Let Me Go (29 page)

“You’re phone is very loud,” Mason
answered.

“So you feel like a dumb shit?”

“Yep, you?”

“Oh yeah. We going?”

“You know it. Tell John and Chain too. She’s
getting as much support as we can offer. That’s the least I can
do,” Mason added before he fell back onto the couch and let out a
guttural scream. “Fuck!” he yelled. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! How could
this have happened? How the hell could I have missed all the signs
and fucked up so badly! She tried to tell me it wasn’t her. But I
didn’t listen. I didn’t fucking listen. And even when things didn’t
make sense, when they didn’t add up, I didn’t listen. I pushed my
doubts aside because I was so right. I had to be right. What the
fuck am I going to do now? How can I face her? How could she face
me? Knowing what I did to her? How could she sit there and tell me
she loved me when all along I was a monster. I kidnapped an
innocent woman and tortured her.”

“You didn’t torture her, Mason. And clearly,
she forgave you, so maybe it’s time you forgave yourself.”

“How can I?”

“Because, despite it all, she loves
you.”

“I need to be alone. I just need some time
to process everything.”

Benny nodded. “If I don’t hear from you
tomorrow, I’ll pick you up the day after. But take my advice and
don’t wallow in self-pity, Kat wouldn’t want you to.”

Mason nodded, knowing Benny was right. But
it didn’t mean it would make him feel better. He got up, grabbed a
bottle of whiskey, and headed to his room to drown out his
thoughts.
How could Kat love him after what he had done?
He
didn’t know. But, just before he passed out, he lingered on one
thought – that he never would have met her if it wasn’t for all of
this. So, maybe, just maybe, she felt the same.

Chapter 42

Kat kept herself
busy preparing for her sister’s funeral. It kept her mind off of
her own failures. When she would stop to think, she could process
the fact that Mason would never be free now. She didn’t know what
the hell she was going to do now. She didn’t dwell on this for too
long because she had a sister she had to bury.

Since Kat only knew of a few people that
would attend, they did a simple graveside service. She stood
staring at the grave that would now house her sister and all her
dashed hopes. She felt a pang of anger and frustration, but her
sadness quickly covered that up. To her right stood Trent, holding
her hand. On the other side of Trent, his brother Ty had come for
moral support. After all, they had gotten to be pretty good friends
since she was practically attached to Trent’s hip now. And to her
left, Diane, a friend of Trent’s whom she was becoming close with
came to hold her hand as well. She also saw the young boy from the
apartment standing far off in the distance and Kat wondered, not
for the first time, who he was to Katherine. The irony that at her
own sister’s funeral, the only people there were those that were
supporting her wasn’t lost on her. Her sister had said she was
privileged and all her life she never thought that way, until now.
She was supported by friends she had only known for a short while.
It was a good feeling, knowing people cared. And she wondered if
Katherine had ever had people to support her. Maybe things would
have turned out differently for everyone involved.

But then, would she ever have met
Mason?
And there it was, the reminder of her own
disappointment.

Soon, the short service was over. Ty and
Diane left, each going back to work, but she couldn’t move. She was
rooted in place, staring at the ground in front of her as if
willing Katherine to rise from death. She was trying to figure out
how everything could have gone to hell. All her planning, all her
dreams were shot to shit. She wanted to feel sorry for her sister,
but the selfish part of her felt sorry for herself. And she stayed,
having a conversation in her head with her departed sister, telling
her off.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned,
assuming Trent was telling her it was time to go, but she gasped in
surprise. She was face to face with Mason and behind him were
Benny, John and Chain.

“Oh my God, what are you guys doing here?”
she asked.

“We came to support you. It was a nice
funeral,” Mason answered.

“Thank you, but you didn’t have to come
here,” she said, speaking to all of them.

“Yes, we did,” Mason stated and the others
nodded.

“How did you know? Trent,” she answered her
own question, looking at her friend. He just shrugged. “So you
know?” she asked Mason.

