Privacy Code (Shatterproof) Read Online Free PDF Page B

should dress up. Two, you should prepare yourself for the fucking of a lifetime.
    Watts

 
     
    Chapter Seven – Catherine
     
     
    I woke up earlier than I do most Saturdays, anticipating an email from Watts. When I rolled over and grabbed my phone off the nightstand, there it was.
    Coming from anyone else, that last line of his email might have sounded like a threat or more likely a guy who over-promises things. But with all that I’d learned about Watts over the last six months, I knew he meant it.
    So at 6:50 on a Saturday morning when I would normally be sleeping, I instead found myself reading that line over and over. I had to get out of bed and do something instead of lying there wet, waiting, and eager, with almost twelve hours to go until we would meet.
    I forced myself up, put on my running clothes and went for a jog. I came home, ate some fruit I had cut up and kept in the refrigerator , and read his email once more.
    I spent most of the morning picking out what I was going to wear. Watts had said I should dress up, so I chose my best black dress and matching heels.
    Just after 1 p.m., I got his second email.
     
    To: Catherine
    From: Watts
    Subj : Re: Meet
    6 p.m. Hotel Palomar, in the lounge. Wear the red dress that you told me about. I assume you still haven’t worn it. Tonight would be the perfect night, although it won’t be on for long.
    Watts
     
     
    I couldn’t believe he remembered that dress. I had bought it four months ago. It set me back quite a bit, but I loved it and had to have it. Why, I’m not sure. Just one of those things. I had told him about it in one of our email exchanges when we were talking about the merits of saving for the future versus spending and enjoying in the present.
    I regretted buying that dress and had almost returned it. Now I was glad I’d kept it. He was right—it would be perfect for tonight.
    As I got ready that afternoon, I considered just how big of a leap this was for me.
    My past was riddled with episodes of harsh, cruel abandonment. I never knew my mother or my father. I didn’t even know if they were a married couple, or a young girlfriend and boyfriend unable to care for a child, or whether I was the product of a one-night stand.
    It could have been any of those three, or some odd combination of them, or something entirely different, something so dark and horrible I couldn’t even conjure up.
    Whatever the reason, I had been handed off from foster home to foster home throughout my childhood. I once overheard someone from the Department of Family Services use the word “unadoptable” to describe me. That was due to the fact that I had a chronic illness that no doctor was able to diagnose.
    Granted, I didn’t get the best medical care, so maybe if I’d been born into a family that was well-off or even just had a decent insurance policy, someone would have been able to help me.
    There were times when I didn’t have the energy to walk up a flight of stairs, and then there were times I didn’t have the energy to lift my own arm to feed myself.
    I had migraines that would lay me out for days on end, making me feel like my head was enveloped in a fog cloud that might never lift.
    Probably the most humiliating part of all of this was my inability to use the restroom by myself sometimes. This applied to taking baths, as well. Thankfully, I never had to deal with the prospect of a creepy foster dad or brother. There was always a female in the house if I needed help. Still, sometimes I just wanted it all to end.
    I missed a lot of school, but didn’t care because I was the target of much verbal abuse. I lost myself in the world of books and stories. I lived in fantasies because the nightmare of reality was too much to bear.
    By the time I was fifteen, the symptoms began to gradually subside, but every once in a while they’d come back with a vengeance.
    Now, at age 26, I was grateful to be seven years removed from my last debilitating physical…attack.