Insomnia

INSTIGATOR OLD

He's going to miss staring at her. Her floral sundress flutters with her curls, the breeze gently caressing her skin with it's warmth.

Evangeline comes in from the balcony, smiling softly at Cade while tucking her white gold hair behind her ear.

"What were you up to?" He asks, unable to look away from her bright green eyes.

"Thinking. Watching." She responds, sitting on the armrest of the chair opposite him.

"You like the waves crashing?" He asks, and Evie nods. "I do too." Cade murmurs.

"Don't most people?" She muses aloud, grinning.

Cade smiles back softly, deep in thought. "It reminds me of my childhood home." He tells her. "I lived in this little cul-de-sac. You know, like normal middle-upper class beings. And we called it the treehouse because in the kitchen where the table sat, there were these full windows around it. It looked out on this creek. I didn't ever have a true backyard as a kid with grass and swings. It was completely taken over by english ivy. You never knew what the fuck was gonna jump out at you. That creek was the nastiest thing. It was completely polluted and was practically stillwater in most places. It was relatively clear is the strange thing. Me and my brother would go up and down this stretch of creek for hours. Both the sides were made of boulders and rocks, so like the idiots we were, we would run on the rocks, barefoot, try and beat each other and push each other into the water. It was all covered in hidden pieces of glass and other things carried down by rainstorms." He runs a hand through his hair, reminiscing. "I friggin loved that house. We remodeled the deck before we sold it, but there used to be this playhouse type thing under the deck. It had swings and rock wall drilled into the brick on the side of the house. It was enclosed in this old, rotting lattice. It used to be filled with English ivy as well, but my father personally ripped it all out. Those swings... I had the time of my life on those damn things. You'd try and hit the ceiling with your feet without hitting the pipe or nearly hit your head you were going so high. I knocked out a wasps nest once," he laughs. "Me and my brother jumped off and ran like hell back upstairs. I got stung. My brother was allergic, so I tossed him my coat and got stung like four times. And the front lawn... Jesus, my mother slaved over that front lawn for years. We had pumpkins one year — well, pumpkin. Singular — and strawberries. Man, I loved those strawberries. Those were my babies." He catches Evie holding back her laughter. "Baby, I love strawberries. Don't underestimate my love for strawberries."

"I don't doubt it. You ate a full carton in one day. I like hearing about your childhood." She murmurs. "Tell me more."

"Well, yeah. My mother slaved over that yard — garden. It was mostly a garden. Our front yard wasn't very big. She put a sprinkler system in it and grew carrots and all sorts of other things. At any time of the year, there'd be some color in the garden. Whether it be tulips for spring, mums in fall, or those winter blooming rose bushes, there was always something. Irises. There were these pretty purple irises. They were so alien, they had this little orange-yellowy fuzzy strip on them. — weird. Azaleas as well. They reminded me of cheetahs because of the patterns on them.

"I had the most normal childhood. In middle school and high school it all turned into a shittastic mess, unfortunately. My mother died when I was in fourth grade of cancer and my father as drunk himself into oblivion by the end of that school year." He steadies his head in his hands. "He beat the shit out of me. I got it worse than Hunter. I made damn well sure of that. By sixth grade we were jumping around in foster homes, and when I was in seventh grade me and Hunter were separated. He's in med school. I wasn't as lucky. There was a point..." he hesitates, staring at the glass of golden alcohol in his hand. "There was a point where when I was too old for one, I would be auctioned off to the next." Cade's voice begins to waver and he takes a sip of the harsh liquid, baring his teeth momentarily. "There are pictures." He rubs at his chin. "People - enemies have seen them. They know, but not all of it. They don't understand how much pain I went through. They didn't know what those sadistic fucks did to me in their free time. Six years, Evie. It always comes in sixes."