The Hard Way

  Cade nodded. “I thought the best way to make you hate me was to just cut you off. No explanation, no reason. Just a clean break.”

  I laughed at the absurdity of his words. “A clean break? Trust me, I was a mess.”

  “I know. I think you’re forgetting the part where I also went through something horrible. I mean, I…I really cared for you, Avery. I could’ve even loved you.”

  Sweet, Jesus, no. He could have loved me? That statement was like a blade piercing my chest, and the agonizing pain seemed to go on and on. Cade had never told me exactly how deeply he felt for me. Everything had been implied. Hearing it now made everything that had transpired even harder, especially the fact that he had walked away.

  I quickly masked my pain with anger. “If this is where I’m supposed to feel sorry for you, I don’t.”

  “I didn’t ask you to. I was just stating facts.” Cade leaned his elbows in on the table. “Can’t you see—even in the smallest way possible—why I did what I did?”

  I stared at him for a moment before trying to imagine myself as a teenage Cade. He was someone who had never really experienced love before, least of all with a member of the opposite sex; I remembered that much from the time we’d spent together.

  Finally, I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I need to get out of here.” When Cade started to protest, I held up my hand. “Just please take me home.”

  Although he looked pained, Cade replied, “If that’s what you want.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  As I stood up, Cade reached into his back pocket for his wallet. Without calling the waiter over, he tossed a hundred onto the table, which I was sure more than covered our bill. He rose out of the booth and then motioned for me to go on ahead.

  My knees had grown stiff from sitting, and when I put weight down on my right one, I winced in pain as I staggered to the side. When Cade rushed forward to give me a hand, I swatted it away. “I’ve got it.”

  While he nodded in agreement, he stayed close beside me on the way out to the car, just in case I needed him. As he held open the door, Cade asked, “Where do you live?”

  I furrowed my brows at him. “Why do you need to know that?”

  “Because I’m going to take you home.”

  “You don’t need to do that. I’m fully capable of driving home.”

  “I’m aware of that, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  Pinching my eyes shut, I said, “Just stop.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop trying to be the hero to make up for everything you did in the past.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be a hero.” At the feel of Cade’s hand on my cheek, my eyes popped open. “I care about you, Avery, and I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine, or at least I will be once I get home.”

  A resigned look took over Cade’s face. He removed his hand before turning and walking around the front of the car. I eased down onto the seat and then closed the door.

  The drive back to The Ark was one of pained silence. It was hard being in such a confined place with Cade. I wanted nothing more than to be out of his presence. Part of me thought I was being overdramatic and holding a grudge. He had apologized to me: why should the reasons behind why he’d left me matter?

  We had barely gotten into The Ark’s parking lot when I reached for the door handle. “You’re that ready to be rid of me, huh?” Cade said.

  “I just need to be alone. With what happened with…”—I couldn’t bring myself to say his name again—“…and with what you told me…” I swallowed hard. “It’s all just too much.” I was struggling to hold it all together.

  “If you need anything, just call me.”

  I finally turned to look at him. The sincere expression on his face along with the sadness in his eyes almost broke me. “I appreciate that.” I opened the car door and hopped out. Just before I closed the door, I stopped. Leaning my head in, I said, “For what you did today—”

  “You don’t ever need to thank me for that. The fact that you’re still here is enough and all the thanks I’ll ever need.”

  Of course he would have to go and say something like that. “Bye,” I said quickly before I slammed the door. Cade waited until I was in my car and had pulled away before he left.

  Once I was one the road, I called Mom to let her know what had happened at The Ark. Since Cade and I had passed a TV news van when we were leaving, I didn't want her to hear it that way. After assuring her a million times that I was okay and didn't need to be seen by a doctor, I told her it was Cade who had saved me.

  I didn’t give her time to react before relating what had happened at O'Malley's. When I finally finished, the line was so silent I thought the call had been dropped. "Mom?"

  "I'm here," she replied.

  "Why didn’t you say anything?"

  "Because your story rendered me speechless. I mean, I was already trying to recover from hearing you were almost shot, then you spring the news on me that the ultimate soulless bastard saved your life and that he then proceeded to apologize for what happened and told you he wouldn’t have broken up with you if his father hadn’t made him."

  "Yeah, that pretty much sums it up."

  "Where are you?"

  "On the way to my apartment."

  "Turn around. I want you to come home."

  "Mom, I was just home on Monday. Besides, I have shifts this weekend at the shelter. I really can't afford to miss work."

  "I'll pay you whatever you were supposed to make."

  Her offer brought tears to my eyes. More than anything in that moment, I wanted my mother. It didn’t matter that I was allegedly a poised and self-reliant twenty-one-year-old woman. I'd been through not one but two traumas that day.

  "Okay. I'll be there in a little while."

  "Good. I'll call Nana and have her make dumplings for you."

  "That would be awesome, Mom. Thanks."

  “Don't thank me. I'm not the one who is cooking."

