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He sits up and stares straight ahead as he speaks. "You pretend like we meant nothing, like we never even happened. Do you have any idea how much that hurts me?"
It's all becoming clear now. "You coming here was never about us recording my song, was it? It was about you finding a way to get to me."
He hesitates briefly before answering. "You're a smart girl, Laurie."
He can forget it. I wouldn't have anything to do with him, even if Jack Henry weren't in my life. "You need to leave."
"I'm not leaving until I tell you how I feel."
I reach up and touch my face. It hurts like hell. "There's no point."
"You're wrong." He turns to look at me. "I love you, Laurie, and I know we can make us work. I told Beth I want a divorce."
Why would he do that? We're not even in a relationship. "I hope you didn't do that for me because it changes nothing."
"Of course I did it for you," he yells at me. He closes his eyes and takes a breath before he opens them and slowly releases the air from his lungs. "We can get it back—everything we had."
He's under the wrong impression if he believes I would have anything to do with him again. "No, we can't. I love someone else."
He twists from where he's sitting on the bed to face me. "I can't f**king believe this! I told my wife I wanted a divorce so I could be with you, and now you're telling me you love someone else?"
He's not blaming me with this. It's his own fault. "I didn't tell you to ask your wife for a divorce. I think I recall kicking you in the nuts and telling you what a lousy lay you were."
He grabs my shoulders roughly. "I threw my marriage away for you."
I'm frightened but not enough to keep my mouth shut. "Don't act like I ruined your marriage. You threw it away without any help from me. Now, I think it's well past time for you to get the hell out of here."
He pushes me roughly against the bed. He grabs my wrists and pins them over my head again. "I came here for you and I'm not leaving until I have you."
Until he has me?
It doesn't register immediately what he means to do until he puts one of his knees between my legs and forces them apart. Oh, God, no. "No! Please, don't do this!"
He tries to kiss my mouth but I turn my head and feel his rough stubble scrape harshly down the side of my face and neck. "Please, stop, Blake!"
"Don't be so dramatic. It's not like we've never done this before." He grips both of my wrists in one of his large hands and his free one moves down my body until I feel it pull up my dress. I struggle to close my legs, to buck him off, to kick him in the balls—anything to make him stop—but nothing I do is any match for his strength.
I'm screaming as loud as my voice will let me, but by the time anyone hears me and gets in here, it'll be too late.
Oh my God. He's going to do this to me and I can't stop him.
My realization sends me well beyond full-blown panic mode. My fight-or-flight response kicks in as I jerk my head up from the mattress as hard as I can to head-butt him directly in the face. It hurts like hell, but it's enough of a blow to make him release me for my one chance at getting away.
I streak off the bed but he catches my ankle and forces me down to the floor onto my stomach. My arms are trapped beneath me by the weight of him lying on my back. My chest is pressed into the floor so hard, I can barely breathe.
I feel the warm ooze of what I know is blood running down my forehead and it gets into my eyes, blinding me. I blink to clear my vision so I can see to run when I get another opportunity, but then I feel his hand up the back of my dress and inside my underwear. I feel his fingers there and he gives my panties a quick jerk, forcefully pulling them down my legs.
My chest is being squeezed tighter and it's harder to draw a breath, so much so that I can't inhale enough air in to scream anymore. I feel dizzy and see spots before my eyes despite the blood blinding me.
I'm conscious—but barely—when I hear the click of the lock on the door. It opens and I hear Jack Henry talking as he comes into our room. "I'm sorry that took so long, babe. I wasn't getting a good signal in the room so I had to…" He stops midsentence when he sees the scene before him.
His response time is so fast, it feels nonexistent. Once the weight of Blake is off me, I roll to my back and gasp to fill my lungs with the precious air they've been deprived of.
I hear crashing noises all around the room and a sound I'm sure is Jack Henry's fist slamming against Blake's face over and over. It feels like it goes on forever before I'm able to turn my head. I see that Blake isn't fighting back and I'm suddenly afraid of how far Jack Henry's anger has driven him.
"Please, stop before you kill him."
My voice reaches him and he looks at me with his fist drawn back. He drops Blake's limp body to the floor and rushes to me. "I'm so sorry, baby. Tell me where you're hurt."
"My head," I tell him as I reach up to touch the source of the bleeding. "And my face."
He helps me to the bed before he walks over to pick up the hotel phone from the floor. "I need an ambulance and the police in room 3255." He sees my panties on the floor and adds, "There's been an assault."
After he places the phone back on the receiver, he sits next to me and examines my face. "You have a pretty nasty laceration on your forehead. There's already too much dried blood for me to tell if you'll need stitches." He touches his thumb to the side of my face. "And I imagine you'll have an impressive shiner on this cheek." He watches my eyes. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"
We both know what he's asking without saying the words. "No. He didn't. You got here before he was able to do that."
He pulls me to him. "That's him, isn't it? Blake Phillips?"
"Yeah."
"Fuck!" he yells as he beats his fist into the bed. "This wouldn't have happened if I'd been in the room like I said I would be."
"No. You don't get to blame yourself for this." I put my hand on his arm. "What he did isn't your fault."
"I shouldn't have gone downstairs. I told you I would meet you in the room. I should've been here like I promised."
I can't sit in this room and look at Blake for another minute. "Get me out of here."
He takes me to the hall and we slide down the wall to sit on the floor as we wait for the police and ambulance to arrive. He holds me and we don't say anything, but it's all I need to feel safe. He's all I'll ever need.
It's ridiculous how long it takes for the police and the hospital to release me. By the time I'm free to go, I don't care about any of my belongings at the hotel. There's not a single thing there that I can't replace. I just want to go home.