“Yes,” he nodded, but looked solemn as he
did so, even lowering his head a bit.

“And you still came?”

“Of course, I, we came for you. Trent told
us how difficult it’s been for you, and we needed to be here for
you. She was your family after all.”

“How can you stand to be here?”

“I don’t understand.”

“How can you be here, supporting her,
standing so calmly? She ruined your life and now she’s gone and
took her fucking secrets with her,” Kat raged.

“I’m supporting you.”

“How could you? How can you stand here and
look at me? I have her face! I look just like the fucking monster
that did this to you. And then she took the coward’s way out and
overdosed. And for what? What did you ever do to her that deserved
such hatred? Such revenge? You were right to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, Kat.”

“I’m a reminder of everything she did to
you. When you look at me, you have to see her. You see the evil
that she was. The person that falsely accused you of rape, sent you
to prison without hesitation, and then refused to come clean.”

“Kat, you’re not her.” Mason’s voice was
soothing. He pulled Kat to him.

As soon as he touched her, she lost it. The
tears came, and she was sobbing into his shirt, fisting his collar
to keep from falling because she felt her entire body turning to
jelly. Mason smoothed her hair and let her cry, but after a few
minutes, he whispered, “Shhh, it’s all going to be all right.” And
that snapped her out of it.

She pushed him away and screamed while the
sobbing still wracked her body, “Don’t you see? It’s not all right.
It will never be all right again. She took it all with her when she
went to her grave. And now you’ll never be free.”

“I’m free with you,” Mason said as he tried
to reach for her.

“Stop, just stop. You say I’m not her, but
look at me. Look at me. I am her. When I look in the mirror, I see
her. God! How can you stand to look at me? How can you forgive
me?”

“Forgive you? Kat, it’s you who needs to
forgive me. You may look like her, but you’re not her. And I took
you because of that. I kept you as my slave, my prisoner for
months, because of that. I am the one in need of forgiveness, but I
intend on showing you how sorry I am every day of my life if you’ll
let me.”

“There is nothing to forgive, Mason. If you
hadn’t kidnapped me, I would have never met you, and I wouldn’t
have fallen in love with you.”

“If you can forgive me for something I
actually did to you, why do you think I even need to forgive you
for something you didn’t do to me?”

“But that’s the thing. I know why you did
it. I get it. Heck, I even condone it. And I’m even incredibly
happy it was me. I look at you and I see the man I fell in love
with, who was so passionate about something that he figured out the
steps to make his plans come to fruition. And let’s face it, you
weren’t a monster. You never treated me poorly. But, for you, you
look at my face and see her. There is nothing that can change
that.”

“Kat, you’re wrong.”

“No! No, I’m not wrong. You say that now,
but what about in a few months? A few years? No, please…I’m so
grateful to you, to all of you for coming here and being here for
me when I needed friends. But right now, I need to go. I need to
figure things out for myself.”

“Kat, please, listen to me. Don’t run. I
love you.”

“I know, and that’s why I have to go,” she
said as she literally started to run.

She saw Mason standing there stunned,
watching her. She heard Trent tell him to give her some time to
adjust, and he’d talk to her. She even heard Benny tell him this
was her way of grieving and when she came to terms with it all,
she’d come back. But they were wrong. This wasn’t her grieving,
this was her facing the facts.

Chapter 43

Kat didn’t know
how her life had become this giant mess. She had literally run away
from Mason, from the people she cared about because she couldn’t
face her own demons.
Who did things like that?
She did.
Because she was a coward and because she couldn’t face Mason
knowing she carried the face of the person who had hurt him beyond
repair. She thought once he was free of all this, things would be
okay, but now there was no way. And on top of all that, she really
did lose the only family she had known before they could even be a
family. She felt bad about that because she both hated and missed
her sister. How that was possible, she didn’t know. She wondered if
maybe it was the grief.

