Virgin for the Woodsman

by Eddie Cleveland

  “No, not directly,” I grind my teeth together as the pain of her loss stabs my heart. I look down at the dust clinging to my boots, trying to stop the tears pricking my eyes. I take a deep breath, sucking air deep into my lungs like a diver about to plunge into the ocean. That’s how I feel about my memories of her, like they could drown me with sadness.

  “What does that mean?” She asks softly, and I look back up at her. She’s searching my face for answers that I’ve still never spoken out loud about.

  “Trent Turner raped my sister,” I answer flatly. “She was seventeen and she decided to sneak into a frat party on campus. You know, sometimes I’ve thought about that, about how she snuck in and was drinking underage, and I’ve gotten so angry. Like, if she just would’ve stayed home and acted her age instead of sneaking into a party full of booze and college kids… why did she have to go out that night at all?” My voice cracks, and the tears I’ve been trying to keep inside fill my eyes. I wipe them away with the back of my hand, “but I’m not angry at her. How could I be? It’s not her fault that Mr. Fucking Prep School decided to roofie her. It’s not her fault he took her back to his place slobbering and almost unconscious. It’s not her fault he recorded himself fucking her while she was passed out like he was some kind of hunter taking pictures of his prized gazelle,” I swallow hard but my throat is raw.

  Abbie jumps as I make my way to the side of the bed. “I’m just grabbing this,” I point to the water bottle beside the bed.

  “Oh, okay,” she watches me intently as I lean over and pick it up. My throat is parched and I take a huge swig of the cool, refreshing water.

  “Listen, I wish you’d just relax. I’ve already told you I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t you think if I was some kind of crazed serial killer I would’ve shown you that by now? Don’t you think I would’ve made my move?”

  “You’re right,” She nods and her long hair swings around her face. “I’m just nervous, like, only twenty-four hours ago I had a much different picture of who you were in my mind,” she explains.

  “Yeah, well, you were wrong. I wasn’t even going to kill Trent until he destroyed my sister’s life. I found out about the rape when I was on deployment, and I always knew I was going to come back and teach him a lesson, but with these,” I hold up my fists, “not a gun.”

  I remember how angry I was when I first found out about the assault. I went back to my barracks and ripped my room apart. I flipped the bed, tore the hangers out of my locker, kicked the door and dented the metal with my steel-toe boot. Did I want to kill him then? Absolutely. But I knew that I wouldn’t.

  I run my hand over my grizzly jaw and snap back to the present. Abbie is looking up at me and I hold out the water bottle to her, “Here, have some,” I offer.

  “Thanks,” she takes a sip, never moving her eyes from my face.

  She still doesn’t trust me.

  “I didn’t find out until I came back that he had recorded her. I guess that fucker spread the video around to his buddies and it leaked to the kids in her school. From what I’ve found out, she couldn’t get away from it. She’d go to school and kids would play it on their phones in the cafeteria, laughing at her. She stopped eating at the school. Then she just stopped eating, period. Her friend told me she would hide in the bathroom between classes and cry. Before that happened, she had the same dreams most high school seniors have, to have an epic graduating year. He took that from her too.”

  I lean down on my haunches so I’m not towering over Abbie on the bed. I realize I’m probably intimidating her.

  Her eyes are soft and her full lips twitch downward and she grabs my hand, “I’m so sorry. My heart hurts for her,” she blinks quickly.

  “I am too. The thing was, when I was in the desert, I didn’t know all that shit. I didn’t find out until I came home for her funeral. I got word from my commanding officer that I was being sent home because she died,” my voice breaks and I can’t stop the tears from falling this time. The pain is still fresh. The loss still doesn’t feel real. It hurts too much to wrap my mind around. “I couldn’t believe it,” I choke out the words and force myself to keep talking because I know if I don’t I’ll end up losing it. “They didn’t want to tell me it was suicide, but I pushed him. I mean, she was just a kid. A healthy kid with her whole life in front of her. Anyway, he told me she took her own life and I felt like he gutted me. I couldn’t breathe. My ears stopped working. I was numb as I walked back to pack up my bunk.” I squeeze Abbie’s hand as I remember the helplessness I felt. How it hurt to breathe.

