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6
KAITLYN
Iimpulsively ask Mitchell to stay as the bath fills with water. I tell him that he doesn’t have to close his eyes while I undress. There’s a fluttering in my chest as I strip down to nothing in front of this gorgeous, strong police officer. He doesn’t deliberately make eye contact or stare at my body despite the fact that he could. I am only a couple of feet away getting naked and Mitchell manages to avoid looking.
I dip my toes into the bubbly bath and sink in inch by inch until I’m engulfed by the water and fragrance. Only then, when I’m buried beneath the bubbles, does Mitchell look at me. “It’s not too hot, right?” He asks with a nervous titter. “I wasn’t sure what you liked.”
I want it hotter. I want the water to be scalding. I want it to turn my skin a raw shade of pink and burn away the memories from the last few hours. But instead, I just tell him, “It’s perfect.”
“Can I call anyone for you?” Mitchell asks as I lean my head back against the wall. “Family? Friends? A significant other?”
The other officers asked that earlier, but I say the same thing I did then. “No, thanks.” My parents would rush over at a moment’s notice if they knew I’d been held at gunpoint and almost raped. They would arrive with suitcases and boxes and demand that I pack my things, give up my lease, and move back in with them. Of course, it would take a day or two for them to get here since they live in California and I’m all the way in Tennessee, but they’d buy the most expensive plane ticket if that’s what they had to do to get here.
I don’t know what my friends would do, frankly. I’m sure they’d gather around me and tell me that everything is okay. Marlie would be on Amazon ordering me a home security kit complete with a stun gun, pepper spray, and a self-protection ring with a blade hidden in the band. Ashley would offer to let me stay with her for a few weeks while I figure out if I want to keep living here or break my lease and find a new place. Zachariah would be halfway to the office to demand that the apartment complex let me out of my lease because I no longer feel safe in the building. Eric and Celeste would be packing everything up while Natalie baked her way through Betty Crocker.
I admit that some of those things would make me feel better. If I were surrounded by my friends, I think that this would be easier to handle. But having to tell them what happened is the only thing that stops me. I don’t want to relive those moments again. It’s bad enough that the officer I gave my witness statement to said that I’d likely have to do this again in front of a judge when the men went to trial. I don’t want to share another moment with someone who doesn’t need to know.
I also don’t have a significant other to share this with. I have a handful of guys I’ve been seeing every now and then from dating apps, but none of them are serious about me or vice versa. We usually get drinks, go dancing, see a movie, have dinner, or do something else to fill the void in our lives. I like to joke that I give them the girlfriend experience, but I think in a way that’s true. I give them all the companionship of someone to talk to without the intimacy. It’s an arrangement that works for all of us. All four of them would probably be very supportive and helpful if I told them what happened, but I don’t want to do that, either.
“Tell me about yourself,” I say to Mitchell after the silence starts driving the memories back into the forefront of my thoughts.
Mitchell scoots off the toilet lid and sits on the floor, pressing his back against the wall until he’s staring at me. “What do you want to know?”
Everything, I think. “How old are you? Are you going to be in trouble for staying here? Do you have someone waiting at home for you?” I suck in a deep breath after that question, realizing that it might cut me to the core if he says yes.
“32,” he starts responding in order. “Just turned last month. My boss might be a little peeved, but we’re pretty close. He’s my uncle,” Mitchell says with an embarrassed look on his face. “I get a lot of flack for it, especially when stuff like this happens. Oscar is pretty forgiving of my sympathetic nature, but the other guys aren’t.”
Has he helped women in a situation like this before? Is he known for giving baths to all the victimized women he comes across?
“But as for someone back home, the only person who’s waiting for me is a ginger cat named Lucky. He’s also pretty forgiving though. Just as long as his food bowl isn’t empty,” Mitchell announces with a grin.
Caring, considerate, and a pet owner? I find it extremely hard to believe that he doesn’t have a girlfriend or a wife. Men like him are a rare breed and easily snatched up.
“I take it Frankie isn’t much of a guard dog,” Mitchell comments after a few seconds. “I figure she’s about as useful as Lucky.”
She was pretty ineffective when both of the boys surrounded me. Once they tied her to the kitchen table, she was done for. She whined a few times, but after the blonde threw a pillow at her, she kind of laid down and watched with concerned eyes. “She’s a great companion, but she’s pretty useless in a fight,” I admit.
Silence overtakes the two of us and we sit there listening to the pop of the soap bubbles. Underneath the water, I drag my hands across my body, touching my thighs and then my stomach. I feel all the parts of me that were almost violated and make sure that they’re all still intact. “Why are you here, Mitchell?” The question comes with a wave of guilt. If he’s here just because he’s afraid I’ll hurt myself if I’m alone, he doesn’t need to worry about that. I might bury myself under blankets for a few days, but eventually, I’ll have to go to work.
Mitchell thinks about it for a moment. His head lolls from one side to the other as he considers what to say. Then, ultimately, he makes eye contact and shrugs. “Honestly? I don’t know. I mean, I have an inkling that you’ve awoken some overprotective beast inside of me, but I know that can’t be it. I walked through those doors and saw you in the clutches of those two kids and I thought to myself, ‘I will never sleep again if I don’t save her.’ It felt like I was hit in the chest by a bolt of lightning. I knew at first sight that your face would be etched in memories forever.”
His words plow through me like a Mack truck leaving me speechless in the bubbles. I’ve had men on dating apps tell me that it’s love at first sight or that they know we’re meant to be soulmates, but after a while, they drop off the map. They move on to their next target where they repeat the same words and use the same tired pickup lines. With Mitchell, when he says that my face will be inked indelibly in his mind, it means something. It means everything.
7
MITCHELL
“Here’s my number. I want you to call me any time, day or night, when you’re feeling scared, okay?” I send myself a text message from her phone to ensure that I have her number as well. My phone vibrates in my back pocket as reassurance.
Kaitlyn takes the phone back and looks at the new contact information I entered. “You don’t have to do this, you know.” She evades eye contact by staring at the screen instead of me.
I gently grab her chin and tilt her head upward until she’s forced to meet my gaze. “Of course, I don’t have to, Kaitlyn. I want to.”
There is a weariness in her gaze that tells me she’s skeptical of my promise. She doesn’t seem to believe that I care about her or that my intentions are pure. “What if I call you while you’re working?” She asks in a small little voice.
It makes me want to take her in my arms and hold her tight. She ignites a primal urge inside of me that I’m struggling to hold back. “If I’m in the middle of something, I won’t answer it,” I admit honestly. “But the second I’m finished and have a moment, you can bet your ass I’ll call you right back or show up at your door. Whatever you need from me, I want to provide.”
It’s been a long few hours. The sun started to fade from the sky a little bit ago and I ordered food to Kaitlyn’s apartment. We sat on her couch and watched Family Feud while feasting on the finest Chinese within a ten-mile radius. Between laughing at Steve Harvey and the contestants, Kaitlyn found herself warming up to me. She even allowed her hand to brush against mine once when she was reaching for an egg roll.
