by Iona Rose
I really hope this works. I really hope that Jeremy does take the bait, and that he shows his true colors enough to convince Officer Prescott that I’m right about him being her attacker. I also hope that he doesn’t act quickly enough that Erika gets hurt before Officer Prescott can stop him. I’m sure it won’t come to that. Officer Prescott assured me that at the first sign of Erika being in danger, she would act.
My main worry now is that either Jeremy doesn’t show up at all, or that he does show up but acts like a normal, reasonable person and takes no for an answer. Officer Prescott has made it clear to me that she can’t hang around at Nadia’s place all night and I will have a lot of explaining to do if nothing comes of this and I have to tell Erika that not only did I lie to her about going out of town, but I also installed a police officer in Nadia’s bedroom without her knowledge.
Even if Jeremy plays into my hands and acts the way I’m almost certain he will act, Erika might still be pissed off at me about the way I have gone about this. I think it will be a lot easier to make her see this was the only way to do this if I’m proved right about Jeremy though.
I check my watch. It’s just after six. I am so tempted to walk around the building and see if I can spot Jeremy lurking around, but I resist the urge. If he spots me, then the whole thing is over before it’s even begun. I’ll just have to be patient and hope my plan works out. Nadia should be here soon and then at least I’ll have someone to talk to so my mind can’t get ahead of itself and let me blow everything.
Erika
I’m sitting in the living room reading when Nadia comes in wearing the dress we picked out earlier. She does a twirl and smiles.
“You look amazing,” I say. “Your date will be putty in your hands.”
Nadia smiles, but she looks nervous.
“What is it?” I ask. “You look like you’re dreading this.”
“I’m just a bit nervous,” Nadia says, flashing me a smile that doesn’t quite meet her eyes.
“Nadia if you’re not comfortable with this, you should just cancel it,” I tell her.
“No,” she says, shaking her head and smiling again. Her smile looks a bit more real this time. “I’m just being silly.”
“Well as long as you’re sure,” I say. Her nerves are rubbing off on me though and I’m still not convinced she’s really not worried about this. “Listen, do you want me to call you in half an hour or so? If things are going well, just ignore my call. If they’re not, you can use my call as an excuse to bail. Say there’s some sort of emergency or something.”
“No, honestly, it’s fine,” Nadia says. “He’s a really nice guy. I’m more nervous in case I say or do something stupid and scare him off.”
“There’s not much chance of you scaring him off while you’re wearing that dress,” I laugh.
Nadia laughs and checks her phone.
“Well he’s here. I’d best get going,” she says.
“Have fun,” I tell her.
She smiles and leaves the apartment. I can’t help thinking she’s not as happy about this date as she’s pretending to be. She seemed to be on edge somehow. I know sometimes there can be a few nerves about a date if it’s with someone you really like, but that seemed like it was more than that.
I shake my head, shaking the feeling away. Nadia is a grown woman. If she didn’t want to go on this date, then she wouldn’t be. Still, I make a mental note to text her later on and check in and make sure she’s ok.
I go back to my book and I’m soon lost in the pages. I jump when there’s a knock on the apartment door. No one has rung the bell. It must be one of Nadia’s neighbors. I get up and go to the door. My heart sinks when I pull it open and see Jeremy standing there.
“Hi. How are you?” he says, smiling at me.
“I’m ok. What are you doing here? How did you even get into the building?” I ask.
“I came to see you obviously,” he smiles. “Someone was on their way out and they let me in. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
I really don’t want to invite him in and I struggle for an excuse. Nadia has barely been gone for five minutes and there’s a chance Jeremy saw her leaving so I can’t use her as an excuse. And if I tell him Aidan is here, he’ll just get mad again.
“Erika?” Jeremy says. “I only want to talk to you.”
He smiles reassuringly at me and in the end, I sigh and step back from the door and let him in. I’ll hear him out and then tell him I have to go out somewhere. Jeremy moves through to the living room and I follow him, feeling nervous butterflies swimming in my stomach. He’s sitting on the couch and he pats the cushion beside him. I pretend not to notice and I take an armchair opposite him.
“So what do you want to talk to me about?” I ask when the silence becomes awkward.
“I don’t like the way we left things the last time we talked,” Jeremy says. “I just wanted to clear the air between us.”
“We’re fine Jeremy,” I lie, smiling at him, just wanting to convince him we’re still friends so he’ll leave.
“Good. I’m glad to hear that,” Jeremy smiles. “And I want you to know that I get it. I understand why you said we couldn’t get back together.”
“You do?” I say, surprised and daring to hope he really does finally understand that there’s no future in a relationship without any spark in it.
“I do,” he smiles. “And I want you to know that you don’t need to worry about that. There’s no need to be embarrassed because you ended things and then realized you’d made a mistake. We’ve all made mistakes. We’ll just pretend it never happened and move on.”
“I …” I start, ready to tell Jeremy he’s got it all wrong.
He shakes his head and goes on, not letting me speak.
“It’s ok,” he says. “I know it’s more than that. I know you’re afraid we won’t go the distance, but this time, we’ll do it right Erika.”
