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She wakes up at what must be four hours later. Cade awake, staring at her.
"Sorry, hun." He says, sounding a little better than before.
"For what?"
"Waking you up."
Brooke smiles.
"You didn't, just catching up from last night, I guess." She smiles.
"Sorry about that too."
Brooke sits up, shaking her head.
"You have no reason to be sorry." She leans down, kissing his forehead.
He worms his way back into her lap. Adjusting himself, legs around either side of her waist, dangling off the bed and rests his head on her shoulder. She takes a throw blanket, draping it over his back and then wrapping her arms around him. His body temperature has cooled down a bit.
She can feel the squishy diaper pressing against her crotch, but she doesn't mind.
"You feel better?" Brooke asks.
"Yeah, a lot better." Cade says, still sounding choked up.
"Why are you doing all of this for me?"
Brooke is almost tempted to roll her eyes. Was wetting herself not enough to get it though his thick skull that she is there for him?
"I told you, I am here for you."
Cade shakes his head. She can feel the shoulder of her shirt beggining to dampen. Cade's chest starts rising and falling hard.
"What about when you leave?" Is what she thinks he says, though she really can't tell through his sobs.
"What do you mean leave?"
Cade tries to hold his breath, but that only makes him cry harder.
"Nobody has ever taken care of me."
"What do you mean?"
He sucks in a deep breath, which is broken up into small sharp inhales.
"I never had parents Brooke. I have been alone all my life. Nobody was ever there to help me. Not when I was sick or scared. They all took the money and left me." He starts shivering.
Brooke feels her spine start to tingle. Who took what money? She knew Cade wasn't raised by his parents, but he had never felt comfortable talking details and she wasn't going to force him.
"Who? Who took what money? What are you talking about?"
Cade smooshes his face into her chest.
"I was raised in foster care, bounced from family to family. No one ever really loved me. I was just a paycheck. I would sleep in soaking wet clothes. I would get hit for having accidents, I can't help it." He yells, frantic.
Brooke's chest tightens.
"I aged out when I was 18. Alone, no friends or family, basically on the streets."
"Oh, Cade." Brooke squeezes him even tighter.
He isn't having it though. He breaks away.
"I just want someone to love me. That's all I have ever wanted." Then he starts crying too hard to talk.
She pulls him back in, a tears streaming down her face. It takes 15 minutes for Cade to finally calm down enough to speak again.
"I can't do this."
"Can't do what?" She says desperately.
"I can't get used to someone taking care of me. When you leave, I---" he cuts off and closes his eyes.
"What does a girl like you want with a guy like me anyway? I am just this 23 year old nothing. A loser with no friends, no family who still f*****g pisses his pants. And you---" he coughs.
"You're Brooke Chance. Scholar, captian of the cheer squad, student body President. You have everything."
Brooke feels as if she has been shot in the chest. She chooses her next words very wisely.
"Cade. Look at me." Cade looks up, panting.
"I had that stuff, had. That was five years ago. Who I was, not who I am. What does a girl like me want with a guy like you? A sweet, kind, gentle person with a heart bigger than anyone I know. Who wouldn't want that? You're not a nothing. You're my everything." She tries not to cry, but finds its a losing battle.
Cade bites his lip.
"You're my everything too, Brooke."
"That's all you want? Someone to and care about you? To be there when you're scared? Someone to help you? To hold you? To love you."
"All my life." He says, weakly.
"I can be that person if you just let me."
Cade falls back into her chest, sobbing again. This time she let's him. She cries too. Quietly.
Cade eventually drifts off on her shoulder. She holds him, so, so, so tight.
She stays awake, looking around the room again. That explains the lack of pictures. She thinks how hard it must have been. Never having anywhere to call home. Going from one "family" to the next.
Then she gets scared. Cade's entire life is in her hands. He needs so much help and she is the selfish one who awoke that in him. She doesn't know what she is doing. She knows she has to try.
Cade isn't actually asleep. His eyes are closed but he is thinking too. Thinking about how much he loves being held. Thinking about how much better life has gotten since Brooke came into it. He hugs her tighter, rotating his head to look at her face.
She kisses him on the forehead. He has to go to the bathroom, really bad, he has already used his pull up during the nap, but it's nowhere close to capacity, just incase he does pee.
He must give off some kind of sign when he has to go, because Brooke can read him like a book.
"Let's take you to the bathroom." She manages to stand up, while kind of holding him on her hip, like a child.
She walks him into the freshly cleaned bathroom, that no longer smells like vomit.
She puts him down. He is able to stand now, he pulls his underwear down, letting the stream go.
Brooke gets out the last pair of underwear from under the sink.
"Shower?" Cade asks.
Brooke looks at the oversized Jacuzzi bath and smirks.
"I have a better idea."
The bath fills up quickly. Brooke takes the time to transfer the laundry into the dryer.
Cade rinses his crotch in the shower out of courtesy. Brooke settles into the warm, bubbly bath water. Cade steps in too. She pulls him back, his head on her chest, looking at the ceiling.
She runs her hands over his body. She never noticed how tense it was. Like every muscle has been clinched up for years. Knots in places she didn't know knots could form.
She messages gently.
And for the first time in Cade's life, he relaxes.
They sit in that bath until the water gets cold.
Brooke gets out first, drying herself. Out of some weird new found maternal instinct, she gets one for Cade too. She picks out another T shirt and sweatpants for him to wear while he slides into the last pair of underwear under the sink.
"Are you going home?" Cade asks, looking down.
"Might as well make it a long weekend." She kisses his lips.
It's Thursday, there is really no use in going to work for one day, just to be off again. Cade must agree because he nods.
"You'll stay here with me tonight then?"
"I have a better idea...
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