Define Me (3 page)

“Hunter,

I had to go home.  It was a great
Holiday; please thank your parents for the lovely time. 

You and I both know that we have come to the end of our chapter.  If you haven’t figured it out yet, I heard what you told your parents last night about me.  Thanks for showing me yet again that it will never change, YOU will never change. 

‘
Fool my once shame on you, you fool me twice shame on me’.  I was a fool to believe you loved me the way I loved you.  Don’t try phoning me ever again, I will not fall for your empty promises.

I never ever want to see you again, I DON'T BELONG TO ANYONE! Oh and I wish Brent broke more than just your jaw. 

Caitlin.”

Chapter 3

Walking out on Hunter was a big step for me, I finally broke the cycle.  It was not easy; after finding my letter Hunter was furious.  The phone calls and text messages drove me crazy.  I was a blubbering mess, my mom lost it, and she contacted Annie and informed her that if he did not stop with the threats that she would have no choice but get a restraining order against him.  My mom then purchased a new phone and number.

I tried my best to forget the last year of my life but it was a struggle, if not for my parents and Heather I don't know if I could have done it. 

I was packing the last items in my suitcase as my mom and I were leaving for Long-beach in the morning.  I had my earphones in and was dancing around my room, to Stronger by Katy Perry when my mom came into my room and tapped me on the shoulder, “Heather is on the phone for you!”

Before I could get a word in she squealed in my ear. “Guess what? I just saw TDD! OMG he looks fucking hot in his army uniform, he can put his boots under my bed any day!”

"You know you are crazy, right?” My mind went back to the day Brent wiped my tears and called me princess.

"Hello, are you there princess?"

“Heather did you speak to him? Where did you see him?”

“We were stopped at a road block by the police and out of nowhere Brent appeared in some sort of camo uniform. He looked me in the eyes for a second and then walked away”

"Oh my word, I would love to see him again, I wondered what had happened to him"

"No I don't know, after Hunter’s parents got him suspended I heard his mom shipped him off to boot camp."

"Oh, yes I can remember you saying something like that.  Hey I had better go, I have a lot more to do and my mom and I are leaving in the morning.  I wish you could come with me, I'm going to miss you like crazy"

"Don't worry, we will be together soon
enough I plan to come visit. Go have fun, go find a sexy beach bum and fall in love, the proper way"

For my 18
th
birthday gift my dad gave me the beach house in Long-beach. It was a beautiful white double story house, three bedrooms upstairs; the main bedroom had glass sliding doors that opened up onto a small balcony, big enough for a love seat and a small coffee table. Down stairs was a big open plan kitchen with an island in the middle where the stove was situated.  It had another room that I could turn into my studio and a large lounge that opened up to the patio that run the full front length of house. 

I have so many fond memories of spending holidays down here. I remember the summer holiday when I turned 16, it was the best holiday I ever had and I spent it with my best friend.  My mom and dad arranged with Heather's parents that she could spend the entire summer holiday with us at the beach house. 

It was a magical time; we spent most of our days on the beach, where my love for volley ball began. 

Heather and I started playing Volley Ball with some of the locals, it
was amazing and when we went back to school we decided that we are going to pursue Volley Ball as our sport of choice. We rocked it!

Although I loved the beach house, it was very much my parent’s style. My dad agreed to let me change a few of the things in the house.  I told him what I liked and while I was on holiday with Hunter and his family my parents made all the changes.  My mom knew what style of furniture I liked and made sure that all was ready and waiting for me when I arrived. 

They kept my décor rustic; the main bedroom's walls were a light grey, I had a vintage canopy bed, with a pale blue upholstery headboard and white linen with a dresser to match.  The 2 bedrooms upstairs were very similar to mine, all decorated in white and pale blue.  My lounge had two couches with white slip covers, light grey cushions and a love seat, no TV. For the first time in my life I felt strong, I was finally doing things for myself.

It was hard getting over Hunter, I really struggled, and I loved him and thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, but it was not meant to be. Now it was time I lived for myself, move on and start a brand new live with new people and new challenges.  It was time for me to define myself, decide what is it that Cat wanted from life, not what people wanted for me. 

For so very long I had let Hunter run my life for me, he decided who I was allowed to be friends with, what sport I was allowed to play and what music I should listen to.  I could not believe I allowed a man to rule my life like that.  He loved to control people and I was an easy target for him.   

It was great having my mom with me for the first week.  Now it was back to reality, I needed to get focused.  But it was lonely, I missed my family and I missed Heather.