Before I can decide how to even begin to react to that, Jeremy gets to his feet. He pulls out a small black box from his jeans’ pocket and then he drops to one knee. My jaw drops. What the fuck is happening here? How did this escalate so quickly? And how the hell do I get out of it without making him mad?
He opens the box and shows me a beautiful diamond ring.
“Erika, will you marry me?” he says.
His smile is one of triumph. He thinks this is it. That I will say yes and we’ll run off into the sunset together. This has gone far enough. I don’t know how to make it any clearer to him that we’re done here, but I know I have to find a way. I stand up, shaking my head and putting a little bit of distance between Jeremy and me.
“No,” I say. “I don’t want to be with you Jeremy. And I certainly don’t want to marry you.”
Jeremy gets up off his knee and snaps the ring box closed, pushing it back into his pocket. He smiles at me.
“Of course you do Erika. I know you. I know you want this. Why won’t you just admit it?” he says.
He steps closer to me and I take another step back.
“Are you out of your damned mind?” I say quietly. “Jeremy, this is insane. Even if I wanted to get back with you, we’d only been dating a few months. How do you think proposing to me now is a good idea?”
“How do you not see that we’re meant to be together?” Jeremy says, completely ignoring everything I’ve said to him.
“Because we’re not meant to be together. For the last time, I don’t want to be with you,” I say firmly. “Now please, just leave.”
Jeremy shakes his head and a nasty looking grin spreads over his face.
“You really think you can just throw me away like that? Throw us away like that? That you can demand I leave and I’ll just go? Well you can’t. It doesn’t work like that Erika. I have given you every chance to make this right and every time, you have thrown it back in my face. Now I think it’s time I taught you a lesson. One you won’t forget this time.”
He closes the gap between us quickly an
d although I back away from him again, my back is soon against the wall. I glance to my left and my right, frantically searching for something I can use as a weapon, but there’s nothing anywhere near me.
Jeremy has reached me now and he stands with his hands pressed to the wall on either side of me, stopping me from escaping to the side of him.
“You know something Erika? You’ve just lost your chance to be happy. You’ve cost me my chance to be happy too and you don’t even seem to care about that. Well I care. And if I can’t have you, then no one can,” he says.
He’s so close to me now that I can feel his hot breath on my face with each word. As he speaks, I feel a pain in my head. The pain fades as quickly as it came, but with it comes a flash of memory so vivid it feels like I am living it now.
I see myself in my house, Jeremy in the living room with me, smashing my things, yelling and screaming at me. He is saying those exact words to me; if I can’t have you, then no one can. And then his hands are around my throat, squeezing me, choking the life out of me. I am trying to get him off me but he’s too strong and I am feeling weaker by the moment as I try to breathe but can’t.
It all makes sense now as it all clicks into place. Him turning up at my place right as I was in the middle of grabbing my things after I got out of hospital. He had to have been watching me. It explains his over the top reaction to seeing Aidan in the street that day. It explains why he was so nice to me, trying to get around me and weasel his way back in. And it explains what he meant when he said this time he’ll teach me a lesson that I won’t forget.
How didn’t I see this sooner? I should have put the pieces together sooner than this. And more importantly right now, what the hell do I do to get away from him? Should I pretend I’ve come around, that I do want him? No, it’s too late for that. I can see the anger in his eyes as he stares through me like he’s not even seeing me anymore.
He moves his head closer to me and he whispers in my ear.
“I’m going to end you Erika. But first, I’m going to show you just what you’re missing out on,” he says.
He pulls his head back again and grins at me. I feel my stomach lurching as he moves his face closer to mine. His lips press against mine and I scream as he tries to push his tongue into my mouth. My scream is so muffled by his mouth over mine that it comes out as a sad sounding whimper. There’s no way anyone heard that. I lift one knee and try to knee him in the cock, but he blocks my shot with his thigh.
He pulls his mouth away from mine and I can breathe without tasting him again, but my relief at that soon fades and turns to terror when I see the look on Jeremy’s face. He is smiling, an ice cold smile that makes my insides shrivel up.
“You want it rough? Then we’ll have it rough,” he says.
He grabs a handful of my hair and pulls me from the wall, throwing me to the ground. I manage a real scream this time, one I can only pray the neighbors hear and act upon.
“Someone please help me,” I yell.
“No one is coming to save you this time Erika. There’s no nosy Mr Pritchard to interfere now,” Jeremy says as he starts walking towards where I lay on the ground.
I back away, scrambling on my elbows. I jump as a loud voice booms from the direction of the bedrooms.
“Police. Get your hands up.”
I glance towards the hallway. Standing in the doorway is Officer Prescott. She isn’t messing around. She’s standing with her feet apart, braced to move quickly if she needs to. Her hands are out in front of her, the gun she’s holding trained on Jeremy. I glance at him. His hands are up and beads of sweat stand out on his forehead.
“You set me up didn’t you, you fucking bitch,” he says to me.
