Crushed (44 page)

He
dropped down on the couch just as big, fat, silent tears started to fall.
He
put
his
arms around her
. S
he held on to
him like he
was the last thing she had left in th
e world.
He though
t
it
was heart wrenching; t
he way she
could cry
like that
and
barely
made a sound.

“I know,” she whispered. “I know it’s not okay. That’s not what I meant. I just don’t
want you to think it happens all the time. It doesn’t.
And if I would just stay out of his way, it probably wouldn’t happen at all. I antagonized
him.
”

“Tell me you did not just say that!” he ordered. “That makes it sound like you think
it’s your fault!”

“No. It’s just…” Not her fault. Not exactly. But she thought she could work harder
at avoiding it. Maybe it wouldn’t happen.
Maybe
.

Reece could tell what she was thinking. He shook his head. “Cleo, this is not your
fault. Not in any way. Do you understand that?”

She nodded,
and then
ran her hands over her face. “I do…I know that. But I just…I want things to be back
to normal. I want them to be how they were when my mom was here,” she said around
more tears. “And I know you might not think that was normal, either. But it was normal
for me.
I want her here. I want her to take care of me. And I want her to take care of Luci.
I just want things to be okay again.
And most of the time, I feel like they might never be.
”

“
They will,” he assured her.
He was surprised she brought up her mom. She almost never did.
“And what I want, is for
you
to be okay.
And I know that’s what your mom would want to. She’d be proud of you, Cleo. For the
way you take care of your sister. But you shouldn’t have to protect Luci from her
dad.
I want you away from him.
I don’t want
this
to happen again. Ever.
You’re going to be alright
,”
he
tried to assure her. “Emma said you could stay with them. She
told
you that already. So you know that you have somewhere to go.”

“But for how long? And I hate depending on other people,” she sniffled. Her tears
were already drying up.
He
wished
that
if she needed to cry, that she would just do it.
He
could count on one hand the number of times
h
e
’d
seen her cry in the past year and a half. And two ha
d
been
within the
past week.

“That’s because you’ve never had to do it before. You’ve never been
able
to do it before. You’ve always taken care of yourself. But Cleo,”
he
said as
he
kissed the top of her head, “there are people who will help you. Especially if they
know you need help. All you have to do is let them.”

When the doorbell went off, echoing through the whole house,
they
both jumped
a little. She leaned back and darted
a questioning look at
him
as she scrubbed the few remaining tears away.

He
could tell she was worried it was
his
parents. But
he knew
it wouldn’t be them. Chelsey would’ve warned
him
. Also, “My parents wouldn’t ring the doorbell,”
he
told her as
he
got up.

He
was tempted to just let whoever it was go away. But Cleo followed
him
up the stairs and
he
could see Emma through the side window. She was soaked.

“Took you long enough!” she said as she pushed her way past
him
. “Oh, Cleo!” she
moaned.
It was obvious Cleo had been crying. Emma peeled her wet jacket off and handed it
to
Reece
.
He
tossed it on a chair and she tossed her arms around
her friend
. “It’s going to be okay, you know,” Emma told her. “Unless…” she looked from Cleo
to
Reece and frowned. “Y
ou two aren’t fighting or something, are you? Did I come at a bad time?”

“No, we’re not fighting,”
he
said as Cleo slid from Emma’s arms into
his
.

Emma smiled but it looked a little forced. She looked nervous. “See. Things are going
to work out. One thing at a time. But you’re going to get there,” she said. She looked
around. “Can we maybe talk?”

Reece
raised
his
eyebrows. “Do you want me to leave?”
he
asked.
He
didn’t know if she meant she needed privacy or not.

“No,” she glanced at
her friend again
. “I don’t think so. But I do need to talk to Cleo.
”

“Okay,” Cleo said
. She glance
d
at
Reece
and then back to Emma. “What’s going on?”

“Let’s go back downstairs,”
he
suggested. The look on Emma’s face made
him
think this might take a while. Or that
they
’d want to be sitting. Or both.

When
they
got downstairs,
he
pulled Cleo onto
his lap. Emma sat across from them
.

“You look nervous,” Cleo accused.

She was right.

“Promise me you won’t be mad,” Emma said.

“
Emma
,” Cleo said quietly, “what did you do?”

“I told my mom everything,” Emma blurted out. “I know I told you if you told Reece,
I wouldn’t. But she knew something was up. You were moving in slow motion the last
two days at
my house. You slept for hours yesterday afternoon. Luci was obviously upset Thursday
night. The phone call from Paul…” Emma trailed off.

Cleo buried her face in
Reece’s
neck. “I just want this all to go away.”