I quickly settled into a routine.  Every morning I would get up at 5 go for a run along the beach for 2 miles and on my way back I would stop at Simplicity, the health bar for my morning breakfast smoothie on the run.  On the days that it rained I would do yoga in my lounge in front of the big open sliding doors, so it still felt like I was on the beach. 

I would be at university from 8 in the morning until 2 in the afternoons, if not in class definitely in the library studying. 

When I got home in the afternoon, I would either be studying or reading. (I love reading I can't get enough of it at least three books a week and then suffer a serious book-hangover the next day.) 

I had set my IPod station up in my lounge, but you could hear it right through the house. Lucky for me my neighbours didn’t mind as long as I didn’t play it too loudly in the evening.  They were hardly at home anyway. 

Late afternoon I would sit on the beach or on my patio and watch the sun goes down. (That is my favourite time of the day.)

The time on my own was good; I had time to reflect on the past year and realized that I could not let someone like Hunter break me.  He might have defined who I was over the last year but sure as hell was not going to control the way I lead my future.  I was a good person, before Hunter entered into my life.  I took risks, I was a little crazy at times but most of all I enjoyed life and had fun.  So why couldn’t I be that person again? 

I would define the person I was and the person walking into the future. 

It had been a hell of a week, time to relax and have some fun. 

After coming home from class and seeing people having fun on the beach I changed into my white string bikini and my blue sarong.  I packed a picnic basket full of strawberries, grapes and a few bottles of water and headed off to my favourite spot on the beach.

After an hour on the beach some of the girls from my class came to join me.  We were acting like giggling school girls. It had been too long; I had forgotten how much fun it was to hang out with my girlfriends.

The owners of Simplicity set up volley ball courts just in front of the shop on the beach.  They were going to run a competition, to promote the business. A big Volley Ball tournament was held in the area a few weeks ago and everyone was into it. 

The winning team would receive a thousand dollars and would be the face of Simplicity. 

The girls decided it was great way for us to get together every week.  Samantha and I would make up one team and Isabel and Brooke the other. But for this all too happen we would first need to check if we could all play volley ball. The girls did not know that I got “player of the year” for volley ball at school; it was the one place that Hunter was not in control of me … I was good!

I also belonged to a club where we took part at national level. I heard Brooke also played at school level, so it was only Sam and Isabel that was new to the game, so hence the split of the teams.  There were not that many people on the courts so we got to play quite a lot, it was great. 

After a day of fun in the sun, we landed up at my place, chatting, laughing and just relaxing. I made the girls dinner; grilled chicken wraps, with some pineapple skewers. We sat on the patio eating super and chatting.   

I can see this group of girls will be my saving grace and I now realize that my self-esteem really took a knock.  I listened to the girls talking about the things they got up to in the final year of school. They had so much fun, they lived their lives to the fullest, I was involved with a prick that kept me away from my friends and all things fun just because he was insecure with himself. 

I would never let another guy do that to me again, I was going to have fun, not worry about what tomorrow would bring. I turned up the music, Over you by Daughtry, started to play and we danced the night away. At 2am I kicked the girls out, I needed some sleep, and if we were going to do this volley ball thing I wanted to be prepared.   I was very competitive and didn’t do things half way.  I took a long relaxing bath; I needed to calm my racing mind.  We talked about getting matching outfits for the competition, so first thing the next day we needed to go shopping. 

Saturday morning as I got up for my routine run along the beach, I got dressed into my black running shorts, pink tank top with my black and pink Nike sneakers.  As I was running past Simplicity, I spotted a black Corvette, I love old muscle cars. 

My father did not have a son so I always went with him to the car shows until I started dating Hunter.  There I go again bringing Hunter into everything.  I need to stop this shit; he is part of my past, no more wasting time thinking of him. 

There were a lot of people on the beach with their dogs, I ran to the end of the pier.  I stood there for a while I loved the sound of the Ocean. It was amazing.  The sound of a seagull squawking above my head snapped me out of my day dreaming. 

On my way back I stopped at Simplicity for a breakfast take-away.  The Corvette was no longer there, damn I missed it, and I wanted to see who the driver was of that sexy car. 

At 8am the girls were ready to go shopping.  We all landed taking my BMW; it was perfect weather to put the roof down.  At the sports shop we decided that Samantha and I would go for red bikini bottoms and white tank tops and Isabel and Brooke will go white bottoms and red tops.  The girls were shocked when I came out of the dressing room with my outfit on and they saw the water fairy tattoo on my back. 