  Abbie doesn’t interrupt, but tears are forming in her eyes. She gives me time to get some control without pushing me to continue. “I don’t know if you’d call it fate or shitty luck, but when I got to my bunk I missed mail call and someone left a letter that was sent to me on my bed.” Tears slide over my cheeks. “It was from my sister. She still didn’t tell me about the video or the kids in her school, but she told me life was feeling out of control. She said she was finding it harder and harder to stay optimistic that she didn’t know if she could ever get her life back to normal. That she didn’t even know what normal was supposed to feel like anymore. But,” my voice cracks and a tremble runs through me as I remember her words written on the page I’ve read a hundred times, “she ended it by saying she had one thing that still gave her hope.” I breathe in a shaky lung full of air, “That she still looked forward to when I was coming home. She said she couldn’t wait to see me,” hot tears splash down my face and I pull away from Abbie’s hand to wipe them away.

  “Trent Turner took that away from me. He might not have put a bullet in her, but he still killed her. What he did was much worse, because he killed her soul long before he ever took her life.” My chin trembles and I try to get my emotions under control.

  Abbie moves forward to the edge of the bed and throws her arms around me, “I’m sorry Cole,” I look up at her and she’s crying too. I wrap my arms around her and let my tears fall as I hold her against my chest.

  “Me too,” I agree. “Me too.”

  12

  Abbie

  I sniffle and nuzzle my head against his broad, hard chest. His arms feel like a stone wall around me, guarding me from danger. I can’t imagine his heartbreak, his pain. Even considering the hell his little sister went through springs fresh tears to my eyes. I try to swallow the lump growing in my throat as I wrap my mind around what he told me. This man that I thought was some kind of sociopath, is really a hero. He knew he would be sacrificing his career, leaving his family, his friends and living in isolation forever after killing Trent, but he did it anyway. For her. His seventeen-year-old sister who would never grow up to have any of those things.

  Just like he did for me.

  He stopped Cecil from stealing what wasn’t his. If he hadn’t knocked him out and taken me to safety, I could have suffered the same fate as his sister. I don’t want to think about how a brutal attack like that would’ve shaped the rest of my life.

  Cole runs his heavy hand through my hair and I close my eyes letting the calm wash over me.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble against his shirt.

  “For what?” Cole moves back, holding my arms in his hands and peers into my face. When he looks at me like that, I feel like he can see everything I try to hide inside. My fears, my dreams, my desires…

  I shake my head and try to push the feeling away as my cheeks flush with heat at the thought. Especially the last one. I hope he can’t tell how my body tingled when we held hands, or how an unfamiliar warmth rushed over my skin as he held me.

  “I know I don’t understand what you’ve been through, I won’t pretend I do, but I know what it’s like to lose someone who means so much to you.” The lump in my throat grows as my mother’s face floats through my memory. Not how she looked at the end, when the cancer spread through her like wildfire, but how she looked when I was a little girl. When she would smile down at me as she pushed me on the swings or how beau
tiful she looked when she used to sing me my bedtime songs as a child. That’s how I like to remember her now, in our happiest moments together. In a time before I ever understood the word cancer, let alone had my life ripped apart by its hands.

  Cole engulfs my hands in his palms. He watches me patiently as I sort through my thoughts.

  “I lost my mother to cancer a few months ago,” I squeak as I strain to keep the endless flow of tears I have for her, contained. “She raised me alone, I don’t have any brothers or sisters. We just had each other.” I take a shaky breath, “I know it’s not the same as your sister, but when I buried her I felt like a wind blew out the fire in my soul.” My chin trembles and fat tears betray me, sliding slowly over my cheeks.

  Cole nods and squeezes my hands, he leans into me and softly drags his thumb over the tracks of tears. “I’m sorry you lost your mother,” he leans forward and places his forehead against mine. His comfort soothes my aching heart as I listen to birds tweeting outside and the wind rustle through the pines. It’s such a simple gesture, but it speaks volumes.

