Crushed (30 page)

She
sh
ook her
head
.
She
could tell he was getting frustrated. He thought
she
was blowing him off without an answer. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You were perfect.”

“Then how do two perfect people turn into such a disaster?” he softly questioned.

She
couldn’t answer that so
she
settled
her
head o
nto his chest once more. Now
she
was the one breathing him in and he smelled like he always had. Like his body wash
or his cologne
or a combination of the two
. Whatever it was, he smelled like Reece. Like comfort and safety and memories.
She
reminded
her
self this was not a good time to cry.

“Cleo?”

She
looked up at him again
. T
he way they
were looking at each other conveyed everything
their words couldn’t anymore. She knew he was dying to kiss her. And she
wanted him to.
Her
gaze slipped to his lips for a few seconds too long. When
she
looked back up,
she
knew he knew what
she
was thinking.

As he tilted his head toward
hers
and his lips parted just a bit,
she
threw
her
head back, out of his way.

“Did you kiss
M
ia today?”
she
blurted out.

His head snapped back like
she
had slapped him.

“
Did you?”
she
swallowed down the horrible feeling that was clogging
her
throat.
She
had not kissed anyone
since Reece and he had kissed M
ia. Maybe right before he showed up at
her
door. As much as
she
loved his kisses
,
suddenly
she
didn’t
want
him to touch
her
.
She tried to back away but his arms were still
tightly
around her.

“No
,” he firmly replied.
“I meant what I said to Luci.
We
broke up
on Friday
.”

She
shook
her
head.
“I ran into her Saturday. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t think the same thing.”

An expletive slid from his lips.
Cleo
thought it was because he’d come
to his senses as he released her
.

When
she backed up, she
saw Paul standing in the screen door and he was furious. Reece must’ve seen his reflection
in the mirror opposite.

“You better go,” she
told him.

Reece
nodded and just as Paul w
as walking into the house, he
stubbornly pulled
her
into him. He wrapped
her
in another hug as he
placed
a kiss on
her
forehead.

Cleo pulled away in time to see the two of them glare
at each other
. O
nce Reece was outside, Paul slammed the door shut behind him. There were few other
times
she
had seen him so angry. He turned his glare around at
her
and his face was crimson with fury.

“
Cleo
!” He shoved his palms into
her
shoulders hard enough to lift
her
off
her
feet
. Her body slammed into the wall.
She
’d barely slid down onto the floor when his boot connected with
her
stomach and then flew back into
her
thigh
twice
before he walked away.

Chapter
17

“
Cleo!”

She
had been right, Luci hadn’t been sleeping. She came running out of her room, a terrified
look on her
face. She knelt down next to Cleo. She
was crying but trying to keep the volume turned off
. But
the pain in her
stomach bloomed and spiraled outward with an intensity that was making
her
ill.

She
heard Paul in the kitchen
, slamming things around
.
She
was terrified he’d see the flowers and shatter the vase that they were in.

Luci was wiping the hair off of
her face. She was
whimpering
Cleo’s
name over and over again
.
Cleo
managed to get to
her
feet for
Luci’s
sake. Paul came back out
holding the white bakery box. He
threw the rest of her
red velvet cake at
her
. His aim was off and some hit
her
bare thigh
. M
ost of it splattered as it streaked down the wall and landed on the floor in a messy
heap.

In that moment
she
was inexplicably more upset about the cake than
she
was about what he has just done to
her
. The cake that symbolized
her
mother’s presence and Reece’s love and Paul managed to destroy that as well.

Just like he had destroyed almost everything that had ever been important to
her
.

“
Stop it
!” Luci screamed at him.

“
You don’t tell me what to do, little girl
!” he screamed back at her. For the first time ever, he raised his hand to strike
at her.
Cleo
managed to step between them
. H
is fist collided with her
shoulder, knocking her to her
kne
es once again. Luci fell with her
. She was sobbing hysterically.

“
You are ruining everything!” he yelled as he towered over
her
.

He stopped to glare at
her
.
She wasn’
t so sure he wasn’t g
oing to kick out at her
again.
She
cowered backward, toward Luci. She
managed
to squeeze her safely between her
self and the entry way wall.

“It was just a b
irthday h-hug. That’s all. I s
wear,”
she
managed to try to explain despite the hitching sobs.

“He should not even be here!”
he roared.
“And that looked like more than a hug!”

She
didn’t know what he thought he saw from his vantage point
. B
ut
she
knew what he
couldn’t
have seen. He couldn’t have seen more than a hug and the kiss on the forehead
. B
ecause that’s all there
had been
. The fury in his eyes showed his fear that there
had been
more.

“It wasn’t!”
she
told him. “I didn’t…I didn’t know he was going to be here tonight.”

“
Liar
!
” he roared.

“It’s true!” Luci jumped in to defend
her. T
hough she had no idea what th
e
conversation was really about. “I invited him.
Dad! I told you that
last night
!
Cleo didn’t know!” she wailed.

Paul seemed to need a while to absorb this. Finally his hatred swung back to
Cleo
. “I should kick you out right now.
This is the thanks I get for letting you stay here
?! I should kick you out tonight,” he repeated. “Then where will you be?”

“Do it,”
she
said
with far more bravado than
she
felt
. “If you cut me off from Luci? There will be nothing stopping me from going back
to Reece. Then where will
you
be?”
she
grated out.

His hard glare drilled into
her
but his jaw remained clenched.

He knew
she
was right.
She
’d won this round.

She
could see his hatred, emanating off of him. It was heavy in the air, heavy like the
smoke from the charred hamburger. Thick and ugly. He moved toward
her
again. B
efore
Cleo
could stop her, Luci blocked his way. He stopped himself, visibly gathered some composure
and backed off.

“You can’t make Cleo leave!” Luci cried.
She looked confused and horrified.
Cleo
was sure it had never crossed her mind that this could be a
real
possibility.
“You can’t!”

“I can,” he told her in a hard voice. “And if she doesn’t fix this mess she just made,
I will. And you can thank her for her selfishness when you never see her again.”

Luci let out a sob.

Paul
swung bac
k around and out the front door. It slammed behind him.

Cleo
realized then that he’d only
been coming home to check on her
. To see if what Luci had told him was true. He was tryin
g to catch her doing something she
had agreed not to do.

Luci collapsed into her. Cleo
tried to quiet her sobbing
.
They
were s
itting in the mess made from the cake
but neither of
them
could move just yet
.
She did
n’t know how long it took
them to pull them
selves together.

She finally managed to get to her feet again. She
told Luci sh
e needed to go to bed and then she took a shower. She had cake and frosting in her
hair. Her
thigh was st
icky from the remnants of cake she’d scraped off. Her
body was already starting to bruise. Angry, ugly marks splotched across
her
stomach, thigh and shoulder.

She
stood under the scalding water longer than necessary. When
she
was finally done,
she
came back out to find that Luci had cleaned up
the
cake mess. The wall and the floor were spotless
. T
he entryway smelled like pine scented cleaner
.

She
didn’t bother going to her room to tuck her in.
She
knew she w
ouldn’t be
there.

“Hey,”
she
said as
she
went into
her
own room.
Luci had
taken her nightlight from her room and plugged it in
to
Cleo’s
wall
.
Cleo
could see her
curled up in
her
bed.
She
shut
her
door and clicked the lock even though
she
was sure Paul would not be coming back. Not tonight, anyway.