Chapter 30: Chapter Twenty-Nine

We hadn’t heard from any scouts, and I felt disappointed that I wouldn’t be an NHL prospect. The chances of getting picked straight out of high school were slim and I’d started to make my peace with it. Berkeley was becoming a real possibility for me now but for some reason Alexander didn’t push me to make a decision. It would be another three weeks before we finally did hear from a scout.

Alexander had spoken to a few scouts that saw me as a wild card. I was listed as a prospect for the NHL draft, but I was somewhere in the eighties of the top one hundred prospects. I’d turn eighteen in August, and I hadn’t played in any minor leagues, only the varsity team at my school. I was unknown, and I knew that hurt my chances for draft week.

I rejected Alexander’s idea to attend the draft in person, the disappointment would be too big if I sat there in the stands and my name wasn’t called. I wasn’t sure that I could handle it and I didn’t even want to watch it on the television.

The week before the NHL draft, Madison told me that she had a surprise for me. I had to meet her at her house at four pm and we’d be back pretty late. I was nervous because the deadlines for almost everything were nearing, and I still didn’t know what I wanted to do.

The drive took two and a half hours, and we were now in Minnesota, heading to Fergus Falls and I had no idea what she was planning. The look of excitement on her face though had me excited and I knew then that I loved her.

She pulled up to a double story house in a nice neighborhood and everything screamed money. I had no clue what we were doing here but Madison took my hand and led me up the porch steps that didn’t even creak.

My breath caught in my throat when the woman opened the door and recognition flooded her eyes as she looked at me. It felt like even my heart had stopped beating and Madison squeezed my hand as I turned around and started to walk away.

“Kage!” she called after me and grabbed my arm.

“You left me! You just left me!” I said angrily.

“I’m sorry, I really thought you’d be better off,” she said as she followed me down the steps.

“Better off? You left me in a park! I waited for you! I sat there on that swing with that stupid red balloon for hours! You think I was better off? Was I better off when some foster kid stuck a knife in my ribs when I was eight? Or maybe it was the time I got thrown down the stairs and broke my collarbone and wrist when I was ten. Was I better off every time I got assaulted or went to bed hungry? Was I better off when I got beaten and my drunk foster mother burned me with her cigarettes? How about the time I was locked in the wooden shed for a week without food!”

I had forgotten that Madison was still on the porch looking at me with a horrified expression on her face as I said those words out loud for the first time in my life. Denise, the woman that gave birth to me, had grabbed my arm and I shrugged it off.

“I was struggling with depression, Kage, please,” she said.

“I don’t care, you get help, you don’t leave your kid in the park!” I yelled at her now.

“I’m sorry,” she said as tears streamed down her face.

“I was five! Fuck you, Denise,” I said, and Madison hurried after me as I climbed back into the car.

Madison handed me the keys and I started her car and drove away from that cursed woman’s house. My breathing was ragged, and it felt like I was having a panic attack. I had long ago given up that I’d ever see her again and as my new reality had set in, I’d begun to hate her.

“Kage,” Madison said softly and put her hand on my arm.

“Don’t,” I said as I moved my arm away.

I couldn’t handle this. Seeing her again had brought up all those memories I had tried so hard to bury. The past would never let me go, I realized sadly. I would always be haunted by those things and that’s why I struggled to trust.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered.

“I said don’t!” I yelled at her, and she flinched.

I drove back to her house in silence, fighting my own demons. I couldn’t believe that she’d do this without talking to me, she could have asked me if I had wanted to see her. I was angry and hurt, devastated at having to face the woman that had ruined my life.

“Kage, I’m sorry,” Madison said as I slammed the car door and started my bike.

I didn’t even look at her as I closed the visor on my helmet and drove away from her house. She knew the truth of what had happened to me now and I couldn’t deal with it. She’d had pity in her eyes as she looked at me, a damaged soul, broken by life.

It was late by the time I got back to the house, and I sat on my bike in the garage for another twenty minutes. I ignored Miles and Endri in the living room. I passed Castiel on the stairs and he stopped me as I tried to ignore him as well.

“Hey, what happened?” he asked me.

“Nothing, it’s fine,” I said.

“We’re all here, Kage, anytime,” he said to me.

“Yeah, I just need some alone time,” I said as he let me go.

In my bathroom I turned the shower on, and I stood there for a long time thinking about my past as tears just spilled over my face. When I felt a bit calmer, I got dressed in sweats and put my phone on silent. Madison kept calling and sending me texts and I really didn’t want to talk to her.

I went down the hall and knocked on Sloan’s door. He had gone through some tough times, and I was the closest to him out of everyone. I didn’t know what to do about Madison or my mother for that matter. I thought that maybe both of us needed to let off some steam.

“Sloan,” I said loudly to no answer.

I could hear soft music coming from his room. It was one of his own melodies playing, a melancholy sound, deep and dark that tugged at your heartstrings. I opened his door, and his room was empty and dark, the light from his bathroom filtering through the door that had been left ajar.

“Sloan?” I called out again as I walked to his bathroom.

“Sloan!” I yelled when I opened that door and found him slumped against the bathroom wall next to his shower.

I pressed my hands over the wounds on his wrists but there was so much blood. I was screaming his name and just held onto his wrists when I heard Alexander behind me, cursing loudly as he grabbed towels and wrapped them around Sloan’s wrists.

Paramedics had arrived and Alexander leaned against the wall with his hands over his face as they declared Sloan dead. I was sitting where Sloan had been, his blood soaking into my jeans, staring at the wall in front of me.