  I laughed. "Okay, then thank Nana for me.”

  “I will.”

  “See you soon."

  “Bye, baby. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  AVERY

  Even though I went to sleep in my childhood bed, I didn’t have a restful sleep. Most of the night was spent in fitful nightmares about being tortured and killed by Ron after he came after me for vengeance. The other part was spent in dreams about Cade. Most of them were of our happy days together while a truly disturbing one was a vivid sex dream.

  I finally abandoned my bed around seven and went downstairs to help Nana make breakfast. After eating a mammoth stack of homemade pancakes and washing it down with freshly squeezed orange juice, I went back to bed. With Nana off at a church function and Mom working, I had the house to myself. I had been asleep for a few hours when a pounding at the door had me bolting upright in bed. After fumbling to get out from underneath the covers, I staggered out of the bed and then pounded down the stairs.

  “Who is it?” I called.

  Life in the city had changed me. Growing up, I would have thought nothing about throwing open the front door without knowing who was behind it. Of course, it was most likely one of Nana’s friends or some of my family.

  “It’s Cade.”

  What. The. Hell. I turned the locks and threw open the door. I had half expected not to see him—to instead realize that I had hallucinated his voice—but there he was in a polo shirt and khaki shorts looking like he had the first time he’d shown up there all those years ago. “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

  “I wanted to check on you, so I got your address from Tamar.”

  “Did you ever hear of a phone?”

  Cade smirked at me. “I figured if I called, you might hang up on me, and then where would we be?”

  “Good point,” I muttered.

  “Anyway, when I went by your apartment, your roommate told me you’d gone home for the night. She also called
me a cocksucker who deserved to die a horrible death from my dick rotting off, but that’s another story.”

  I snorted a laugh. Only Tori would think of saying something like that. As not just my roommate but my friend, she knew the full story of what had happened between Cade and me. “I see.”

  “Since it was a nice day out, I decided to put the top down and take a little drive.”

  “A little drive? It’s an hour and a half.”

  Cade shrugged. “It’s a good stretch of road to drive, and I enjoy being out of the city.” He gave me a pointed look. “But even if the drive had sucked, I would have still come to make sure you were all right.”

  Holy shit. Suddenly it felt like I’d stumbled into a romantic movie, like the part where Jake Ryan shows up outside Samantha’s sister’s wedding. It was seriously overwhelming. “That’s really sweet of you to want to check on me.”

  “I didn’t just come to check on you.”

  I furrowed my brows at him. “You didn’t?”

  He held out a shopping bag I hadn’t previously noticed. “I brought you lunch.”

  After I took the bag from him, I peeked inside. “Chinese?”

  “Yeah, from Mui Lan.”

  “Mui Lan is my favorite,” I murmured.

  “I know. I remembered when we were working on our Shakespeare project, you always loved their Mongolian chicken and hot and sour soup.”

  Cade had not only driven an hour and a half to check on me, but he’d brought me my favorite Chinese takeout. The enormity of it all made me feel a little lightheaded, and I staggered back.

  “Whoa. Are you okay?”

  “Just a little dizzy.”

  “Come on, let’s get you inside.”

  Instead of arguing with Cade, I let him lead me inside the house. Although it had been three years since he had been there, he seemed to remember the floor plan very well, taking a left off the foyer to get us to the living room. Once he helped me sit down on the couch, he took a step back. “Are you sure you’re okay now?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  Cade nodded. “Okay then. I guess I better go and let you rest.”

  Wait, after the two grand gestures, he was just going to leave? I couldn’t let him go—not yet. “Wait. You don’t need to go.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No. Stay and have Chinese with me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  Cade gave me a sheepish grin. “I was hoping you would say that. Otherwise, I was going to have to dig my lunch out of the bag and take it with me.”

  I threw my head back and laughed. “I should have known you weren’t just going to say hello and then bail.”

  “I didn’t want to stay if it was going to upset you, like if you couldn’t stand to be around me after what I told you yesterday.”

  “Oh that,” I said as I took the soup from Cade. While he got his food out, my finger traced the label on the soup container. “Cade?”

  “Yeah?” he asked, his head buried in the shopping bag.

  “I do forgive you.”

  He jerked his head up to look at me. “You do?”

  I nodded. “It’s time I let the past go. You did what you did at the time because you thought it was for the best, and you thought it would cause me the least amount of pain. I guess I can’t really fault you for that.”

  “Or for choosing football over you?”

  “At first, I let that bother me too much, but then I realized football wasn’t just your world, it was your future. You had a scholarship to think about along with your love of the game.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And when I really think about it, I’m not sure what I would have done if I had been put into a similar position.”

  Cade’s brows popped up into his hairline. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Although you’ve forgiven me, I’ll always regret what happened. It’s one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me.”

  “Me too,” I replied.

  Cade then went back to rummaging around in the food bag. “Want an eggroll?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I replied.

  Since he remembered where the kitchen was, Cade went to get us some plates and something to drink. When he returned, we poured our food out of the boxes and started eating.