He doesn’t sound angry anymore. He has the sheer audacity to sound hurt, like he’s the victim here. I have no idea what he’s talking about or how Officer Prescott got into that hallway, but I’m so glad to see her right now. She stopped Jeremy before he could go any further and that’s all that matters right now.
“Get down on your knees. Keep your hands where I can see them,” Officer Prescott says to Jeremy.
He does as she says, glaring at me the whole time. I scoot further away from him and manage to get to my feet. My legs feel like jelly and I sit down hard on the couch as Officer Prescott moves towards Jeremy. She gets behind him and pulls her handcuffs from her belt, putting her gun back in its holster. She brings Jeremy’s hands down behind his back and cuffs him.
“Lie on the ground,” she commands. Jeremy doesn’t move. “Now.”
She yells now and I jump again, but Jeremy complies.
“I’m arresting you on suspicion of assault. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford one, one will be provided to you. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Officer Prescott says.
Jeremy nods.
“Yes,” he says.
Officer Prescott stands over Jeremy and pulls a radio from her belt.
“We’ve got him. Get up here and take him to the station,” she says.
“Officer?” I say when she puts the radio back on her belt. She glances at me. “I remembered the first attack. When Jeremy grabbed me, it all came back to me. It was him.”
“Are you willing to say that in an official statement?” she asks me.
“Yes,” I say without hesitation.
“Looks like you’re going away for a long time son,” Officer Prescott says to Jeremy with a gleeful grin.
Jeremy ignores her and focuses on me.
“Don’t you get it Erika? It doesn’t have to be this way. Everything I did, I only did because I love you,” he says.
“You don’t know the meaning of the word love,” I snap back at him.
The door to the apartment opens and Officer Moore and another officer come in. They move to Jeremy and take an arm each and pull him to his feet.
“He’s been read his rights,” Officer Prescott says. “Take him down to the station and get him booked in. See if he wants an attorney and then leave him in a holding cell. I’ll follow you guys back, and when I do, Jeremy and I are going to have a little chat.”
Officer Moore nods his head and he and the other officer lead Jeremy out of the apartment. Officer Prescott follows them. I hear her speaking but she’s stepped out into the hallway and I can’t hear what she’s saying. After a moment, she comes back in.
“Thank you,” I say. “But I don’t understand how you were here.”
She smiles at me.
“Let’s just say you have a guardian angel who forced me to listen,” she says.
I frown, more confused than ever. She smiles at me again.
“Are you hurt?” she asks.
I shake my head. My hip is a little tender where I was thrown to the floor, but it doesn’t feel like anything more serious than a bruise, and the last thing I want is to end up in the hospital again.
I hear voices coming from the hallway and then the apartment door opens again. Aidan and Nadia burst in and I frown. I am getting more confused by the second, but I am so glad to see Aidan right now.
“I’ll let these two explain everything,” Officer Prescott says to me. “I need to get down to the station and talk to Jeremy. I’ll need you to stop in some time tomorrow and make an official statement. Ok?”
I nod my head and stand up and walk Officer Prescott to the door, ignoring Aidan and Nadia for now. I can only process one thing at a time and even that is hard right now.
“Thank you,” I say again as Officer Prescott leaves.
“You’re welcome,” she smiles.
I watch her walk along the hallway and then I close the door and come back into the living room. I’m am shaking as the reality of what almost happened hits me. Aidan steps forward and wraps me in his arms as my knees start to buckle, and wrapped up in his arms, I feel safe again.
He kisses me hard on the lips and for a moment, I j
ust hold him to me, accepting his kiss. Nadia clears her throat behind me and I pull back from Aidan and smile as I blush.
He leads me to the couch and we sit down side by side.
“I guess I have some explaining to do,” he says.
Aidan
When I got the call from Officer Prescott, I had never felt so relieved in all of my life. She quickly explained that I had been right about everything. Jeremy had tried to attack Erika again, and he was now under arrest. She said that Jeremy’s second attack had triggered Erika’s memory of the first attack and that Jeremy would definitely be going to prison for what he had done. She was hopeful they could pin attempted murder on him rather than just assault. She told me to come up and see Erika. I didn’t need telling twice.
Nadia and I had sprinted into the building and up the stairs as I filled her in on what Officer Prescott had told me. The sight of Erika sitting there, not marked or hurt, had made my heart swell, and I knew in that moment that I loved her.
After she saw Officer Prescott out, she fell into my arms and I kissed her. I wanted to tell her that I loved her now and forever, but I knew that was something I should say in private without Nadia there. I released Erika and we sat down on the couch. I know I have to explain everything to her now and I just have to hope that she understands why I kept things from her and doesn’t feel like I betrayed her by keeping her in the dark about all of this until now.
“Twice now Jeremy has threatened me and told me to stay away from you,” I say. Erika gasps and I go on before she can start throwing questions at me. “I noticed he had scratches on his hands, the kind he would have gotten from trying to choke someone. I knew he was the one who attacked you, but I had no real evidence of it.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Erika asks.
“Be honest Erika. If I had told you my suspicions, would you have believed them to be true, or would you have thought I was just jealous and overreacting.”