Free Blurring Lines by Chloe Walsh

when I imagined it was him inside of me and enjoyed it. Cade would hate me – think I was dirty.
    I am dirty …
    I clenched my eyes shut to hold in the tears.
    “None of this was your fault.” Cade’s voice was soft. His hands were gentle and his touch was tender. “You were abused, Mackenzie – violated.” He kissed my forehead again, and this time I shivered with pleasure. “Baby girl, those men are the one’s who should be sorry. Not you. Never you.”
    “I’m a whore.” I chanted the word over and over as the tears poured down my cheeks. “I’m a whore.” I dropped to my knees, feeling weary and distraught. “I’m a whore.”
    Cade dropped to his knees in front of me. “ You are an angel,” he corrected me, kissing away my tears.
    “I let them do it, Cade,” I sobbed. I felt like a dam inside of my body had burst open. I wanted to confide in Cade. I’d been waiting for him … “I didn’t fight back. I didn’t say no. I did everything I was told to do.”
    “You survived , Mackenzie,” he coaxed. “That’s the only thing you did. You didn’t choose any of the things that happened to you. What you chose to do was live , Mackenzie. To survive and I’m so damn thankful to you for that.”
    “The pills …”
    “The pills saved your life,” he replied quickly. “Without those pills, you would’ve ended up like the others girls. You know this.”
    “Did you ever regret it?” I asked, folding my body into his.
    He held me tight and I felt safe. “Did I ever regret what?” he kisses my hair.
    “Me.” I lowered my face. “The kiss.”
    Cade stiffened and I remained motionless in his arms. “No,” he finally said. “I have never regretted a second I’ve spent with you, Kenz, but there’s something you need to know …”
    “Mackenzie, sweetheart, are you alright?” The bathroom door swung inwards. “You’ve been in here an awfully long time – oh, my God!”
    Sharon stood in the middle of the bathroom with a horrified expression etched on her face. “What are you doing, Cade?” She looked at my face for a brief moment before turning her attention to her son. “Half-naked and sharing a shower.”
    “Nothing’s going on here, Mom,” Cade assured her, gently releasing me from his arms. “I just … we were …”
    “Get out of that shower, Cade,” Sharon hissed, red-faced. “Right this minute, or so help me, I will drag you out of it.”
    Reluctantly Cade released me, and with a heavy sigh, he climbed out of the shower. “You’re handling this all wrong,” he told his mother before leaving the room.
    I remained motionless, kneeling on the shower floor, staring up at Sharon’s shocked expression.
    “Your father asked me to come check on you,” she explained haughtily before taking a towel from the rail and draping it over my shoulders. “He’s so worried about you.”
    I held the edges of the towel together with my hand and watched as Sharon left the room only to return a few minutes later with a small pile of clothes.
    “I know you’ve been through a terrible ordeal,” Sharon said, placing the pile of clothes on the closed toilet lid. “And I am so relieved and thankful that you’re home, Mackenzie, I really am.”
    But …
    “But this is the real world, honey,” she told me. “And in the real world, it is not acceptable behavior to … shower with your stepbrother.”
    “My stepbrother,” I repeated slowly, churning the word around in my mind. “Cade is my …”
    “Yes,” Sharon said in a firm tone of voice. “Cade is your stepbrother now, and I will not tolerate what happened in here between the two of you ever again. Is that clear?”
    “Is that clear?” I thought about it for a moment, but nothing was clear in my mind. “He was comforting me,” I tried to tell Sharon, but she interrupted me.
    “He is not supposed to comfort you in the shower, Mackenzie,” she explained angrily. “Not with you naked and him halfway there.” She sighed as