The Torn, Book One of the Holding Kate Series (13 page)

After the sun moved toward noon, though it seemed we had been together only minutes, Corey spoke the dreaded words.

“You wanted to talk, Kate.”

“I did.”

“But you don’t, now.”

“I…I do…” My face crumpled. I was such a coward.

“Listen, Kate.” He started. “I know how you feel about me—about him. There is really nothing to say until you have made a choice.”

I hid my face in my hands.

“If you are worried that I am going to fall apart or something, don’t.” He pulled my hands away from my face. “I have already heard your confession of love for him. I don’t need to hear it again.”

I put my finger on his lips. “Shhh.”

He took my hand and kissed my fingers.

“You only heard part of my confession. It is time you heard the rest.” I scooted closer to him. “Yes, Trip saved me.”

Corey looked away from me and clenched his jaw.

“I scanned his mind, and he was the one who brought me back to Kate. I owe him a lot for that. But, Corey, not until I scanned your mind did I realize who I am meant to be. You love me for who I was, for who I am, who I can be, who I will be. Trip may have brought me back, but you anchored me.” I took his hand and placed it on the center of my stomach. “If I hadn’t seen myself through your eyes, I would still be The Mother. You are the reason I am here. You are the one I have loved forever.”

He took a deep shuddering breath and drew me into his arms and kissed me. Warmth spread through me and I ignited.
Sweet Corey
. I didn’t need any dragonet to make me yearn for him. He was his own charismatic force that drew me and locked me inextricably to his heart. I was nowhere strong enough to pull away, even if I wanted to—and I didn’t want to pull away from my forever love, my Corey. He did finally, pull back, leaving me breathless. He was so good at kissing me. I guess practice does make perfect, we had a thousand years of perfecting our kisses.

“My Kate,” he sighed a sound of perfect bliss. It made my insides go all warm and fluffy. “Have you told Trip, yet? Did he take it well?” He combed his fingers through my hair and planted kisses along the length of my jaw.

“Told him what?” I nuzzled into his neck, I had a good buzz going and was feeling a bit lightheaded after kissing Corey. I certainly didn’t want to talk about Trip. I wanted to go back to kissing this perfect gorgeous boy. My lips found his and lingered there, reciprocating warmth and softness as we kissed and parted, delved deeper and explored gently, tenderly.

“That you have chosen me.” He said between kisses.

“What?” The buzz stuttered.

Corey pulled away from my lips and looked me in the eye. “Kate, you did just tell me that you chose me, right?”

“Well, yes…no…it’s complicated.” Buzz splat! Dead.

Corey stiffened and gently pushed me back. “Complicated.” He blew an angry sigh. “It isn’t this complicated, Kate.” He suddenly untangled himself and stood up, his face twisted in agony. “I am done with this game. Consider your life uncomplicated.” He turned and strode past the golf cart back toward the cabin.

“Corey! Corey, wait.” I called after him, but he kept striding away from me. With every step he took, my heart cracked and dropped its shards into the pit of my stomach. He was right. I had played him again without realizing it. I made his pain a hundred times worse. What was that? Three or four times now I had yanked his heart out and handed it to him? He deserved better. He was worth better. I was poison.

I curled up on the swing and sobbed. I was getting good at this crying thing. Why not go with it? So I did. I cried hot tears that ran down my cheek onto the wood below me. This place was not good for me! These jumps seemed to scrape open my heart and leave me ragged and raw. How many more would I have to endure before I could walk away from this nightmare? Who was in charge of this hell hole? Why did they think emotionally ravaging us like this was okay?

No. I couldn’t find anyone else to blame. Pinky wasn’t punching holes in people’s hearts. Caitlyn with all of her ghetto charm and street cred wasn’t stabbing people in the back with knives. It was me. I was the bad guy here. I was the one who couldn’t make a decision. I was the poison, the ravager, the perpetrator of people I loved.

When my tears had dried up, I just sat there staring ahead of me, seeing nothing. Rejection. It seemed to be a theme in my life. I was always being rejected by people who were supposed to love me. Good people. People I loved. People who were close enough to me to be poisoned by my self-centered ways. No wonder people rejected me. I rejected me.

