Innocence Tempted (9 page)

"Let's go in the living room," I said, leading her. I sat down on the couch and pulled her into my lap.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't mean to be such a downer. It's just been a hard week."

"It's okay. Everyone goes through that. You're allowed to get upset sometimes."

"Yeah, well I usually don't. I mean I was always pretty good at controlling my temper. It just makes me so mad that this fucking small town has such stupid boys—"

I pulled her to my chest and threaded my fingers into her damp hair. "Shhh, it's okay."

"And it makes me so mad that I can't tell anyone about this. I mean, I'm not mad at you, but I feel like no one else understands, and it would have been a lot easier if Mike would just realize that I want something that he can't give me. Are we the only people in the world who feel like this? Don't you ever feel lonely?"

"Whoa, slow down, sweetheart. Let's start at the beginning, okay?"

She nodded and quieted down in my arms.

"It's okay to lose your temper. Okay? You're allowed to get angry. You're allowed to cry. It doesn't make you weak to show emotions, all right?"

"It just seems so pointless. It never solves anything."

"That's not entirely true, Kat. It may not fix the situation but it is healthy to get those emotions out. When was the last time you cried? Like really cried?"

"I don't know. What kind of a question is that?"

"Don't get defensive with me, Katlyn. Answer the question."

"I don't know. It's been a while I guess."

"Be more specific," I pressed. I really felt like there was a larger root issue here. She was bottling up her emotions, and it seemed like she'd been doing it a really long time. I was guessing that she probably couldn't answer me because she really couldn't remember. It had been that long.

"Why are you pushing this?" she asked. "I don't know. Okay? I can't think of the last time I cried."

"Think of a time that you remember crying. Any time. Doesn't have to be the last one."

"I don't know." Her tone was short and aggravated. She stood up from my lap and paced the room.

I sat calmly on the couch watching her. "Think, Kat."

"Fine! My mother's funeral. I cried at my mother's funeral."

"Did you?" The way she said it, I didn't really believe her. She couldn't remember if she had cried or not. She just knew that she was supposed to. It was a reasonable answer.

"Of course. What kind of a child doesn't cry at her own mother's funeral?"

"The kind that has learned to repress her emotions," I answered flatly.

"I do not repress my emotions!"

I raised my eyebrows at her. I thought it was very clear that she did. "Were you sad? You said that you didn't know her very well."

"Of course I was sad. She was my mother."

"Did you talk to anyone about it? See a coun
selor
?"

"I don't want to talk about it!" She was very nearly yelling. There was a lot of old pain there that she'd never gotten out.

"Come here," I commanded. I did not raise my voice, but I wasn't gentle either. She was going to need some help getting through this.

"No." That was the first time she’d ever refused me. I almost smiled
. Good girl. Get it out.

"I won't ask you again," I said as coldly as I could. "Safeword or sit the fuck down."

Her eyes got wide, and I could see her pulse racing. She didn't know what to do. She hesitated a moment longer and then came to me. This was going to be messy.

I guided her into the position I wanted. I took the towel from around her shoulders and laid it over the arm of the couch. She rested her head on it. She was face down spread over my lap with her ass under my right hand.

I made it hard and fast. My handprints spread out all across her backside. She gritted her teeth and kept silent for a long time. I didn't stop. I couldn't. She needed to face this.

She cried out for the first time around seventeen. She was so strong. My hand ached. I should have used a paddle.

She squeezed her eyes shut around twenty-one and a single tear ran down her cheek. She looked so broken. It took everything I had to keep going. I knew it was for the best, but it nearly killed me anyway.

I took her all the way to thirty. She turned her face fully into the armrest and sobbed hard into the towel. When I was done, I turned her and pulled her naked form to my chest. She felt so small in my arms. Her whole body shook as I rocked her gently.

She tried to talk, but I only caught about a quarter of it. She was sobbing so hard that it was impossible to decipher. The broken pieces that I caught were about her mother. She blamed herself for her mother’s leaving. She thought her own mother hated her.

I held her and let her cry. I hated to see her so broken, but it was obvious to me that she needed this. The best thing to do was let her mind catch up to the emotional outpouring that her body was experiencing. I hoped that she would be able to breathe a little easier when it was all over, but in that moment it was heartbreaking to witness. All I could do was be there for her. I would always be there for her, protecting her, even from herself—especially from herself. If she could just let go and escape the world for a little while, I would keep her safe in my arms.  

It was another fifteen minutes before the tears stopped, and she could inhale normally again. She clung to my shirt like a scared child. I pulled a blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped her in it.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" I asked.

She nodded, but then refused to get up when I tried to move her. “You have to let me up, if you want tea, sweetheart.”

“Not yet,” she protested.

I kissed the top of her head and pulled the blanket tighter around her. She could take as long as she wanted. I would never get tired of holding her. I cradled her head against my chest and massaged the base of her neck until she slowly pulled herself away. 

When she was ready, I left her curled in the blanket on the couch and went to make two mugs of tea. I handed her one, and she cradled it in her hands.

"You okay?"

She met my eyes briefly before nodding. "Will you just hold me a little while longer?" she asked.

"Of course," I said
,
setting my mug on the table. She crawled into my arms and laid her head against my chest.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Not for this, I mean, for letting me—"

"Shhh, you don't have to thank me, Kat. We can talk about it if you want, but you don't have to justify yourself to me. It's okay. You’re safe here."

