Page 48 of Dark Creed

It was sometime over the weekend that I realized I was in big trouble when it came to Creed. What I was starting to feel… it wasn’t just a stupid little crush, something that came out of the blue and left just as easily.

No, it was more than that. When I looked at him, my heart sped up. When I met his stare, my skin grew hot. When I thought about him, my thoughts ran wild, and I thought of things I never had before, like a life with him.

How long would this last? Would he leave me brokenhearted, forced to return to my dad? I didn’t want to think about it.

Ignoring my insecurities and my slight sickness thanks to that pill, it was a good weekend. But Monday’s doctor appointment couldn’t come soon enough. He was coming to Creed’s apartment, a traveling doctor, I guess? I took it to mean he would bring pills to give me, along with a prescription I could refill somewhere else—but again, I had no idea how it was going to work.

I was so nervous all throughout the day on Monday, even Beth knew something was off. I told her I’d help her out either Tuesday or Wednesday, that I was busy after class today but I didn’t tell her why. I highly doubted normal girls got so excited and anxious about getting onto birth control.

It was a little after two-thirty. I was leaving my last class of the day, ready to go home and meet with this doctor. I followed the rush of students out of the lecture hall after packing up my bag and pushed outside. Just outside the building, a few concrete benches were arranged, along with a bike rack and a trash can. People always hung around there, and today was no different.

I didn’t think anything of the people lingering near the doors to the building, and I kept walking. I made it twenty feet out of the building when a strong hand wrapped around my upper arm and pulled me aside, off the sidewalk and onto the short grassy section near the bike rack.

I didn’t even have time to shake the hand off me and demand to know what the hell they were doing, because when I turned my head to see the owner of the hand, I saw a face I never thought I’d see again. At least, not for a while.

A haggard, wrinkled face stared at me, his expression a glower. His hair was greasy, as if he hadn’t showered for days. He was slow in letting go of my arm, and he said not a single word, simply glaring at me.

“Dad?” I could barely get the word out. The world spun around me; he was the absolute last person I thought I’d see, especially here on campus. “What are you doing here?” I swallowed after asking that, and it took everything in me to not reach up to my neck. He wasn’t choking me, but the memory flashed vivid and bright in my head, intense, as if it had taken place just yesterday.

“I came looking for you,” he told me, as if it was obvious—and I supposed it was, because who the hell else would he be here for?

All I could say was, “Why?”

“It’s time to come home, Taylor,” Dad said, taking on the same tone he always did when he told me what to do. In the past, I’d always ducked my head and did whatever he wanted, just so he wouldn’t get angry. And if he’d been drinking, well… nine times out of ten he got angry.

I didn’t… I didn’t know what to say to him, but I certainly wasn’t going to go home with him. “Dad, I—”

“Look, I know I did some things I shouldn’t have, maybe said some stuff I shouldn’t have, but that doesn’t mean you can just leave. I’m your father, Taylor, and what I say goes. Did you forget I’m the one paying for this place?”

I was seconds from correcting him, from reminding him that I’d taken out loans to pay my tuition, therefore it wasn’t money out of his pocket—it was out of my future pocket—but I didn’t. It would only fall on deaf ears.

Instead, I said, “I’m doing fine, Dad. That’s all that should matter.”

“Well, I’m not,” he hissed out with an ugly frown. “And you’re coming home with me,now.” He went to reach for me, to grab my wrist and probably tug me along, to take me back home where I’d be stuck with him forever, but I jumped aside, dodging his outstretched hand.

“No!” I realized I’d raised my voice a bit, so I worked to lower it when I continued, “I’m not. I found someplace else to stay, Dad, and I’m staying there. I’m sorry, but I’m not going home with you.”

In all reality, he only wanted me to come home so he’d have someone to take care of him and the house. Cook, clean, do the laundry, make sure all the bills were paid on time—the sort of thing he should be used to worrying about, not me. I was his daughter, and yet I’d been acting as the adult of the house for so long now.

And not only that, but also taking his abuse because I had nowhere else to go.

Well, I had somewhere else now, and I wasn’t going to look back.

His face twisted in a sneer, and I couldn’t help it; I threw a glance over my shoulder at the other students walking by on the sidewalk, seeing if they noticed the scene going down. A few people threw glimpses our way, but they didn’t stop. Most pretended not to see.

“Bullshit,” my dad spat. “Where the hell you staying, huh? You got friends I don’t know about?” The tone he took was both furious and disdainful, as if he couldn’t believe I could have friends, let alone a friend that would let me stay with them indefinitely.

I didn’t appreciate the look he gave me, nor did I appreciate the insinuation that I was too weird to have friends, so I said something I’d probably regret: “For your information, I’m staying with Creed—and he said I can stay with him for as long as I want, so no, I don’t think I’ll be going home with you.”

Standing up for myself, again. Look at me, growing a backbone when it came to my dad and the way he treated me and talked to me. It had only taken nineteen years… and a choking.

The instant I said Creed’s name, my dad’s expression changed. It morphed from one of annoyance and rage to one of shock—but that shock didn’t last. “You whoring yourself out to your old stepbrother, then?” He chuckled at that. “You think he’ll let you stay forever, Taylor? Got news for you: everyone gets tired of you, even me. I’m the only one willing to put up with you.”

Whoring myself out? Hearing that, watching him say it with a straight face, as if that’s really what he thought about me, filled me with a dark, dangerous kind of rage I didn’t think I’d ever felt before.

“Creed is a better man than you,” I spoke with words in a growl, narrowing my eyes at him. My voice came out low and steady, almost menacing, “He’s twice the man you are. Nothing you say or do here matters, because I’m never going home with you. I’ve moved on, and I suggest you do the same.”

I didn’t give him the time to retort, spinning on my heels and walking away after that, my pace quick. I heard him try to stutter out a response, but I didn’t stop; I kept going, holding my head high as I went.

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