  Cole pulls back and clears his throat loudly, “I should get you some breakfast,” he turns his head and wipes his face quickly with the back of his hand. “Let me help you up,” he holds out his hand as he stands back up. I watch his face transform as he pushes his sadness down, forcing it away. He juts out his scruffy jaw and his blue eyes grow more determined. I wish I could do that. I wish I could just compartmentalize my feelings the way he seems to be able to. I wish my mother’s death didn’t always feel like a gaping wound pumping out blood with each heartbeat.

  “Yes, please,” I grab his hands and let him pull me up. Throwing my arms around him, he supports me as he guides me across the room.

  Hopping on my good foot, I follow him to the single chair he has set up next to a small table. He eases me down and I can’t help but smile at how someone so big and so strong can be so gentle.

  “Okay, I’ve got instant coffee and oatmeal, the flavored kind, does that work for you?” He doesn’t really wait for my answer, busying himself with getting a pot filled with some water from a jug.

  “Sounds perfect,” I agree, tilting my head back into the streaks of sunlight breaking through the window. As the sunlight kisses my skin I enjoy a sense of peace washing over me.

  I couldn’t be happier to be so wrong about someone. Tilting my head, I watch as Cole busies himself in his kitchen and realize, I haven’t felt this content in a long, long time. Not since the days before Mama told me she got the diagnosis. A smile spreads over my face and tension I’ve been holding in my shoulders rolls away as I settle back in the chair, enjoying every second of this moment.

  13

  Cole

  “Okay, let me just pour us a couple of coffees,” I lift the bubbling pot of water from the woodstove with a gloved hand and fill two metal mugs. “I know it’s not Starbucks or whatever, but it’s caffeine,” I open the lid of the instant coffee and tap two fingers along the edge until the crystals swirl into the water and turn black.

  “Thank you,” Abbie stops picking at her hair and smiles at me. She’s managed to make quite a mess of her locks from the tumble she took in the mud last night. She’s managed to get torn leaves and pine needles braided into her long hair. As she runs her hands over the mess with her face contorted in dismay, I can tell she’s not too happy about it.

  “Hey, what flavor oatmeal do you want? I’ve got apple cinnamon or maple and brown sugar left,” I hold up the Quaker packets shaking them.

  “Umm, whatever you want is fine,” she scrunches her nose and paws her long locks, distracted.

  “Great,” I rip open the last of the maple and brown sugar and dump them in the remaining water, giving them a quick stir before I throw the lid on the pot. “Abbie, don’t worry about that, you’re gonna go cross-eyed trying to pick all that stuff out. We’ll get you fixed up after breakfast, I promise. First things first though, how’s your ankle?”

  I walk over to where she’s sitting and kneel down at her feet, carefully lifting her foot.

  “It’s, ahhh,” she breathes in sharp as I loosen the laces and open her boot wide to look inside, “still sore.” She does an unconvincing job of trying not to flinch.

  “You did a number on it, that’s for sure.” I can see the bruising beginning to stain her creamy skin.

  “I’ll be okay,” she puffs out her breasts and sits up straight, but I can see she’s not going to be putting real weight on this foot for at least a few days. Will we be safe here that long? Or am I sitting here with a bullseye on my back, risking my freedom and possibly my life for a woman I barely know.

  “You will be, that’s true, but it’s going to take some time.” I just hope time is something we still have. I shake away the thought. Her partner probably went back into town anyway. I’m guessing he’ll be alerting the cops when he does. That is, if he can find his way back. After following them yesterday, I have my doubts. I can’t risk carrying her into town right now, not if there’s a posse of officers trying to track me down. We have no choice but to wait until she can hike. Then I can lead her a little way and send her in the right direction on her own. In the meantime, I’ve gotta hope that fucking P.I. doesn’t get the law swarming in on me. And if they do start nosing around, hopefully the way I set this place up will make me hard to find. I look at Abbie, she’s watching the thoughts flit over my face. I need to stop worrying about this shit. I’ll deal with whatever happens.

