of the same look his father got when he knew how to hurt people, hit his face...and that devastated me. How could that evil man imprint his personality on Shane?
Shane clenched his hands to his side. “Kylie will want to see you.”
My head shot up to him out of reaction.
Kylie.
God, I missed her.
I shook my head. “She’s better off without me. I am just here to see grandpa and grandma. Then you’ll never have to see me again.”
“So that’s it. You show up with a kid who I am pretty sure is mine and now you are just going to leave again.” He accused me while shaking his head in disappointment.
I didn’t say anything. The secrets were pouring from the closet door, and they were gripping me...pulling me into the depths of the closet. It was on the tip of my tongue and I clamped my mouth shut.
His eyes fell and sadness crept into them. “It took Kylie three years to move on.”
I shrugged and I hated the gesture.
It took me six years.
“I married her.” He told me.
I felt like he took a baseball bat to my gut.
He married Kylie.
Kylie and Shane.
My Shane
Married
My Kylie
But that was where things were gray. They weren’t mine. They were theirs now.
My lungs barely filled with air as he took a step towards me. He told me on purpose. He wanted to hurt me and I’ll be damned to give him the satisfaction that he did.
The pepper cologne, that clung to my skin like a rash, hit my senses. I took another step away.
“Cade?” He said my name again.
He looked just like his father. Once upon a time ago Kylie and I used to joke that Shane was blessed with his fathers look. Now I looked at it as a curse.
“Congratulations.” I whispered, looking away from him.
I wanted to go back to the park, to be with Tate again.
I didn’t even know him. I have met him twice and I felt safer with him than I did in this house. I wanted the happiness and safety he brought me.
“Cade, please talk to me.” Shane pleaded.
“Shane. Get out of my house, now.” Grandma demanded. He didn't move. He reached for me, and I flinched hard. He brought his hand back and rested it on the back of his neck. “Mr. Wolfe, I will personally call your fellow officers and file a report of harassment if you do not leave in five seconds.”
“Mrs. Evergreen..” He tried to explain.
“One.” She had her ‘mom voice’ activated.
“Please Cade.” He ignored her
“Two.” She took a step forward.
“Talk to me Cade. I would never hurt you.” He said again. He was desperate.
You just did.
“Three.” Grandma counted as she dialed a number on her phone.
Shane sighed and turned towards the front door.
Ronnie stepped aside as she glared at me. The rag she held to her face was drenched in blood.
Shane turned to face me again. “Kylie and I live in the house next to my fathers. If you change your mind.”
Absolutely fucking no to that.
“Four, Mr. Wolfe.” Grandma pressed him.
He nodded and left.
The door closed behind him with a force that shook George slightly in the windowsill.
An eerie silence took over the kitchen and I hugged my chest, processing the betrayal Ronnie had thrown upon me.
Ronnie opened her mouth to speak, but grandma interrupted her.
“I want you gone. I love you because you are my daughter, but what you did is not ok, and I need you to go home now.” She scolded Ronnie.
Ronnie gave an annoyed sigh and stood. “Fine. I was going to leave at the end of the week, but I’ll head out tomorrow morning.”
She walked up the stairs and shouldered me on the way out of the room. Then the room fell silent and grandma took a step towards me.
“Can I hug you?” She asked.
Tears rolled down my cheek and off of my chin. “Please.”
She didn’t hesitate for me to finish my response as she pulled me into her chest and I sobbed into her shoulder.
“Waylan is ours. No one else’s. If you don’t want them in her life, then you don’t have to. I will never push you.” She told me as she rested her head on top of mine.
I nodded into her shoulder. “Thank you.”
“I will protect her and you at all costs.” She told me. She pulled away and looked at me. “I will always protect you two.”
I believed her, but who was going to protect her from what I did? The truth was slowly surfacing and I was running out of time in deciding if I was going to face them or keep running. I was just so fucking tired of running.
So. Damn. Tired.
CADENCE
I WALKED DOWN THE HALLWAY and towards a room on the other side of the house. The door was cracked open, and I felt my body tense. The nerves from Shane’s visit still hung fresh on my skin, but I needed to see grandpa.
I missed him.
I was good at deflecting the trauma in my life and that was what I was doing. Deflecting and shoving it back into the dark closet of my brain. I will open that dark void when I’m laying in my quiet room later. When the nightmares took me by force. Right now, I was going to focus on grandpa. He was more important.
