47This story is RATED R. If you are not old enough to read R Rated material, please leave. This story contains language and sexual content not appropriate for younger audiences. This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to real life is a coincidence.
Chapter 1
Cadence sat in her apartment, all alone on a Friday evening, willing the phone to ring. She sat waiting for Jacob to call so that she could finally get ready to go out. She lit her cigarette, and thought back to how she got there. She and Jacob had been together for five years and they had both just graduated from college. His brilliant idea for their futures was for each of them to return to their respective hometowns (a 10- hour drive away from eachother), until Cadence earned $6,000 and then she would move down to his hometown with him. Did he ask her if this was what she wanted? No, he decided this would be best for them. He never asked if that was what Cadence wanted, and honestly he didn't care because it was what he wanted. Cadence didn't totally hate the idea…she liked the thought of moving back to her hometown. She just never had any intention of saving the money and moving to his hometown.
Obviously, Cadence's boyfriend had some major control issues. For the past 5 years, she has felt like his little puppet on a string. Cadence put up with it because she felt like she had no other choice. She used to be a strong person, but he made sure to destroy her self-confidence and tear her down until she was his little toy. Cadence could see what he was doing to her, but she felt like she had no way out of the situation. Now things are starting to change!
'I'll play along with his little game…for now.' Cadence thought. They still talked on the phone every night, but she was just going through the motions and telling him what he wanted to hear. Cadence did love Jacob, but she didn't respect him. He had done too much to her over the years to damage the respect and trust she had for him in the beginning of their relationship. There was a small part of Cadence who didn't completely blame Jacob for his problems, she knew that he was the spitting image of his father; both in looks and in the way they treat women in their life. The funny thing is that Jacob detested the way his father was with his mother, but little did he see, he treats Cadence the exact same way.
Being at home since graduating was helping to bring Cadence back to the person she was before she met Jacob. She was slowly gaining her confidence back and she realized that there were ways to get herself out of her situation. She was becoming stronger every day that she was away from Jacob, stronger to realize that she would be better off to get out of the abusive relationship before he went too far. Over the history of their relationship, there were plenty of times when she would go to work with visible bruises on her arms, and her "work boyfriends" were ready to go kill Jacob. But Cadence never wanted to see Jacob hurt, no matter how much he hurt her. Cadence would never wish Jacob any harm; she just didn't want to be with him anymore. As much as he hurt her in the past, she could never hurt him back…she would never stoop that low.
Cadence still cared about Jacob, and because of that, she never really came out and broke up with him when she moved back home. He was her first love, her first serious relationship, and because of that he would always be special to her. But she knew she would have to cut her losses, and do it soon. They had been apart for 2 months now. In that short 2 months, Cadence began to blossom into the woman that she was before she met Jacob, and she felt great.. She had a cool new 2-bedroom apartment all to herself, her own car, and a great job as an insurance agent ('I know, I hate insurance, but the money is really good, especially for the area I am living in' Cadence always said).
As Cadence transformed into the 'bigger, better, stronger woman', she felt like she had to hide it from Jacob. He wouldn't like the changes that had come about, and he definitely wouldn't hide his disapproval. After never being allowed to enjoy herself when she went out with her friends in college, Cadence was now enjoying the freedom to hang out with her friends as she pleased. Shawna was Cadence's only female friend in her town since she didn't care to associate with anyone from high school. Cadence and Shawna started going out on the weekends to the town's hot spot, BenJAMIN's. She could never tell Jacob that she was going out to the bars because he would have flipped. She was never allowed to go out to the bars, even though she was well over the legal age. Every time Cadence went out in college, she would come home to him calling her a slut and a whore. Then she'd get pushed around for a while and end up sleeping on the couch for the next week. Even though Jacob was now about 10 hours away from her, Cadence still didn't want to deal with his crap for her going out to the bars. Who cares that he went out every night. It just wasn't ok for Cadence to go out, ever.
BenJAMIN's was a really cool place. They always played the hottest music and Cadence loved to dance. It didn't hurt that her good friend Kristian was the co-owner and wouldn't let them pay for a single drink. Every Friday and Saturday, Shawna and Cadence had a standing "date" to go to BenJAMIN's. They'd go out, drink and dance the night away, while flirting with all the cute guys that crossed their paths. Cadence never hooked up with anyone, just teased a little. She had a thorn in her ass to get rid of before she could let myself truly be with anyone else. She didn't think it was fair to anyone involved until she got rid of Jacob for good, and besides, she wasn't a cheater.
Cadence kept her eyes alternating between the phone and the clock. Before she could get ready to go out, she had to talk to Jacob. He was late calling, and Cadence was getting impatient. His call finally came through just when Cadence was getting ready to give up. He wanted to talk to her about every little thing that happened that day (including how he thought he was going to get pulled over by a cop while him and his buddy were smoking a joint, driving down the highway after work). She was trying to hurry up and get off the phone so that she could get ready to go out, but she didn't want to tell him why she was in such a rush. He was giving Cadence a hard time about it, so she finally blurted out "Jacob, I think we should break up!"
"Cadence, what the hell are you talking about!? Why do you want to break up all of a sudden? You have been a bitch all night, I think you need to get some sleep." Jacob yelled at her.
"No Jacob, this is the first time that I am truly thinking clearly. Maybe I am not saying it right, or doing this the right way. I'm not trying to hurt you, but I've been thinking about this a lot, and I just don't think we are meant to be together anymore. We are both just different now, and our lives are heading in different directions. People change and sometimes the things that someone once wanted are no longer what they truly desire." And the waterworks started! Cadence couldn't help but cry, she was breaking up with the person she had spent her life with for the past 5 years.
Jacob didn't know what to say. He started stuttering, just like he always did when he was trying to talk Cadence into doing something he knew she didn't want to do. "M-maybe you n-need to take some t-time to t-think about this."
"No Jacob, I have been thinking about this and I don't want to hurt you, but I think this is what both of us need right now."
"So what Cadence, do you have someone else already? Are you whoring yourself around up there? Has your whole town slept with you already?" She held the phone away from her so that he wasn't screaming directly into her ear.
'I should have known that Jacob couldn't handle this maturely, without making some sort of crack at me, trying to make me feel bad. He always has to try to make me look and feel bad. Must be he gets his self-worth by making other people feel like shit about themselves.' Cadence thought.
"Jacob, I'm sorry if I am hurting you. There is no one else, but I hope someday there will be. I don't want to stop talking to you, you are still my friend, and you always will be. I just can't be with you anymore." The tears would not stop. As much as Cadence wanted to be rid of him, it still hurt.
He yelled, "FUCKING SLUT!" and then hung up on her. All she could do was curl up on her couch and cry, hugging the phone tightly.
That's where Kristian found her.
Author's Note: Ok people. I've had some interest in this story lately, so I've decided to give it a little more attention. It was the first one I ever wrote (or at least started), and I knew that it needed work, so I'm going back through and cleaning it up. Let me know what you think…reviews are so much appreciated!