Chapter 54 Chapter 54: Stalling Part 1
Cathy's P.O.V
I knew I was only stalling. Accepting Hannah's invitation to stay the night wasn't solving anything. It was just postponing the inevitable confrontation that waited for me outside these walls. But as evening settled over the small house, painting the living room in soft shadows, I found myself curled up on the couch next to Hannah with a steaming cup of coffee in my hands, and for the first time in days, I felt something close to peace.
We talked for hours, about everything and nothing. About the weather, about the new coffee shop that had opened downtown, about that terrible movie we had watched together in high school that we both still remembered every ridiculous scene from. We talked about Hannah's first day at law school, about the time she had accidentally spilled coffee all over her professor's notes and thought she would get expelled.
We didn't talk about Xavier. We didn't talk about my crumbling marriage or my family's betrayal. We just talked like we had never been apart, like the years of silence had never happened. And it felt good. It felt normal in a way that nothing in my life had felt for a very long time.
"Remember when we tried to bake that cake for your mom's birthday?" Hannah said, laughing so hard she nearly spilled her coffee. "And we somehow managed to set off the smoke alarm?"
I couldn't help but smile at the memory. "We were banned from the school kitchen for a month. Your mom said we were a danger to society."
"She wasn't wrong," Hannah said, grinning. "I still can't believe we thought adding extra baking powder would make it fluffier."
"In our defense, we were fourteen and had no idea what we were doing."
"We had a recipe right in front of us, Cathy. We just chose to ignore it."
We both dissolved into laughter, the kind that made your stomach hurt and your eyes water. It felt good to laugh again, to remember a time when life was simpler and our biggest problem was a ruined cake.
As the hours passed, our conversation grew softer, slower. The coffee cups sat empty on the table in front of us along with the cups of ramen we had just devoured, and I could see Hannah's eyelids growing heavy. She tried to fight it, kept trying to start new topics, but eventually, her words trailed off mid-sentence.
I looked over to find her asleep, her head tilted against the back of the couch, her breathing slow and steady. She looked peaceful, content. I felt a pang of envy. When was the last time I had slept that peacefully? It’s probably been over a week.
I should have been exhausted. My body ached from the tension of the past few days, and my mind felt like it had been put through a meat grinder. But sleep wouldn't come. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw them. Xavier and Caroline in the back of that car, their bodies tangled together, their faces twisted in pleasure while I watched from outside like some kind of ghost haunting my own life.
Was this all real? Or was I going to wake up and find myself back on that cold street, my heart breaking all over again? The thought made my chest tighten, made it hard to breathe.
I forced myself to focus on the present. On the feel of the worn couch beneath me, on the sound of Hannah's steady breathing, on the faint smell of coffee and spices still lingering in the air. This was real. This moment was real.
My phone sat heavy in my pocket, a constant reminder of the world I was hiding from. It had turned off hours ago, sometime last night after Hunter brought me to his house. He had charged it for me but I hadn’t dared to turn it back on. I hadn't wanted to deal with it, hadn't wanted to see Xavier's name flashing across the screen with another lie, another excuse.
But now, in the quiet darkness of Hannah's living room, curiosity got the better of me. I needed to know. What had he been saying? What excuses had he been making?
My hand trembled slightly as I pulled the phone from my pocket. For a long moment, I just stared at the dark screen, my thumb hovering over the power button. Did I really want to do this? Did I really want to open that door?
But I had to know. I had to see what kind of person Xavier really was, what kind of lies he would tell to try to keep me under his control.
I pressed the button and watched as the screen lit up, the brightness making me squint in the darkness. As the phone powered on, I waited, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
Then the notifications started flooding in. Hundreds of them. Missed calls, text messages, voicemails. The numbers kept climbing, filling my screen with a sea of red notification badges. Most of them were from Xavier, but I could see Caroline's name mixed in there too.
My stomach turned. Of course Caroline was reaching out. She probably wanted to explain, to justify what she had done. As if there was any explanation that could make the betrayal go away.
With shaking fingers, I opened Xavier's messages first. I told myself I was doing it to gather evidence, to see what he would say that I could use against him later. But really, some sick part of me needed to know what excuses he would make.