Pucked Love (Pucked, #6)(68)



Except for Violet. She’s the only constant person I can see. Not even her mother holds that kind of sway with her. I want to know how to be that. I want to know what I need to do in order to be that for her. Because as she shuts down on me and pulls into herself, and the fire I love so much flickers and dies, I’m certain of one thing: if I’m traded, there’s a good chance I’ll lose her forever. Violet will be the anchor that keeps her from coming with me.

And after everything I’ve learned tonight, I’m not sure I can blame her for wanting to stay, even if it means I have to leave half my soul in Chicago with her.





CHARLENE

The night I came home from the party, there was a box on the front stoop. I assumed it was from Darren, so I didn’t open it right away. But the next morning a pamphlet from The Ranch had been shoved through the mail slot, possibly as some kind of messed-up, highly ineffective enticement. All it did was make me never want to leave my house again.

I learned a very important lesson on my twenty-sixth birthday. Burying the past and pretending none of it happened in no way erases it. In the wake of Frank’s reappearance, the carefully crafted fa?ade and the world I’d built for myself crumbled. In its place, I’m left with a past I can’t escape, even though I ran from it, a present that terrifies me, and a future that’s disturbingly unstable.

The number of memories I’d blocked out, or maybe hadn’t been able to process with any kind of reasonable perspective as a fourteen year old, are now alarmingly clear. I see myself through a new lens, without the rose-colored glasses of youth to soften and smooth it all out.

I’m angry at my mother, my father—the real one, and Frank, who preyed on the weak and disadvantaged. They’re the people who made The Ranch seem like the better option. In the wake of Frank’s reappearance, I feel more alone than ever, even though I have perpetual calls and messages from my friends.

I feel extremely other, alien, like I no longer fit where I used to, and I’m embarrassed and humiliated by a past I had no control over. I don’t know how to blend in anymore, or even just exist.

On Monday I stand at the front door, dressed for work even though my head is in a fog. I want to ground myself in this slice of normalcy. My hand is on the doorknob, but I can’t seem to turn it. I sift through all the memories of The Ranch and fixate on the fence that surrounded the compound, meant to keep us all safe, but all it did was trap us in a life so narrow it was like living in a pinhole.

My head aches as things start to make sense in a way they haven’t before. My fear of being trapped, of needing stability, the importance I place on my friendship with Violet, not wanting to leave Chicago and my built-in family, my inability to let Darren get too close. My head is a mess of memories, and my heart is bleeding with emotions I can’t filter.

“Sweetheart?” My mom puts her hand on my shoulder.

“I’m afraid to leave. I’m afraid Frank is going to be out there, and he’ll take me back to The Ranch, and I’ll never get out again.”

“That’s not going to happen, honey. I won’t let that happen, and neither will any of the people who love you.” She leads me away from the door and takes me to the kitchen, where she pours hot water over one of her homemade candies.

I stir the water, watching the candy dissolve at the bottom of the mug. “I want to be normal. I want everything to go back to the way it was before all the memories came back.”

“I’m so sorry, Char-char. If I could do it all over again I would make different choices. I would find a different way.”

“I know.”

I understand, sort of, why she chose the path she did. She put herself in control of her own life, she took the reins so no one else could, and she never stayed in one place so Frank couldn’t catch up with her.

I call Mr. Stroker and request to work from home this week. I only have a few client meetings, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to reschedule them. I also never ask to work from home, so he is more than accommodating—and concerned, of course.

I flounder for an excuse. Telling him I’ve suddenly developed acute agoraphobia as a result of being stalked by my not-real cult leader father sounds farfetched and could lead to more questions. So I tell him I had an allergic reaction to a new lotion, and it caused a full-body rash.

In the wake of the Daddy Frank episode, Darren has upped my security from the alarm system to a live bodyguard. So far he remains parked outside at night, and during the day he sits on my front step and makes sure the only people who come to my door are ones I want to see.

My mom leaves on Wednesday, very apropos, after my insistence that I’ll be fine on my own, especially now that I have a bodyguard and Violet’s been stopping by on a daily basis. I love my mom, but she gets antsy staying in one place for more than a few days at a time, and she’s driving me crazy. Besides, I’m not keen on rehashing all the memories from The Ranch or hearing again how sorry she is that Frank found us on account of her audition. It’s not like she could’ve known that Frank had finally jumped into the twenty-first century by getting a laptop and a Facebook account.

I don’t even feel like I know myself anymore, and trying to explain that is difficult. My mom thinks the answer is to get out of Chicago and travel with her. The idea of running certainly has it’s appeal, but then what would I have? I don’t want to leave behind all the people I care about, the family I created for myself in Violet and the girls, and even Darren.

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