Page 46 of Property of Prowler
Like how one of her acts as Mykayla Barton was trying to end her life, only to change her mind and voluntarily commit herself.
For some reason, she was ashamed of that. Mental health shouldn’t be taboo. Needing help shouldn’t be so secretive people go to such lengths to hide it that it disrupts their lives, but they do.
At first, she thought it was just a thing, and she told a coworker she thought was a friend. It didn’t take long before no one on her shift would meet her eyes. They avoided her. Quit inviting her out. When she heard them laughing and calling her Cray-Cray Tay-Tay, she confronted them. Her ex-friend ran crying from the break room, and the manager fired her, believing she went “postal” in the break room. When in reality, all she’d done was call them catty bitches with crotch rot.
After that, she knew to keep that shit secret.
With shaky fingers, she typed
Fact – Tell Prowler everything.
Typing it gave her anxiety.
Everything was a lot.
A LOT.
It was from family members with boundary issues to using a man she didn’t love to get away from that.
It was picking the wrong men repeatedly and allowing them to lay hands on her.
It was him knowing she used to be Mykayla Barton, and that Taylor Norton found her way out of a cycle of abuse with legal prostitution.
Everything meanteverything, and that scared the holy shit out of her.
Setting the open laptop on the coffee table, she grabbed the bottle of wine. Fuck the glass.
After polishing it off, she curled up on the couch, hugging her bookish throw pillow like it held her together … and cried.
She cried for all she’d lost and for the little girl who had to grow up too fast. After those tears were exhausted, she cried in sheer relief.
There was something calming about sharing her story with someone, someone she could trust. It was like a physical weight was being lifted from her. One she didn’t realize the weight of until she’d decided she would unburden herself.
Fuck, had she known that was what it would feel like, she would’ve found someone long ago to unload on. But she knew that wouldn’t have worked. Somewhere deep down she just knew that. It had to be Prowler.
I was always meant to be with Prowler.
That thought struck her. From the minute he’d moved in across the street, she felt a pull to him. He’d barely looked her way, but she didn’t suffer the same affliction.
She kept her distance because she didn’t want to get tangled up with another bad boy, but she looked. He was a rebel, even with his fucking trash cans. He repeatedly put them in the wrong place, and she knew from experience that they would skip his garbage, so every night before collection, she’d move his cans. She thought he’d get the hint when his cans were moved the next day, but no. He kept doing it.
One time they’d been putting them out at the same time, and she kinda went a little feral on him about can location and collection.
Yeah, not her finest Karen moment, but his eyes flashed with what she’d thought was a reflection from the sun. He looked at her differently from that moment on. His blue eyes got all seductive and irresistible. That was the first time he invited her to his bed, promising her the time of her life.
Boy, had it been tempting, but she refused to be ruled by her pussy. That went on for weeks. Each and every time, she gave him a reason why not. The next time he’d asked, he’d led with a counter-reason to their last exchange.
If she said she didn’t date bad boys, next time he’d point out he wasn’t talking about dating.
She doesn’t sleep with bad boys … he wasn’t talking about sleep.
They were neighbors … he’d move.
It was kind of their thing, and it was a comfortable routine. Until she’d said she didn’t do relationships, and he countered with offering an arrangement with no relationship possibility.