She had locked herself in her apartment.
Trent, Benny, and even Mason blew up her phone, but she turned it
off. Trent banged on her door every hour asking if she was all
right. Finally, she opened it so he would know she was still alive
but asked him to give her some time alone. He nodded, hugged her,
told her he loved her, and was there for her. He also threatened to
cause bodily harm if she ever worried him like that again. It made
her laugh a bit, and she was grateful to him. But she really did
need to be alone and after he left, she grabbed a bottle of wine
and crawled into bed, hoping to drown her sorrows away.

Kat woke up to someone knocking on her door.
She looked around and it was bright outside. She must have slept
through the night, or maybe it was courtesy of the now empty bottle
of wine that was on her nightstand.
Damn! She drank the entire
bottle by herself?
She didn’t even remember doing that. Clearly
her head did since it felt like there was a hammer in there
pounding away, reminding her just how wonderful alcohol was the
next day.

She heard the knocking again.
Damn Trent!
Couldn’t he let her wallow in peace?
She told him she’d call
him and let him know she was okay. But no…he had to go banging on
the door, which only encouraged the hammer in her head.

“I’m coming, Trent, and I’m still alive!”
she yelled as she made her way to the door. She flung it open, but
she was surprised. Instead of Trent, it was the teenage boy from
Katherine’s apartment.

“Uh, hi, can I help you?” she asked, unsure
of what exactly to say or do.

“Hello, ma’am. My name’s Edward, but you can
call me Eddie. My mother, you probably saw her the other day, was a
friend of your sister’s.”

“That was your mom,” Kat mused. It was more
of a statement than a question, but he nodded in response.

“Yes. I knew Kat for a while.” Kat flinched
at the sound of her own name, even though she knew he was referring
to her sister. That just drove her point that they were one and the
same home. “I heard you guys when you came over, you know,” he said
and his voice caught.

“I’m sorry you had to hear us.”

“She isn’t, I mean, she wasn’t so bad, not
always, at least. My mom too. They aren’t bad people, but the
drugs, they take over and make you different.”

“You’re a very smart young man. How old are
you?”

“Fifteen, ma’am.”

“Kat…your sister, I didn’t expect her to
die, at least not yet. She hasn’t, er, hadn’t used those kinds of
drugs in a while, but I guess it’s hard for people to change
sometimes.” She heard him choke up again.

“I’m sorry, Eddie. I can only imagine how
hard this has been on you. Please, where are my manners? Come in.
I’ll make us some coffee. God knows I need it,” she muttered the
last sentence.

He nodded and walked in and sat down at her
dining table.

“So, Eddie, what can I do for you?”

“Kat gave me something, told me to cherish
it with my life and give it to you if and when she died. I wanted
to give it to you at the funeral yesterday, but you seemed to be
having a rough time, so I left.”

Well, that got her attention.

“What? Eddie, you sure she said to give me
something?”

“Yes, ma’am. Here you go,” he said as he
produced an envelope from underneath his sweatshirt. “I didn’t read
it,” he said as if she had accused him, but Kat hadn’t said a word.
She didn’t think she could even think, let alone speak. She
couldn’t think of a reason for why on earth Katherine had written
her a letter.

She hesitated. She didn’t know if she could
stand any more negativity right now, but curiosity was winning.

“I can go if you’d like,” Eddie offered when
Kat still hadn’t spoken.

“No, that’s all right. Do you know what’s in
that letter?”

“Not everything, ma’am, but I know some of
it. I think maybe you’d like me to stick around until after you’ve
read it. I can go into another room and leave you alone. Or I can
just stay here and be quiet. I’m really good at being
invisible.”

Kat’s heart broke at his words. Damn, he
seemed like such a good kid. Such a shame that he was living his
life among junkies. And she just bet he really did know a thing or
two about being invisible.

“No, no, you should stay right here. I can
make us some breakfast before I read the letter.”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” he said
sheepishly.

She made him breakfast and while he ate, she
made her way to the couch. Her fingers trembled, but she couldn’t
wait any longer, she needed to know. After a few minutes, she drew
in a deep breath and opened the envelope.