She nodded against my chest and then simply murmured "
T
hank you," again.

I held her until she was ready to go. I retrieved her dry clothes and walked her out to her car. The rain had let up and was only a drizzle now.

"You going to be okay getting home?"

"Yeah." I brushed her hair back from her face.

"Call me when you get there. Okay?"

"
’
Kay. Good night, Sir."

"Good night, Katlyn."

I stayed on the porch and watched her red tail lights disappear around the bend.

I lay in bed barely able to keep my eyes open. What a week. I couldn't remember a time when I had ever felt more drained. I was exhausted.

I had come home from Cody's house and sat in the hot shower for a while with the water cascading down over my head. It felt wonderful after all that chilly rain followed by an absurd bout of crying. I was thoroughly embarrassed. Why would he do that to me? Surely crying, blubbering women didn’t arouse him. I'd gotten snot all over his shirt. I was mortified.

I had to admit though, I felt... free. It was as if I was physically lighter. I hadn't realized until he brought it up how little I actually cried. Some of the girls at school were sort of known for it. If a boy said something mean to them, or they did something stupid, or even
if they
just
had
a bad case of PMS
,
they would be locked in the bathroom pouring out tears like little children with scraped knees. I had never done that. I always thought it was just my maturity. In some ways I was sure that it still was
—
no one needed to cry that much
—
but Cody had really struck a chord with me: I didn't cry at my own mother's funeral.

I didn't cry at my own mother's funeral.

I had sniffled and allowed a couple of drops to run from my eyes as I spoke the words that were required of me. I had worn black and been appropriately silent. I had prayed for her soul as instructed. I had laid my rose on her casket with the others. But I hadn't really cried, not the way I did tonight.

I really thought hard about it, as I sat in the shower, and I was pretty sure that the last time I had really cried like that had been about five years before she died. She came to town on a whim and spent a few days with me. I was ten. I thought she was the greatest thing that ever lived. She took me out for ice cream and to play mini-golf. For a few short days, I had a real mother.

I cried when she left. I didn't want her to go, but she left me anyway. I stood in the driveway and watched her little red car pull away. There was never anything that I could say or do to make her stay. My dad said it wasn't my fault—that she was just flighty like that by nature—but I never believed him. She left him because she didn't want me as a baby. She left me because she didn't want me as a child either.

My tears didn't bring her back that day, and they wouldn't have brought her back from the grave either. They didn't help, so I stopped shedding them.

How did Cody know that?

I was glad that I wasn't planning to see Cody for a couple of days as I wasn't really ready to face him just yet. I think I just needed some time to process my emotions. I just didn't quite know what to think or feel. I was confused and conflicted. I felt empty and vulnerable. My carefully crafted exterior had been breached, and I couldn't think of anything to do but sleep it off. I closed my eyes and found comfort in sleep.

When the morning light filtered through my window I realized I was hungry.
Really hungry
. I had slept late, and it was nearly eleven in the morning. My dad had worked the late shift, but he would be up soon. I went downstairs and made a huge breakfast. When he came grumbling down a little while later, he gave me a questioning look. It was unlike me to make so much food. I just shrugged and said I was hungry. He let it go.

My dad had the day off so we went down to the lake together to fish. As we sat shoulder to shoulder in comfortable silence, I began to feel better… about everything. We didn’t talk about Mom much, we never really had, but somehow he’d learned to live without her, and so had I. We were okay, just the two of us. Would he still be okay when I went away to school? That was how it worked, right? All little girls eventually had to grow up and spread their wings.

I watched him cast a line with practiced ease and noticed for the first time how gr
e
y the hair at his temples had become. I wasn’t the only one who had aged. Massachusetts was a long way from Montana. What if something went wrong and he needed me? Or more likely, what if I needed him? 

“You okay, kiddo?” he asked, probably catching my worried expression.

“Just thinking about leaving. It’s so far away.”

“Yeah, but it’s Harvard. There’s only one, and it’s in New England.”

I laughed. “This is true.”

“I’m only a phone call away. The whole town is, really. You belong out there. You’ve worked your whole life for this.”

“Do you think Mom would want me to go?” I asked out of the blue. “I mean she never put much stock in education.”

He didn’t answer me right away, opting instead to bait his line again—despite the obvious fact that there was already a worm attached—and cast it back out into almost the same spot where it had just been.

“Your mother didn’t always have her priorities in order, but yes, I think she would want you to go. She would want you to follow your heart and your dreams. She would be very proud of you, you know? You’ve accomplished things that she didn’t even dream of.”

We both took a sudden interest in the splintering wood of the deck, unable to look at each other, unsure of what to say, until a fish caught my line and our attention.

Without a job to occupy me, I spent a lot of time reading and preparing myself for my fall classes. I wasn't deluding myself into thinking that an Ivy League university would be anything like the prestigious Roundup High. I was counting on needing to work very hard. Getting ahead in my textbooks seemed like a wise idea. I had no plans to come home after the first semester with my tail between my legs.

In six weeks my whole world would change. I wondered whom I would meet and what it would be like. I had known very little in my life but small towns, horses, and sports on TV. Many of my classmates would already have been to Europe or Asia. Would I feel lost?