Corey was right. This game was over. I was done. No more victims would fall at my feet. I would make sure they both knew that I was not available. I would clam up, close up and weather this whole ridiculous thing. In a few weeks or months, maybe I would get released, or better yet, maybe I would die in one of the jumps. That would be better for everyone.

Lost in my
own misery, I didn’t even realize when the rain started. I was soaked before it occurred to me to get to shelter. The sizzling flash of lightning got me moving though. I jumped into the golf cart, threw it into forward and stepped on the pedal. The tires spun in the wet grass, so I bounced a bit to get it moving. I wasn’t quite sure where I was. Corey had been driving on the way out and I had been preoccupied. I drove in the direction I thought we had come from hoping to hit one of the black top roads that wound through the village.

The rain fell in sheets around me and the clouds had shadowed the day. No black top presented itself, so I drove to the top of a hill to get my bearings. Thunder ripped open the sky as I reached the top and I could see the little red school house in the distance. I drove over the edge of the hill toward the village and sank into a puddle of mud. The tires whirred in circles and flung black mud into the rain. Another flash of lightning, too close for comfort, was chased by a loud rumbling shock of thunder. The cart dug a trench into the puddle until the back of the cart sank into the mushy ground.

Crap! Crap!
I got out and tried to push the cart out of the mud which was tantamount to a French poodle trying to move the Eifel Tower.

I was knee deep in the slogging pit when I heard my name called in the distance. Corey? He came back for me? Thank God! I flashed the lights on the golf cart trying to draw his attention. After a few minutes, I saw a parka clad figure racing toward me.

“Kate!” It wasn’t Corey’s voice that called my name. My heart shriveled a size. It wasn’t Corey. He really was done. He had completely written me off, then. If he still loved me, he would have been coming for me, worried sick about me out here in the storm.

“Kate!” Trip ran to me.

“It’s stuck. I can’t get it to move,” I hollered through the rain.

He whipped off his parka and draped me in it, then picked me up and threw me into the cart. “Drive!” He shouted as he rounded the back and heaved against the cart.

The tires splattered him in thick chunks and he practically lifted the cart out of the mud and pushed it free from the puddle. He jumped in beside me. “Drive along the ridge until you get to the road.” He pointed.

His profile was thrown into sharp relief by Mother Nature’s light show. I realized once again I had Trip to thank for being my rescuer. I shivered in my soaking state and Trip wrapped his arm around my shoulders. We bounced and splashed through the storm until we reached the cabin and raced into the main room dripping stinking mud all over the floor.

I expected the whole team to be seated at dinner, but there was no one.

“Where is everybody?” I looked up at Trip.

“They all jumped.”

“What? All of them?”

“Yeah, we were all gathered around the fire pit, about to head inside. I asked Corey if he’d seen you and he said you’d taken the golf cart and headed north.”

That was strange. Why would Corey tell him I had gone out alone?

“The clouds were looking pretty bad and I was worried you would be caught out in the storm. So I jumped up and walked about ten feet when the sphere fell.”

“On the whole group?”

“Yeah, Mel and Donnie were also taken.”

I shuddered and he took my shoulders and turned me toward the girl’s dorm. “Warm shower for you, kiddo. Go.” He gave me a gentle nudge.

“I’m going, I’m going.” I grumbled and headed off to the invitation of warmth and dry clothes.

When I returned, Trip was in a clean dry jumpsuit, had cleaned up our mud droppings and was taking hot mugs out of the microwave.

“Do you like tomato soup?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

He carried the mugs over to the sitting area and sat them on the coffee table. I grabbed a box of crackers and two cokes and joined him.

“Why were you out in the rain, Katie girl?” He touched my cheek gently.

I didn’t know why Corey didn’t tell him we had gone out together. He must have thought it through thoroughly and come up with a good reason, so I left him out of it. “I needed some time to think.”