My bare feet brushed the soft white carpet, and I ran my hand down the cream-colored walls as I passed pictures that hung in the same spot for six years. My senior pictures from the year I didn’t even get a chance to start, my grade school pictures, pictures of my mom and Ronnie growing up, and some of Waylan from when we mailed them to grandma, all hung on the walls. The pictures of Waylan were the only new additions to the collections.
The sound of a realtor show played on the TV low in the background the closer I got.
I knocked on the door and the TV shut off. With shaking hands, I sucked in a breath and walked into the room. The ground felt like it left me when I saw grandpa sitting in a hospital bed. He looked so much older. His hair was completely white, and he was practically bald. He had wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and mouth as he broke into the biggest crooked smile and started crying at the sight of me.
I had never seen this man shed a tear in my entire life, but as soon as he saw me he couldn’t hold it back and he held his arms out to me. I ran to him and hugged his older body against mine.
He didn’t smell like he used to. He smelled like medical supplies and expo markers. He brushed his once strong hands over my hair and held onto me tighter than he looked he could. When he released me and looked me up and down. I smiled at him and shrugged.
“I missed you too.” I told him.
He reached for the dry erase marker with shaking hands and grabbed the board next to him. He scribbled a note in terrible handwriting that was barely legible.
You look good menace.
I laughed at his nickname he always called me. I was Cadence the menace like Dennis the menace tv show he used to love to watch. He said I was trouble like the character in the show.
“You look good too.” I told him.
He rolled his eyes.
I look like a damn turtle without its shell.
I laughed at him. “Stop. You do not.”
Where’s that baby of yours?
“She is the grumpiest kid today. She is napping. I’ll bring her by tomorrow. She’s had a long day.” I told him.
Everything ok out there?
I nodded and lied. “Yeah, just visiting old friends.”
He gave me the look he gave me when I was acting like something wasn’t as big of a deal as it was.
“It’s complicated.” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m here to see you.”
He nodded.
Are you staying this time?
He jumped straight to it. He never beat around the bush. He always called out the elephant in the room immediately, no matter how massive it was. I looked at him and we were stuck like that for a moment. I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Please stay.
My heart broke.
How do I tell him I probably won’t?
How do I leave grandma alone if something happens to him?
Staying would be dangerous, but leaving would be cruel.
And even though it shouldn’t play a part in this decision because it’s only been two days, what about this thing that was going on with Tate? It hurt that I wanted to see this feeling through. With Shane knowing about Waylan though... that could complicate things. It was a double edged sword no matter what I decided. I just needed to decide which one was going to hurt less.
I talked to grandpa for a few hours until I decided to let him get some rest. He ended up falling asleep in the middle of writing. I kissed his forehead and left the room. I closed the door and started down the hallway. Grandma was sitting in the family room with Waylan in her lap while they watched a show.
“Your phone was going off. I plugged it in to charge it. You need a new phone baby.” She told me.
I sighed. “I can’t afford it right now.”
She raised an eyebrow at me and shook her head. “We’ll go get one tomorrow. I need to make sure you have a way to contact me in case something with Shane happens again or you know who.”
I walked to the kitchen and grabbed my phone that was on the counter. There was a message on it. I clicked on it and saw it was Tate. I smiled at it. He was indeed persistent, and I never knew men were like this, but I found it distracting and I liked it. It was the distraction I needed to keep that closet door from opening little by little. He helps me press my back to it to hold it closed.
I opened the message and read the text he sent me.
Do you want to grab dinner tonight?
He sent it a while ago. I looked to the stove to see what the time was saying, it was almost seven now, (not thinking I could just look at the time on my phone screen). He probably thought I wasn’t going to go, but I also couldn’t leave Waylan. Grandma looked at me from the chair and watched me as I smiled at the text Tate sent me. I wanted to go, but I didn’t know how I could do that. I didn’t know if I should after everything that just happened. Waylan would have to go with us, and I didn’t know how she would behave. She was out of routine this week and really tired.
Would this be considered a date? Would that be a violation of a first date code thing to bring your kid?
“Who is it?” Grandma asked me with a smirk on her face.
My face heated as I sat on the couch across from her.
“It doesn’t matter.” I said as I set the phone down and thought about just saying I couldn’t go.
“Doesn’t sound like no one.” She pushed.
I smiled at her and Waylan barely kept her eyes open as she watched a tv show about talking dogs on the television.
“Who’s got my Cadence baby all smiles and red faced?” She asked again with a knowing look.
I sighed. “That coffee shop guy, Tate.”
She smiled big this time. “I do love Tate. He’s such a nice guy.”