“Wow, I never took you for a girl with THAT, when did you have that done?” Brook asked. 

“I got this after my holiday from Hell, just before school started this year”

“Holiday from Hell?"

“Yeah, after my final exam I went on holiday with my boyfriend and his family, to say it was Hell is putting it lightly.  We had what you can call a difference of opinion and I walked out on him.  Once I got home I felt like I needed to do something to help me forget the pain in my heart so I got a tattoo on my back, it took 2 hours to do the outline and then about 3 to do the colour.  I did it all in two sittings and for those few hours the pain in my heart was really gone, because the pain on my back was more” 

“Why a water fairy?”

“The Ocean calms me and fairies protect me, ok enough talking about me and my Tattoo, what do you guys think of the outfit, will it work? 

After our shopping trip I quickly made the girls a banana and pineapple smoothie before we went down to the beach to practise.  By lunch time we came back to my place for something to eat and to do some planning.  The competition started in 4 weeks, it gave us some time to work on our fitness, or should I say on Sam and Isabel’s fitness.  No more junk food, running every morning before class and then 3 times a week after class some Zumba at the local gym. Yes I knew it was a lot but really I wanted to win.  

At 4 the girls went home and I spent the rest of the day reading.  I went back down to the beach to watch the sunset.  It is the best time of the day, the sand is cooling down and you get a soft mist that blows back from the sea.  I can sit like this for hours just listening to the waves breaking. It’s a time that I can just close my eyes and drift away.

I wished I could forget about all the sadness that I still had in my heart.  I couldn’t take the tightness around my heart any more, I wanted to be free from all the heartache, how could I let a guy like Hunter define me, how can I let him destroy me.  I gave myself to Hunter because I believed I was going to marry him.  He was my one and only, the love of my life, my future. I did not know who I was more upset with, Hunter or myself. 

Something felt different that night, I felt like I was being watched, but not in a bad way, just like someone was watching.  On my way down to the beach I saw the Corvette again. Who did that belong to?

I woke up late on Sunday morning, it was a dreadful night, and I had that horrible nightmare again.  It didn’t help that it would have been Hunter and my one year anniversary. 

I stayed in bed most of the day, the soft mist rain outside was not good for my mood.  I cried, screamed and ate chocolate.  By lunch time I was getting quite irritated with myself and decided to go for a run in the rain.  I took an extra-long route, I thought that if I push a little harder, ran a little further just maybe I could push this feeling a little deeper down where it didn’t hurt so much anymore. 

On my way back I stopped at Simplicity.   Rebecca the shop manager was working behind the counter when I walked in. 

“Hi, what are you doing running in the rain; you are going to get sick!” 

“I just needed some fresh air; the 4 walls of my place were closing in on me”. 

While I was drinking my Strawberry smoothie (shops speciality) an older lady walked in, she was flustered and quite upset. 

Rebe
cca asked her what was wrong and if she could assist.  She said that she was just mugged and that a young gentleman, (with chocolate brown eyes) in a camo uniform called Brent came to her rescue.  I had noticed some army looking vehicles in the area over the past few weeks. 

After getting back to my apartment I put my music on and relaxed, day dreaming of the day Brent called me princess.  I don’t think I will ever forget those eyes.  I wished we had more time to get to know each other, but after he beat the shit out of Hunter, he was suspended and I did not even have a chance to say thank you. 

I eventually fe
ll asleep but this time I dreamed of brown eyes.   

Monday morning I woke up with a loud banging on my front door.  I grabbed my phone to check the time and realized that I overslept.  It was 05:15 and I was supposed to have met the girls outside Simplicity for our morning run. 

I ran to the front door to find Brooke glaring at me, both Sam and Isabel looked like they were still fast asleep.  I let everyone in while I quickly went and dressed no need for a shower because I would just have to do it again afterwards.  5 minutes later I was ready and we headed out for our run. 

We ran along the shoreline.  Sam was bitching about how she was never going to make it and we would have to carry her.  Gosh she was going to be hard work and my teammate.  I had my job cut out for me. 

We decided that it would so much easier if they stayed with me over the next 4 weeks whilst we trained. After a week of bitching and moaning from Sam and Isabel, things started coming together.  We looked good; there were some of the other teams that also practiced on the beach.  We played a few friendly matches, it was good. 

It was hard having a house full of people, I like my space.  But it was only for a little while.