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I wanted to reassure her. Hold her and promise her that I would never let her down.
But I didn’t.
Instead of speaking, I left.
* * *
Amethyst
After he left,I took a deep breath, trying to orient myself.
It didn’t work, and I suspected nothing would. I still hadn’t processed what had happened.
Wondered if I ever would.
I let out a sigh, trying to hold onto the tenuous calm I had just managed to grasp.
I could fall apart later.
For now, I rummaged in Davit’s dresser—something that made me happier than it should have given the circumstances—and found a pair of shorts and a shirt that would work.
Then I went into his clearly expensive, but not overly decorated, bathroom. It was just this side of spartan, orderly and clean in a way that only money could buy. It contained a stand-up shower, sink and mirror, separate room for the toilet, and a small closet for linens. It had what it needed and nothing more.
I chuckled, thinking of my own cluttered bathroom. I wasn’t even high-maintenance, but I had half-used bottles of hair products, lotion, lip gloss, and God only knew what else, from one edge of my cabinet to the other. I’d have to clean that up, I thought.
I sobered when I felt a shiver of fear at the thought of going home, felt tears threaten when it again hit me that my home, my sanctuary, had been violated.
I showered, taking my time, refusing to allow my thoughts to coalesce around fear.
Instead I focused on the feeling of the water, the smell of the soap, the fluffy washcloth.
The pattern on the shower floor was laid out to look like river stones but were what I suspected to be glass tiles.
Thought about anything—everything—but what had happened
I dried off, dressed in the T-shirt that was too long, the shorts that were a bit too tight, and then, for lack of anything else to do, I lay on the amazingly soft California king bed.
The scotch was definitely doing its job.
I wasn’t really a drinker, but I was glad Davit had given me something.
I was embarrassed that I’d fainted, but even more shocked that I’d had reason to.
As I lay there, nestled in his covers, feeling something like safe, a feeling I’d thought I would never have again, I finally let myself think about what had happened.
I could still feel that man’s fingers on my neck, his knee in my back.
I expected there would be bruises when I got up in the morning and knew that the pain in my cheek would take a couple of days to fade.
And I thought about more—the tight hold Davit had had on him, the way he had collapsed.
I didn’t feel sad.
Maybe that made me a bad person.
I was certain it made me a bad person. But the truth was, I had confronted death tonight.
That man would have taken my life and not given it a second thought.
