Page 33 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
I don’t have time to contemplate the consequences of what I just said before Gage grabs my hips possessively and moves my waist in a figure eight, his freakishly hard dick still fighting to escape the flimsy containment of his pants. He then squats down halfway, his hands migrating from the curves of my sides to the dough of my ass. He smacks my left cheek before settling for a grab, and I emit a gasp at the force of it, nearly losing my balance and tripping over my own heels. I run my hands roughly through his hair to try and regain some control, but I should’ve known it wouldn’t last long as he slowly begins to stand, dragging his nose all the way up my stomach and over the swell of my overspilling tits.
He’s standing over me a second later, our foreheads pressed together, our mouths inching closer at a slow-moving pace, prolonging the tension that’s snowballed within the last ten minutes.
Fuck, do I want to kiss him. So badly. And I don’t want to stop.
But the second our lips brush each other’s, the music cuts out in a staticky wail, and the ringing of my phone fills our ears instead. We’re both huffing and panting, and I’m mopping as much sweat from my face as I can. That’s when I notice Gage staring at me in a way I’ve never seen before. Not due to frustration or annoyance…it seems to be something stronger than all of that. Something that scares me as much as it tantalizes me.
“I’m sorry, I should get that.” I break away from our intimateposition with a guilty heart, unplug my phone, and answer the unknown caller.
“Are you Calista Cadwell, Ingrid Cadwell’s daughter?” the speaker asks.
I freeze as my fingers grip the device tighter—as if squeezing it will somehow pacify the panic throwing me for a terrifying loop—and an oily sickness brews in my gut. “Yes, this is she.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Cadwell. Your mother has had a terrible accident.”
12
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
GAGE
Inever wanted our dancing to end. I’m not a dancer. I don’t particularly like dancing if I’m not under the influence. But with Cali, I’ll dance for the rest of my fucking life.Sober.I’m about to feel everything with this girl.
I know that I had my tongue in her cunt less than a week ago, but dancing somehow seems so much more intimate. She was invitingmeintoherworld, and I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. That’s why I was so hesitant at first. And even though I might’ve claimed dancing was easy, it certainly isn’t.
But all those first-time jitters seem so trivial now.
I hate hospitals. I have since I was a kid. The repugnant scent of ammonia, the harsh fluorescents, the eggshell-white walls, the continuous beeps and trills of machinery, the incomprehensible droning of hospital personnel as they deliver lifesaving or life-ending news. And although the hallowed halls are bathed in buckets of bleach, it doesn’t erase the noxious odor of decay that’s seeped beyond vinyl and into the skeletal structure of the time-worn building.
But it wasn’t just the atmosphere that made me sick to my stomach…it was the familiarity of it all. It’s a part of my past that Idon’t like to revisit—a part of me that I keep in the dark for a reason.
My parents—using the word loosely here—were terrible fucking people. Two egotists who couldn’t love each other without swallowing the other one whole. They were neglectful because they became so consumed by their own lives that they forgot about the life they brought into this world, and I’m not just talking about myself.
When I was a kid, I had a younger brother. We were four years apart, and when he was born, the doctors told my parents that he had a congenital heart defect. It was a chronic condition, but with treatment, he would be able to live a long, normal life. I didn’t think much of it at the time since I was so young. I didn’t treat him any differently, really.
Until he got weaker. And when he got weaker, I begged my parents to do something. But because they were going through their divorce at the time, fighting every second of every day and focusing all their attention and money on winning their child custody battle, they couldn’t have cared less. All they wanted was to be the victor in their fucked-up relationship.
My brother needed a valve replacement, and since my mom and my dad were too wrapped up in their divorce to realize he was getting weaker, his heart stopped beating when he was only eight. The doctor told them that surgery could’ve saved him if they’d noticed his condition deteriorating, which is exactly what I tried to tell them. But it was like they never heard or saw me. It was like I wasn’t even there.
My brother was promised a full life—one with obstacles, yes, but a full life nonetheless—and I misplaced my faith in the people I thought were going to help him. I couldn’t do anything to save him. I was twelve. I didn’t have the money or the jurisdiction or even the knowledge to ensure my brother got the surgery he needed.
I failed him. I lost him. And even though the blame sits solely on my parents’ shoulders, the guilt still chokes me. If I could’ve just…donesomething…maybe he would still be here. If I’d tried harder or somehow forced them to listen. If I’d gone to someone else for help instead of blindly relying on my parents, maybe things would’ve been different.
So as soon as Cali told me what happened to her mother, we took my car and raced over to the hospital as fast as we could. I wasn’t about to let her go through the same pain I went through alone.
Since I’m not family, I wasn’t allowed back with her. I sat for a devastatingly long time by myself, in an uncomfortable hospital chair, praying that Cali and her mother would be okay. Maybe I’ve lost my goddamn mind, but I feel this duty to protect Cali and her loved ones, as if it’ll amend the mistake I made in not protecting my brother.
She came out of the room after about an hour and sat next to me. She’d barely gotten comfortable when the presiding doctor came over to talk to us about her mother’s condition. Apparently, Cali’s mom has multiple sclerosis, and she was admitted to the hospital during Cali’s and my dance lesson. The doctor said she’d probably been suffering from a severe vertigo flare-up for the past few days. She was trying to open a window in her room for fresh air, and one of the neighbors saw her collapse from across the street. So they rushed over to the apartment and called an ambulance.
Cali never told me her mother was sick, or that she was her primary caretaker. And I took her away from her mother because I needed help stretching my stupid hip. If Cali had been home, none of this would’ve happened.
I wish she had told me what was going on. I wish I could’ve helped somehow, but all I did was make everything worse.
It feels like history’s repeating itself.
I stopped keeping track of time after the sky darkened. Since the doctor broke the news, Cali and I have found refuge in the semi-busy waiting room, and I have a feeling that she won’t want to leave until her mother gets discharged. The doctor said he wanted to keep her a few days to monitor her symptoms, assess the severity, and then form a plan of action to give her mother the best life possible with her chronic condition.
Cali and I haven’t spoken for twenty minutes. She was, however, cooperative enough to let me give her my hoodie so she didn’t freeze. Even though our chairs are right next to each other, I’ve never felt so far away from her. She’s curled in on herself, hugging her knees to her chest, her face streaked with leftover tears and her sclera feathered with burst blood vessels. Her hair is a scraggly mess shielding her face, and even beneath the coverage of my hoodie, I can still see her body shake.
