Page 289 of Hide and Keep

I’m worthless. I have nothing going for me. I’ve spent the majority of my life focused on cheer, a sport that once it ends, it just ends. There are no professional careers in cheer like there are in football or basketball or tennis. Even the cheerleaders that perform at other professional sports games are not considered real cheerleaders, not like the kind of cheerleader I am. Those are more like dance teams made up of models.

Crowdleaders is what we call them and they tend to be more along the lines of what people think of when they envision cheerleaders. Crue did.

Crue. I don’t know what to do. He likes taking care of me but I can’t ask him to give up his dreams to do it. I need somewhere to live, something to drive. I need clothes, food, water. I need an entire fucking life. Unfortunately, I never learned how to have one of my own and now I don’t have the first clue where to begin.

Money. That’s the beginning, middle, and end. You can’t doanythingwithout money.

My car’s worth a lot. The keys are always hanging up in the garage…somewhere. I never paid close attention but I’m sureI could find them if I looked hard enough. Then if I sell that, I should have enough money for an apartment. Maybe even a cheaper car to get around in.

That’s where I’ll start.

“Can you drive me to the manor?” I ask Crue back out in the living room.

He doesn’t even look up from his laptop to tell me, “No.”

I’m almost at the front door before Crue notices and jumps up from the couch, putting himself in my path.

“Where are you going?”

“Munreaux Manor.”

“Your dad—”

“I’m not going there forhim.”

“Why do you want to go there?”

“For my car.”

“Arthur cut your credit cards. You think he’s just gonna let you take a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar car?”

Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars? That might be enough money for Crue to move.

“I wasn’t going to ask him for it.”

“You’re gonna steal it?”

The doubt in his voice is insulting.

“I stole yours, didn’t I?”

“No, not really. The keys were in it.”

At the time, he sure acted like I stole it though. He was enraged I did.

“The keys might be in mine, too.” They won’t be.

I attempt to sidestep him, but he puts a hand up in front of me.

“I can’t let you. Your father put his hands on you and—”

“I won’t go near him.”

“Ever. You had a fucking…fit…thing…last night at the thought of going back there.” His expression softens. “Butterfly, don’t goanywhere near that house. I don’t want you to go through that again.”

That. My panic attack. I don’t want to experience that again either but it didn’t seem like I had much control on whether or not it happened in the first place. It just did, and thankfully, Crue helped me out of it. If it does again, I know what to do. Think about Crue.

“But I need—”

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