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It was an unseasonably warm day just a few weeks into the school year, and so I'd worn shorts. The sun was shining, a teasing breeze drifting through the forest. My mood was starting to improve the more I had some time and space away.
I poised myself to take the first big lunge. Once you started, it was best just to skip straight across, no stopping.
It happened fast, so fast that more of it was processed in retrospect than real time.
The creek was small, but it was loud. Loud enough to drown the sounds of even a large man moving directly behind me.
It happened fast, so fast, all of it. Something hard struck me in the back of the head. I saw stars, and my world took a turn for the darker.
*****
It was hours later and I was still pissed. I'd been shuffled from the police station to the hospital. I was in a patient bed now, and they wouldn't let me leave. All I wanted to do was go home, shower, and curl up into a ball, but I had a bad concussion so that would not happen until tomorrow at the earliest.
And in the meantime, two cops, one male who'd introduced himself as Detective Harris, and one female who'd introduced herself as Detective Flynn, were asking me the same questions, over and over again. They didn't seem to want my answers, because every time I answered the same question the same way, the female cop looked increasingly more disgusted.
I took a strong disliking to both of them almost right away.
Her first and it started the moment she spoke to me. There was just something in her voice I didn't like, some undercurrent of hostility. No, it was more than hostility. It was judgement. Cold and final. This woman had an opinion about me and it was set in stone.
I wasn't sure why I didn't like Harris at first, but I didn't. Perhaps my instincts were trying to tell me from the start that something was wrong with him.
Looking back, it's easy to think so, but if it was so in the moment, I can't honestly say.
And worse than all of that, they wouldn't let Dante in to see me. I'd heard him, several times, making a fuss about it, getting himself into trouble somewhere in the hospital, trying his best, I knew, to make it to me, but so far he was losing.
I needed him to win. I needed to see his face, feel his hands holding mine, absorb his presence comforting me.
One upside: the detectives seemed as over it as I was. Finally, Flynn pulled the male officer to the other side of the room, the side with a second, currently vacant bed, shutting the curtain behind them.
The detectives started talking to each other about me, voices pitched low, but not low enough.
Flynn had made clear early on that she thought the whole thing was a colossal waste of their time.
"She's the daughter of Renee Theroux and Jethro Davis," Flynn was saying. "Can we really believe any story she's spinning? What do you expect? Who knows what kind of trouble she got herself into, and with whom. Should we just take her word for it that some homeless guy that's been living in the woods just walked up and attacked her?"
I felt my face getting red, I was so angry.
"It's obvious she was attacked, and that there was a sexual assault," Harris replied. "Nothing else is relevant. We need to figure out who attacked her. And you know as well as I do that this isn't the first time we've gotten a report like this."
"So we're supposed to just start digging around in the woods and grab every homeless guy with a spot by the river?" Flynn said impatiently. "On her word? That girl gets into fights with everyone, all the damn time, now we have to investigate one of her altercations like she's a victim?"
"Yes, we have to investigate it. That's our job. This was an assault, not a fight. Don't forget, we do have evidence, and there are several sex offenders that have gone off the grid around here. Not to mention all of the unsolved cases we're sitting on. It wouldn't be bad for us, in general, to start checking out some of the transients that have set up shop along the water."
Was this what good cop, bad cop sounded like? I'd never experienced it before. All cops were bad to me.
And it didn't make sense. I couldn't figure out why they'd be using this tactic on a victim. Oh wait, that's what it was. Flynn had decided I wasn't one.
God, I hated cops. I hated that I'd even had to call the police, but I was furious and I wanted the creep caught.
"Fine," Flynn said curtly. "Let's get back to the station and start the paperwork."
"Okay. You go ahead. I'm going to have a quick word with her."
I watched Harris warily as he approached me again, looking apologetic. "I'll be back to follow-up soon." He set a card on the high nightstand beside the bed. "Call me if you need anything at all."
I nodded, chewing my lip and looking down at my hands. "Thanks, Detective Harris."
"Call me John."
