Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 134598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Her entire morning routine was off because she’d woken up so late.
You can handle this. Sit across from him.
Perhaps if she didn’t sit at all, it would be easier. Maybe she should take her breakfast outside. Or to the office.
God. What was wrong with her?
She prepared her bagel and grabbed a knife and fork before sliding onto a different stool and attempting to eat. But by then, her appetite had fled, and she ended up just eating a few bites before getting up and dumping the rest in the garbage.
“Cate, do you want to do anything this morning? Do you need to go anywhere?” Seth asked.
“Uh, no. I don’t have anywhere to go.” Because her life was sad. “I think I need to go work.”
Seth gave her a curious look, but she ignored him as she fled to her office.
With a sigh, she settled down. Now that she was here, she had to work. She didn’t want to make a liar out of herself.
Settling at her desk, she attempted to ignore her headache and got to work.
“So, how bad were things last night?” Rhodes asked Ethan as they made their way to pick up Samantha.
“Bad? Well, I’m not sure how to answer that. The screaming . . . fuck. I was terrified. I thought someone was in the house, hurting her. Once she woke up . . . things weren’t bad. But she . . .”
“She was in Little headspace.”
“Yeah. Does that happen often?”
“Not as much anymore. But whenever she gets stressed or something upsetting happens, she gets night terrors. And then when she wakes up, she’s regressed. Her therapist thinks it’s her mind’s way of coping with everything. Because Cate tends to suppress things most of the time, it all builds up over time, I guess. She might not show much emotion, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel anything. But then . . .”
“She has to deal with it somehow.”
“Right. The doctor isn’t sure why she doesn’t remember the next day. It could be a form of sleepwalking. Or perhaps her mind’s way of protecting her.”
“Is she, uh, is she autistic?” Ethan asked. He knew it wasn’t really his place to ask. But Rhodes was already sharing a lot more than Ethan thought he would with him.
“Yes, but that’s private. She doesn’t like people to know.”
Ethan frowned slightly. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“You and I know that but for Cate . . .” Rhodes sighed. “Things would have been different if our parents hadn’t died when we were nine. My aunt and uncle are . . . terrible people. They were all right to me. But Cate was different, and in their minds that meant wrong and strange. They ridiculed her. Made her feel like she was a burden. She’d been seeing therapists and getting speech therapy. But they stopped all of that when they moved us in with them. She started to go further and further into herself. Built a barrier around herself.”
That explained a lot. The way she kept her emotions and feelings tightly in check. Not letting them spill out.
“Those assholes.”
“Before we lived with them . . . Cate laughed. She had the most infectious laugh. Sometimes, we would have no idea what she was even laughing about. But she giggled all the time. Sometimes, I think that I’ll never hear her laugh like that again and it makes me so angry and sad.
“She loved to dance. And paint. God, she was so talented. Painting helped soothe and calm her. But my aunt and uncle didn’t want to spare any money for paint supplies. It didn’t matter that my parents had left us with trust funds that they could have accessed for anything we needed. Fuckers just didn’t want to do anything that would help Cate.”
God, his heart hurt for her.
“I’m only telling you all this because you saw her last night. And so you know why . . . why it’s really important you don’t say anything to her.”
“Rhodes, man, I don’t know. I don’t want to lie to her.”
“It’s not lying to her. She won’t remember. She only knows that she does this because I’ve told her. If she thought you had seen her, she’d be mortified. Cate is delicate. She can’t cope with the thought of embarrassing herself. She needs handling with care.”
He’d seen her fragility and vulnerability, which he could now understood better. But someone who’d been through what she had also had strength. Every day, she got up and faced life, no matter how tough she found things.
And that was something he admired.
But he also didn’t want her retreating further. “I won’t say anything. However, I also won’t lie if she asks me.”
“Yeah, all right,” Rhodes agreed.
“Why does her therapist think she goes into Little headspace after the night terrors?” That part, he didn’t understand.