“How well do you know him?” I asked her as I crossed my legs on the couch.
She shrugged. “Everyone knows Tate Adams. My girlfriends Jeanie, Maryanne, and I go get scones and coffee there once a week. He always sits with us and talks to us. Sometimes he joins in on our scrabble games.”
I laughed because that sounded like Tate.
“He went to the park with us today.” I said and then covered my face embarrassed.
Grandma laughed loudly now. “If there was a boy that I would be ok with hanging out with you, it would be Tate.”
I fidgeted with my hands as Waylan dozed off. She was going to be up all night, but I didn’t care.
“He’s such a flirt though.” I said.
“Well, have you seen him?” She looked at me and giggled.
“Grandma!” I shook my head.
“What did Tate want?” She asked.
“He wanted to go to dinner tonight, but Waylan is... she wouldn’t do well. And after everything...” I began.
“Go.” Grandma urged. “If there was a time to go, it would be now. Especially, with all the stuff you had been put through. I’ll watch her. The nurse is coming to take care of grandpa and I could use the company. We will have a girls night and watch movies and color if she wakes up.”
“I can’t. I don’t even know...” I stopped myself from saying I was thinking of leaving again, but grandma read it.
“Cadence, it’s just dinner. Not a proposal. He’s not asking you to move in, go and get some food with the handsome coffee shop man.” She egged me on.
“Really?” I asked her. The nerves of going on a date for the first time since a year or two hit me.
“Really. You deserve some happiness Cade. Take it where you can get it. Stop punishing yourself.” She told me. “Tell Tate I said hi.”
I nodded and stood from the cream colored textured couch. I walked over to my grandma and kissed her cheek and hugged her. I leaned down and kissed Waylan’s forehead.
“Thank you.” I told grandma and then went to text Tate back.
Yes.
I walked up the stairs and headed towards the bathroom to get ready in hopes he would say he was still interested. I pulled out a pair of my favorite dark blue jeans and a pale blue t-shirt from my bag of clothes. After getting dressed I warmed up my hair straightener. I ran the straightener through my hair and waited for my phone to respond as I kept it connected to the charger. I felt like a schoolgirl as I glanced down at it a half dozen times. I was putting mascara on when the phone lit up.
I thought I scared you away.
I laughed and sent a message back. Nah, Pops. You are ok.
He responded. Haha Pops cracks me up. I’m closing up the cafe in a half hour, I will pick you up.
I thought about Ronnie and how she was still here, probably sitting on the front porch smoking and figured I would rather her not know about Tate. I couldn’t have her tell Shane about him. She clearly didn’t respect my privacy.
I’ll come to you. I’m leaving now.
I put my phone in my back pocket and grabbed my wristlet from the counter and then sprayed my only nice perfume I owned. I had a small bottle of a floral scent perfume that I bought on a Black Friday deal last year. I sprayed my wrists and then my neck. I couldn’t believe I was going on a date with Tate.
God what did he see in me?
Go figure a guy likes me and I don’t even live here.
I looked in the mirror and sighed. I felt bad for the baggage that came with me and he had no idea about any of it. Was it selfish to unload the baggage onto him? He was the nicest man I had ever met. Most definitely the most attractive man I had ever talked to. He made me feel like I was looking at a child of Josh Duhamel and Ian Somerhalder.
I looked away from the mirror and ran my hands through my hair to give it some volume. I felt attractive, even though I knew he deserved someone better. Someone that was capable of giving him the happiness he brought on others.... I was selfish, but I wanted this. I wanted to see where this took me.
If happiness presents itself to you, you take it.
CADENCE
THE TOWN CENTER STRIP was busy. Mostly with drunk vacationers that were out partying. The bars across the street of the coffee shop were packed and people were just hanging out by the road. I approached the coffee shop and opened the door. There were two people packing up their belongings as they stood to leave the store. Tate was counting money behind the counter. He was concentrating with a serious look on his face as the couple left. The door closed behind me and I watched them head towards the bar across the street. I turned back to Tate and approached him. He stood with his hips pressed against the counter as he flipped the money through his long-tattooed fingers.
My hands began to sweat and I wasn’t sure if this was a good idea. I had this feeling to turn away and leave. He didn’t deserve the baggage I brought. I stopped and was about to turn around when he looked up and then back down at his cash in his hands. Then he paused and looked back up to me slowly. He froze when he saw me. A few dollar bills slipped from his hands and fluttered to the floor. He didn’t move to get them. He just blinked at me. Heat rose to my cheeks and I felt like I intruded.
