“Yeah,” I answer. “A real light touch. Slowly, I got separated from my friends, and all of them started to act weird around me. I didn’t realize what was happening for a while, and by the time I did, the damage was done.”
“You broke up with him, though?”
“Yes. It didn’t go well. He got completely unhinged and said some crazy things. I just slammed the door in his face and thought that was the end of it.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No. I tried to get back into full-time work, but the owner of the bar started acting weird toward me. Paul had gotten to him, told him some lies. I ended up quitting and then couldn’t find another job. Meanwhile, my friends wouldn’t answer my calls. Paul had gotten to them, too.”
“And that still wasn’t the end of it.”
“Not by a long shot,” I answer, feeling the old helplessness and misery flooding my chest again. “It felt so much like what happened to me at home,” I mumble, feeling tears streaking down my cheeks again. “I felt so lost. That’s when Paul really upped his game.”
“Oh, no.”
“He started stalking me. I’d be waiting for a bus, and he’d be there watching me. I’d run into him while I was grocery shopping or running errands. Without fail, I’d freak out, and he’d blink innocently, like,I’m going about my business, and this crazy bitch is going psycho on me.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“Now I really was gaslighting myself,” I whisper. “Just like back at home, except there, I’d thought I was invisible. Now, I thought I was too visible, a wreck in full view of the world, and I couldn’t decide which was worse.”
“Did you go to the cops?”
“Are you kidding me? Paul would have had them eating out of his hand. He’d already convinced several people I was unhinged and had evidence of me losing it in public.”
“Fuck,” Brad growls, and I can practically feel his anger radiating through his skin.
“So, I didn’t know what I was going to do. It was getting hard to sleep at night, and I was still having trouble finding a job.I thought the situation was going to go on like that indefinitely, and I’d have to move. I was planning on doing just that when I woke up to my house in flames.”
He growls again and tightens his hold around me. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Yeah. I was trying to get out when Paul found me and dragged me out. I was torn between thanking him and being upset he’d obviously been hanging around my house when he tried to shove me into the backseat of his car.”
Brad’s arms tighten on me again, and I get the feeling that if Paul were standing in front of us right now, Brad would rip him to shreds.
“He said it was fun playing, but he was done with that now, and it was time to get serious. He admitted that when he lit the house on fire, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill me or not.”
“This guy is completely fucking nuts!”
“Don’t I know it. He told me that while he was watching the flames, he decided he wanted me alive after all. He had this really weird smile and said, ‘Sometimes you don’t really know how much you want something until it’s taken away.’”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. He tried to shove me into the car, and I managed to get away. I thought he’d get me for sure, but I ended up in this little garden with thick trees and bushes, and somehow, he went right by me and didn’t stop. It threw him off the trail enough that I could put some space between us. I moved a lot at first, and every time I got comfortable, I’d just get this instinct that I had to move. In Caliente, he almost caught up with me.”
“And that’s how you ended up in these woods,” Brad says. “Running from Caliente. Did you have any idea where you were going?”
“None,” I admit. “Nature always seemed to be my refuge, though. I told you, when I first left home, I did pretty well by myself. It was as if the trees themselves called to me, and said I’d be safe out here.”
“Well, they were right,” Brad says. “Because you found me, and I’m going to keep you safe.”
I chuckle. “If trees really could talk, I’m not sure that’s what they’d say.”
“I don’t know. Maybe they would. I’m grateful, though, whatever the reason is that you ended up here.”
“Brad, I—”
“No,” he whispers, holding me tighter. “I have always wanted an opportunity to take care of you, to try to make up for what I did. The universe gave it to me, and that’s all I really care about now—keeping you safe.”
