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I’d also had so many strips torn off me by what he’d put me through that I didn’t feel strong enough to run away anyway, and for the life of me, I couldn’t picture anywhere I could go that he wouldn’t find me. He was also a decorated veteran and the pride of our area, and he had resources he could use to find me, regardless of how far away I ran.
Then it sank in—a stranger had saved me.
“He’s Governor Dahl’s nephew, so he called his uncle to tell him what’d happened and got him to speak to the authorities. They’re interviewing Aidan now and Governor Dahl’s putting pressure on them to deny bail given that John has priors.”
Did he?
Weakly lifting a hand, I pointed at my face.
“Yeah, honey. You’ve got a fractured eye socket, another one in your cheekbone, your jaw’s broken and wired shut, you have three fractured ribs, and there’s bruising to your kidney. That’s not to mention the—” she broke off and swallowed loudly as tears started pouring down her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, my sweet girl. I just can’t,” she sobbed, her head dropping as her body shook with the force of them.
Each sob was like a knife to my heart but also made my body feel like someone was hitting it with an ax.
“What she means,” my sister, Tara, said as she took a step forward, “is that you have a lot of bruising around your neck, too. Your voice would be a bit weird if you could speak, but the wire in your jaw’s stopping that from happening.”
I wanted to nod to let them know I understood, but even tensing the muscles slightly in my neck was agony. Instead, I just blinked.
Another one of my sisters, Asia, smiled weakly at me. “Jay-Jay, you’re going to want to get someone to hold a mirror up so you can see it for yourself, it’s the natural thing to want to do, but can you trust us only to do that when we think you’re ready?”
It wasn’t until the next day, when I had the strength to write things down on a pad for them, that I managed to ask why.
Come to find out, when the bastard had strangled me, the blood vessels in my eyes had burst, meaning that I looked creepy because my eyes were bright red. If it’d been Halloween, it might have been a cool effect for a costume, especially with the handprint bruises around my neck.
But it wasn’t and never would be.
Jokes about Halloween aside, it was never okay or funny for someone to abuse or violate you. Ever! In fact, I doubted if I’d ever be able to look back on this with amusement and without feeling anything but the terror and violations I’d had inflicted upon me by him.
A week later, when the doctors were happy that my kidney was healing and that I’d be okay to go home, I left the hospital a broken person. Yes, I was literally broken, but I also felt it mentally and emotionally.
Stupid me, I expected my friends, the ladies I’d once shared a house with for three years, to finally support me through it all once they saw what he’d done. Apparently, though, they thought that the popular former Marine was still the better choice. Oh, they’d talked the talk at the hospital to all of us, and forgiveness was divine, wasn’t it? But the reality was far different.
While I was healing physically, I was breaking emotionally and mentally all over again by the lies being told about me—by both him and my roommates, whom I’d moved back in with after leaving the hospital after they’d insisted. The atmosphere in the house was awful, and it felt like I was treading on eggshells, so I mostly stayed in my bedroom.
I was scared to eat or drink anything in case they’d put something in it, afraid even to use my shampoo and body wash for the same reason. I was also scared to sleep in case they did one of the heinous things I’d heard them whispering about, like shaving my head. And when I did sleep, I relived what John had put me through.
The only reason I’d moved back in was that I’d needed a place to stay while I waited for the court case to go ahead. Plus, they’d put on a good show of promising me and my family they had my back and were sorry for believing him. I guess his good looks and popularity in the area had won him their loyalty, especially after they’d all begun dating his friends within weeks of my release from the hospital.
Yeah, you’re damn right I moved out the second I found somewhere else to go. Between them and my ex, my trust in other people was shot, so I found a rent-by-the-week apartment.