“I know baby,”
he
said. “But it’s not going to. We’re going to have to deal with it.”

His
dad suddenly seemed like the least of
their
problems.

“She’s going to report what happened. She doesn’t think it’s safe for either of you
to be in that house,” Emma explained.

Cleo groaned. This was her worst fear, coming to life
. A
nd it was going to be at the hand of her
best
friend. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Yes,” Emma said firmly. “I’ve been a good friend. We’re getting you out of a bad
situation and Luci, too. Paul can’t get away with what he’s done. You can stay with
us, both of you, until things get figured out.”

“You mean until Luci gets tossed into foster care,” Cleo said. She was angry even
if she did understand why Emma had done what she’d done.

“Not necessarily,” Emma explained.
“Mom’s making some phone calls because she has no
idea where
to start. But she’s going to do whatever she can to keep you and Luci together.”

Cleo rubbed her hands over her face and then took a deep breath. “What if…what if
nothing happens to Paul? What if he kicks me out and Luci doesn’t get taken away?”

“I don’t know,” Emma admitted. “Mom said we just need to get through this one step
at a time.”

Cleo blew out a breath of frustration
because
Emma’s comment didn’t help in the least.

“So what happens in the meantime?” Reece demanded. “Did she have any ideas about that?”

“Well
, Luci is gone until tomorrow, isn’t she
?” Emma asked
.

“
The Abernathy
s said they’d have her home around lunchtime
,”
Cleo
told her.

“And you ca
n come back to my house tonight,
”
Emma suggested.

“She’s staying here tonight. Right?” Reece asked Cleo
as his arms tightened around her
. “Please?”

“
I’ll stay with Reece tonight
,”
she told Emma
. “And then tomorrow?”

“
Paul is always gone on Sundays?” Emma asked even though she knew he was.

“Yes,” Cleo agreed.

“Then you should go home and pack whatever you and Luci need. Call us as soon as Luci
gets home. We’ll come and get you. Then we’ll go from there,”
Emma said confidently.
“Mom should know more by then. What we should expect.”

And though Cleo knew she meant well, she was sure it wasn’t going to be as easy as
that. Getting out of the house? Yes. But what would come after? That
could go so many different ways.

“Cleo,” Emma said. “We’ve been friends since the fourth grade. You’ve practically
become family over the last few years. My parents love you.
And they love Luci, too.
They’re going to do everything they possibly can to make sure this turns out okay.”

“It’s the things that are out of their control that I’m worried about,” Cleo admitted.

“One step at a time,” Emma repeated. She sighed. “Well, I guess that’s all I came
to say. I didn’t want to do it over the phone. I’ll let you two get back to whatever
you were doing.”

After Emma was gone, Reece pulled Cleo into another hug simply because he wasn’t sure
what else to do.

“You heard Emma. Her mom thinks everything will turn out okay,” he said.

“I wish I felt the same way,” Cleo admitted. “It’s just that…”

“What?” he pressed.

“Things have a habit of not working out for me,” she said.

“You know what I think?” he asked. “I think that means it’s about time things start
turning around for you.”

“
Maybe.
”
She didn’t sound convinced. She
wished
she could feel as confident as Reece and Emma sounded.
Even with Patty on her side, working hard to try to come up with a plan, her mind
wasn’t at ease.
It
was spinning with all of the ways this plan could spiral out of control. The worst
case scenario
, in her mind,
always
led
back to Paul leaving town with her sister.

She was grateful
, yet again, that the Abernathy
s were so good to Luci. It helped knowing that Luci was off having fun and not a part
of this immediate disaster. Not yet anyway. She would be, soon enough.

The promise she had made to her sister continued t
o echo in the back of her mind.

“I have an idea,” Reece
began
, as if he was reading her thoughts. “How about we both try to forget about w
hat’s going on. Just for today
. We’re not going to solve anything
else
right now, anyway. I mean, I know you’re not going to be able to put it out of your
head completely
.
I can’t either. But maybe we can just try to put it aside? Until tomorrow?
”

“I’d like that,” she admitted.

She knew that Reece had his own issues to deal with. At some point, he was going to
confront Landon. She was well aware that she wasn’t the only one that was dreading
what the next few days could bring. They weren’t going to be easy for Reece, either.

“We have the house to ourselves. We’ve got the whole day and the whole night to be
together. And we’ve got three months to make up for,” he said with a grin.

“And?” she asked with a teasing smile.

“And I
think what I really want right now, is the chance to try to distract you
,” he said as he started dotting kisses along her neck.

“And I think I’m going to let you
,
”
she admitted with a sigh. It wasn’t exactly a happy sigh but it was close.