  We ate in silence for a few minutes. Cade swiped his mouth with his napkin then asked, “So how are you really doing with what happened at The Ark?”

  “I didn’t sleep very well last night. Lots of nightmares.” At the thought of Ron, my appetite suddenly waned. I dropped my fork onto my plate. “Some of the nightmares were about Ron coming after me, you know, in retaliation for what happened.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to be possible. The fact that he was carrying a gun is a parole violation. He’s going back to prison.”

  “Really?”

  Cade nodded. “I did a little investigating to see what was going to happen.”

  I exhaled a relieved breath. “You don’t know how much better that makes me feel.”

  “I thought it might help.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  After taking a few more bites, Cade put his plate down on the coffee table. “Man, that was good.”

  “It really was. Thanks again for bringing it.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Cade didn’t appear like he was ready to leave, and I wasn’t ready for him to go. “Wanna watch a movie?”

  Cade smiled. “Sure.”

  When I bent over to retrieve the remote control, he said, “How about a repeat of Sixteen Candles?”

  My hand momentarily froze as it hovered over the remote. I had managed to talk Mom into something else on Monday night. I couldn’t imagine watching that movie again considering all the memories it held, but so much had changed since Monday night. After the past couple days, I felt like I could watch it.

  I picked up the remote and smiled at Cade. Then I said something I never thought I would ever get to say again: “I would love to watch Sixteen Candles with you.”

  AVERY

  The weeks following Cade's apology seemed to fly by. With the air cleared between us, it was so much easier getting up for work. It was nice not feeling the urge to pull over and throw up on my morning drive into the city, and I also didn’t have a feeling of dread hanging over me while I was at work. I could see Cade in the hallway without wanting to simultaneously cry and beat the shit out of him.

  I had peace about more than just work. I finally had closure about the question that had been haunting me for three years—why Cade had thrown me aside. Knowing the reason why he’d done what he’d done also made me hate him less. Sure, there was still a tiny part of me that resented that he had chosen football over me, but I could understand why he had. He’d been put into a horrible position by his father, and although it had been misguided, he had tried to save me more pain and humiliation about my humble roots. There was also the fact that he was just eighteen.

  When I returned to work on Monday after the incident with Ron, I was really glad to have Cade at my side. He gave me both the physical and emotional strength I needed to be back in a place where something so traumatic had happened. He stayed within my sight most of the day except for when Darion and the guys wanted him to play football. Ron Carnes was back in jail, so I felt safer in that aspect, too. Vicki had worked at The Ark for quite a few years, so sadly, it hadn’t been her first brush with frightening parents. I also got a big hug from D’Andre, who was also back that day.

  Even though everyone fawned over Cade for being a hero, he didn’t let it go to his head. For the first time ever, he was being asked for his autograph not because of football. He was even going to turn down an interview with the Atlanta Journal until I insisted he do it. Not only was it an opportunity to raise awareness for The Ark, it gave people the chance to see that he did have goodness inside him.

  The day the article abo
ut Cade came out, Tamar and I sat in her office reading it. “‘In that moment, I couldn’t think about anything but saving Avery’s life. It didn’t even cross my mind that I should probably take Carnes down. I just wanted to make sure she was okay,’” Tamar read aloud. She took off her glasses. “Girl, sounds like someone still has a fire burning for you.”

  I ducked my head at her comment. “I don’t think so. It was just a reflex since I was the one with a gun pointed at me.”

  “Do you actually believe the bullshit you’re spouting?”

  With a groan, I met her intense stare. “Yes and no.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I don’t know what to believe.”

  “I think you should believe me when I say that Cade still cares for you. He might not realize it now, but deep down, he does.”

  I opened my mouth to argue when I was interrupted by the sound of music blaring from the cafeteria. Tamar and I exchanged questioning looks. “Are they playing Nicky Minaj?” Tamar asked.

  “Sounds like Superbass.”

  When a roar of shouts and whistling began, Tamar and I hopped to our feet. We hustled out of her office and up the hallway toward the cafeteria. Nothing could have quite prepared me for what I saw when I got there.

  “Oh. My. God,” I muttered.

  Cade stood on one of the tables in the center of cafeteria with most of The Ark’s older kids population encircling him. Cade wasn’t just standing on the table, and oh no, he wasn’t just dancing. He was lip-syncing to the words while acting out the song.

  I walked up to Kevin, one of the other day counselors. “What’s all this about?”

  He grinned. “Cade lost a bet to Darion.”

  “He was gambling?” I questioned in horror.

  “Nah, it was nothing like that. More like a ‘I bet I can throw this football so many yards’ kinda thing. Darion beat him, so he picked one of the most humiliating songs possible for a guy to lip-sync.”

  “I would have to agree.” Standing on my tiptoes, I peered through the crowd for Darion. He was doubled over laughing at Cade’s performance, which at the moment included twerking his ass to the boom, boom, boom part of the song.