Page 89 of Love Me in the Dark

I sure as hell wasn’t ready for his wrath.

2

Cheyenne

8 Months later

Shame is defined as a painful feeling of humiliation. Did I make a foolish decision? Yes. But I didn’t regret it, and I sure as heck wasn’t humiliated enough to be here in Agatha’s home for troubled girls. The only one who felt shame about what I’d done were my parents.

The Davis family name was one of the more predominant one in South Carolina. With that name came certain expectations. Boys hunted, played football, and married a nice girl with a good reputation. Girls competed in beauty pageants, attended debutant balls, and always had to smile. So they could be that nice girl the good men would marry. Getting pregnant at seventeen didn’t fall into that plan, which was why I’d been hidden away.

Now, instead of being the daughter my parents bragged about, I was their dirty little secret.

“Hey.”

I smiled at the familiar brunette struggling to sit down on the grass beside me. “Hi.”

Megan Cooke was the only bright light in this house of the damned. From the outside this place looked like an oasis. A beautiful building tucked in the middle of lush trees and flowers. The kind of place someone might go to escape the chaos of city life. But the instant Daddy drove me through those gates, I knew better.

A dark cloud didn’t just hang over the plantation house in the center, it followed every girl around in the halls and yard. There were ten other girls here and not one of them smiled when we were introduced. That first night I went to bed feeling utterly defeated. Until I heard someone yelling out in the hall.

The last thing I expected to find in this place was hope. But when I peeked out in the hall, that’s exactly what I saw. Megan was wrestling with the head mistress while yelling at the rest of us not to give into their shit. The determination on her face didn’t fade when two orderly’s drug her away. It deepened. That was my first introduction to the only friend I had here.

When they let her out two days later, I couldn’t help but talk to her. We’d been attached ever since.

“That crotchety old bag told me I had to cut back on my calories.” The old bag Megan was referring to was Agatha, the stern elderly woman who ran this hell hole. “So, I stole her cookies.”

A snicker escaped my lips when she held up a bag.

“You’re going to get locked up again.”

“We aren’t locked up. We’re given time to reflect on our actions.” Megan snorted and enthusiastically devoured an Oreo.

“Reflection’s not a bad thing.” I’d been doing a lot of that lately.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t give into their bullshit, Cheyenne. No one wants to reflect that much. If we could be trusted with our own thoughts, than we wouldn’t be here.”

Her gaze dipped down to her round belly and I nodded in agreement.

I thought I could have one night of freedom. One night where I didn’t have to sit up straight and smile. Look where that got me.

“If you think about it,” Megan stuffed another cookie in her mouth. “This is all our parents fault. If it wasn’t for them we could’ve gotten birth control and fucked whoever we wanted.”

“Megan!”

“Oh, don’t blush at me. You know I’m right.”

She did have a point, but…

“I’ve only done it once.” That’s right, I was that girl. The one who got pregnant when she lost her virginity. How embarrassing was that?

“Really?” Megan’s face scrunched up in disbelief.

“Yes really.”

“You’re telling me you spent the night with him and he only fucked you once?”

“Yes, just one time.” I thought.