"Kayla!" Mandy thrusts the door open. She doesn't hesitate to pull me into one of her big hugs. I wrap my arms around her taking in the familiar scent of lavender.
"I missed you so much," I pull back gingerly.
"I'm glad to see you, sweetheart. Even if it's under such circumstances," she smiles.
"Thank you for everything, Miranda," Kate sighs.
"Oh, it's no problem at all," She brushes off. "Kayla, I made your-"
"Yeah?" I prompt when she trails off.
"Kayla, what happened to your face?" Miranda asks sadly.
I just stare at her not wanting to admit the ugly truth. The words are blocked by my lips refusing to let them leave my mouth. It turns out I don't have to say anything. Miranda is a very intelligent woman. It takes her merely seconds to catch on.
"That son of a bitch!" Miranda yells savagely. I'm not used to hearing her so angry. She's always been such a gentle soul, well, around me. "You wait until I get ahold of him. I'll cut his heart out and eat it for breakfast. I always had a funny feeling about that man."
"We are gone now, it's fine," I try to calm her down.
"Come on, Kayla," she grabs my arm leading me into the house. "I'll get you fixed up. Kate can deal with the luggage."
I know Miranda too well to not know that she's grown a small hatred towards Kate now. Mandy is very overprotective of me. The fact that Kate knew who John was yet brought me under the same roof as him is infuriating to her. Kate's blind love was blurring her vision on the situation, however Miranda can't see past the purple bruises across my face.
Miranda takes me into the bathroom sitting me on the toilet. She grabs a damp cloth filled with ice cubes gently pressing it on my face. It hurts, but the ice numbs the pain.
"This will help reduce some of the swelling," she tells me soothingly. "I can't believe this happened to you. I never should of let you go with them."
"You couldn't have known. You're not to blame here."
"That woman knew," she spits out.
"Kate is doing the best she can to care for me. She left him as soon as she found out he laid a finger on me. That only person to blame here is John."
"You're such a strong girl, Kayla."
Mandy gets me to hold the ice against my eye as she goes to shut the bathroom door before kneeling down in front of me.
"How was living with her? You never mentioned much about it during our talks on the phone."
"It was rough at first because Kate didn't know a thing about parenting. She's slowly starting to get the hang of it. We've started to grow closer," I explain. "I still get to spend lots of time with Olivia and Lucas. I also made new friends with these amazing guys and met Henry who is just spectacular."
"It sounds like you're close with this Henry boy," she muses.
"Well, he's kind of my boyfriend," I admit.
"Well, you're 'kind of boyfriend' is welcome here whenever you'd like. All your friends are welcome for that matter," Miranda smiles taking the cloth from me. "Why don't we grab your belongings and take them up to the spare room?"
"Kate can take the room. She is the adult."
"Nope, she can sleep on the couch," Mandy aggressively wrings the water from the melted ice out of the cloth. I can tell from her attitude there is no arguing with her. I think she is going to hold a bit of a grudge towards Kate for a while.
YOU ARE READING
Rock Bottom
Romance"I pray that the last time I said goodbye was not meant forever." *** Growing up with a single parent with not much money to spare wasn't particularly easy, but Kayla never felt like her life was anything less than amazing. Her father loves her dear...