He sipped his soup and cracked the top on a can of coke. “I am glad we have some time to talk.”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t hungry and the thought of hurting yet another person I loved did not make the soup any more appetizing.

“We haven’t had any time together since we got back from the jump.”

I turned to him and searched his eyes. Something was different. I tilted my head to the side and studied him. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something had shifted.

“You seem different.” I stated.

He let out a huff of laughter. “Do I?”

I nodded. “Trip, tell me what happened to you on the jump.”

He set his spoon down and turned to face me. “You should already know. You did it.”

I shook my head in confusion.

“You did something in my head, when you were hooked up to that chair, thingy, didn’t you?”

I pressed my lips together and picked at my thumb nail. “What do you remember?”

His voice lowered to a mere whisper. “You were glorious. When your mind touched mine, it left behind this imprint. Like a map stamped into my head.” He touched his temple. “I could see the way to freedom, but there were locked doors along the route. You took me through each door and helped me face the pain behind the door.”

“I did that?”

“Yeah, don’t you remember?”

“I remember it differently.”

“The last door trapped me in a room with a fierce warrior. We fought, I was losing. Then I heard your voice. You said you loved me. I could actually feel you near me. I heard Tara’s voice and others. They were all saying they loved me. I reached up and lifted the face plate of the warrior’s helm and saw myself. Literally, I had been fighting with myself. As you said those wonderful things about me, I began to see the warrior as someone who could be trusted. I wrapped my arms around him in an embrace and the next thing I knew, we were back.”

Tears spilled onto my cheeks. “Trip, that is…” I swallowed hard and shook my head. There were no words for it. “…wonderful.”

He touched my tear with his finger and wiped it away. “Thank you.” His eyes burned with sincerity.

I leaned into his hand and blinked, no words seemed to fit.

“So, I feel different.” He touched his chest, “here.” He took my hands. “Katie girl, I am not going to fight over you. Corey is a good man. I know you love him differently than you love me. I am not going to try to compete with or stand in the way of that. Your connection with him is…”

“Yeah.” I whispered and looked away. I didn’t want to talk about my connection with Corey. I took a deep breath. “So we are just friends, you and me?”

“Good friends.” He wrapped me in a hug and kissed the top of my head. I guess I should be glad that he was breaking it off with me. At least I didn’t have to hurt him. So why did I feel like my heart had just been to the butcher and back?

“Oh, good then…heheh.” I laughed awkwardly, probably from the knife sticking out of my heart. I stood up. “Well, I’m really tired.” I started backing away from him.

He frowned. “Katie?”

“I’m. Just. Gonna. Go. Get some sleep.” I turned and ran from the room before he could see my tears. I burst through the door of my dorm and flung myself on my bed and sobbed.

How could things go so horribly wrong? I had gone from two gorgeous and big hearted boys fighting to take care of me, to no one. The pain was unreasonable. I hadn’t really known either of these boys long enough to be this invested. I shouldn’t be feeling such intense rejection from both of them. It dredged up memories of rejection from my dad. He was the one who left first. He was the one who opened this jagged wound in my heart. He was the reason I was such a basket case. I was so mad at him. I screamed into my pillow and then started pounding it with my fist.

“Daddy? Why? Why did you leave us?” Sobs tore from my throat into my pillow. My mom and dad were the ones who taught me what love was. If what they had wasn’t love, then I had no clue what love was. How was I supposed to navigate these tumultuous relationships if my whole view of love was skewed? I was mad; mad at my dad, mad at myself, pretty much mad at the world. I took the opportunity of having an empty dorm room to empty all of my pain into the soggy pillow.

When I was spent and my throat raw, I just lay staring up at the top of my bunk. “Daddy?” “Daddy?” I whimpered into the dusk.

When all light had faded from the world and my cries had turned to snubs, Trip’s strong arms gathered me into his lap and I clung into his chest. He cradled me and rocked me back and forth singing sweet songs of comfort. When I was completely spent of emotion and energy, Trip tucked me into my bunk, kissed my forehead, then sat on the floor beside my bed and stroked my hair until I fell asleep.