  “I made something for you,” I stand up and make my way outside, picking up the branch I’ve been transforming for her.

  Abbie twists her head to watch me, “What is it?”

  The bells I attached to the top jingle like an old ice cream truck as I hand it over to her. “It’s a walking stick, I made it while you were sleeping.” She takes it from my hands.

  “Thank you,” she looks at it like I just gave her the keys to a new car. There’s something so refreshing about the wonder in her face. I watch her green eyes twinkle and try to remember the last time I saw the magic in anything. When was the last time I let the world amaze me? It’s easy to tell myself that I haven’t had time, not when I’m out here trying to survive. However, I know that lustre wore off years before any of this became my life.

  “No problem. It should help you keep your weight off your ankle until it heals up better. Once you’re swelling goes down we can figure out a plan to get you out of here. Right now, we’ll have to lay low and wait it out. Trust me, I know it’s not ideal, but you’re in no shape to make that kind of hike.”

  “I understand. I’m not in a big hurry to get back and run into Cecil again anyway. I’m not even sure how I’m going to get back home. He has my plane ticket and he hasn’t paid me yet, so I’m kinda stuck.” She runs her slender fingers over the stick where I peeled the bark off in a spiral design. Her face transforms in awe.

  “You decorated it for me?” She meets my eyes and I’m frozen in place. The way her plump, pink lips are slightly parted makes me want to run my thumb over them before marking them with my kiss.

  Shrugging, I look back to the pot of oatmeal, “I had time to kill,” I lie. There were other things I could’ve spent that time on other than making her a pretty cane, but I couldn’t help myself. I guess someone as beautiful as her inspires beauty in everything.

  “Ready to eat?” I don’t wait for her to respond, with the way she’s looking at me right now I need the distraction. It’s not my job to notice her lips or think about all the ways I want to enjoy them. It’s my job to keep her safe for a few days and then get her back. That’s it. I stand up and begin portioning the sweet smelling breakfast into a couple of bowls.

  “Why did you put bells on it?” Abbie shakes the stick and fills the air with the twinkling sound.

  “For bears,” I answer simply and hand her the bowl with a spoon.

  “Bears?” She looks out the window like she expects a grizzly bear to wave at her from outside.

&nb
sp; “Yeah, don’t worry about it. They don’t want any more to do with you than you do with them,” I grab my own bowl and drop it on the table, realizing I have no place to sit. Quickly, I go back outside and grab the big stump I use to cut my firewood on and heave it up, carrying it back in. With a thud, I drop it on the floor at the other side of the table and dig into my cooling breakfast. “Those bells give any animals in the area a heads up that you’re around,” I explain as I eat. “That way you don’t end up between a cub and its mom,” I empty my bowl in a couple of bites. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I took the first taste.

  I watch as Abbie slowly eats her breakfast. I let my gaze travel over her supple skin, down over her perky tits and slide down between her legs. My cock aches with a deep desire I didn’t realize I was fighting. Just like my breakfast, I didn’t know how starved I was until the temptation was there.

  And just like my breakfast, I want to eat her all up.

  I stand up abruptly and start gathering the dishes. You’d think it was the most complicated job in the world with how much forced focus I’m putting into it.

  “Oh, let me do that,” Abbie protests from behind me.

  “No, stay put and eat. I’ve got it. I’m gonna get this stuff tidied up and then I’ll help you get cleaned up. Normally, I just sponge bathe with a cloth and a pot of water, but when I get as dirty as you are I’ve got a place I go clean up. I’ll take you so you can wash your hair,” I keep my back turned to her. Until I get my appetite under control, it’s the safest option.

  “Really? Thank you!” Her voice is as musical as the bells I attached to the top of her walking stick.

  “No worries,” I turn and let myself watch her. My hardened features soften as I soak her in. It hits me, that sense of wonder that I thought I lost, the one that has been buried under years of boredom and cynicism has returned. I can feel it stir from its deep slumber when I look at her.