by LJ Evans
“I’m so tired,” you said as your eyes drooped shut again, and I looked with concern to the nurse that had never left the room even though we’d swarmed it.
She smiled reassuringly. “It’s normal. You’re on some pretty hefty pain killers. Go ahead and sleep, darlin’. The questions will wait.”
Tate didn’t seem happy with this, but there wasn’t much she could do unless she wanted to go through me to force your eyes back open.
Keith pulled a chair up next to the bed for me, and I just nodded thanks. Seemed hard to imagine I used to want to pound his face in. I sank into the chair, but wouldn’t let go of your good hand. I was rubbing it with my thumb.
Your eyes flickered open at me for a half a second and then back shut as the medicine and exhaustion hauled you under. And I couldn’t help panicking that you’d never wake up again.
I leaned towards you and whispered in your ear. “Don’t ever leave me again. I won’t survive without you.”
I’m not sure you heard it. It didn’t matter. It was the truth. You know that’s all I know how to tell. The truth. Or nothing at all. And now that you have left, I’m not sure I’m surviving it. The only thing that gets me through every day is knowing that you’re alive out there, doing whatever the hell it is you think you need to do before you can come home.
Locke sat down in the other chair by the door. None of us were leaving you. It made me think of the last time I’d been in a hospital in this much pain. Then it had been physical. There had been no one in the room with me. Not for almost a whole day. Then my abuela had showed up, fussing over me while my abuelo stood at the door with his cowboy hat in his hand like he just didn’t know what to say.
But, I wasn’t good at being fussed over back then. Instead I’d bellowed at her. She’d kept her hurt close to her chest, but she’d backed off. My abuelo had put his arm around her and hugged her. The doctor had said that I could have had the wounds on my side removed by a plastic surgeon. That there wouldn’t need to be any permanent scars.
But they were permanent weren’t they? They were scars that I took out on you and Justice and the whole goddamn situation. But, Bella, the scar you would have dug in me if you’d left this world that day. That scar would have been far worse than the visible scar my dumbass father left or the invisible scar my mother left. That scar would have ripped me in two.
You are ripping me in two anyway. Out there. Without me. I’m hoping that you are finding the piece of yourself you think is missing. The only piece I’m missing is the piece you took with you. I’m hoping that you’ll bring it back someday so that I can feel whole again. So that I can solder us together into something that everyone will see as art instead of just broken.
Everybody’s Broken
PJ After Letter Nine
“It’s okay to feel a little broken, everybody’s broken… It’s just life.”
-Bon Jovi & Falcon
LAYING THE LETTER ON the table, PJ Googles Kintsugi as a way of keeping her thoughts away from that awful day. To keep herself from spiraling into a panic attack.
She hadn’t spent much time on Japanese art in school. She’d focused on ancient and American art the most. She vaguely remembers something about Kintsugi, but when the images come up, they are startling and magnificent in a way she knows she never connected with before.
The pieces are shattered and then made whole with gold and silver. She reads an article on the art of Kintsukuroi and how it is tied to the philosophy of wabi sabi which is embracing the flawed or imperfect, valuing something for its wear and tear. The wear and tear is considered the most important part of the piece.
Kintsugi highlights the cracks in an object as if the cracks are simply an event in the object’s life rather than being the object’s end of life. Highlighting the break rather than hiding it makes it beautiful.
PJ thinks about Seth. How his scars internally and externally make him into this tough and handsome human being. How his wear and tear has made him into this person who can not only forge art with his hands and heart, but can see the magnificence in other torn souls and cherish it. He’d seen the magnificence in her. Cherished it. And she’d walked away.
She feels the tears flow down her cheeks again. And with the tears comes the horror of that day all over again. The day he’d just written about. It had been one of her most awful days. Almost worse than the day her parents had died. It had beat her up from beginning to end.
If she hadn’t run away… If the Caterpillar hadn’t broken down… Maybe none of it would have happened.
But she knows that isn’t true. He would have come for her sooner or later. It just happened to be then.
* * *
He must have followed her to Dylan’s. He must have been waiting for her to leave again. She doesn’t know if the Caterpillar broke down on its own, or if he helped it along, but he must have known it would happen because he’d been ready for it.
When the engine started to smoke, she pulled over. She got out of the car, phone in hand, and went to check the engine. The biggest mistake was leaving the engine running. As if she, the complete car novice she was, would be able to tell what was wrong. The noise of the Bug’s engine cut out the noise of his car pulling up.
The next thing she knew, she had a black bag over her head and a muscled arm choking her. She dropped her phone in shock. But then her body went into defense mode. She slammed her stiletto heel into the top of his foot and he grunted in pain, but didn’t let go. Instead, he tightened the grip on her neck. She couldn’t breathe. The bag. His arm. It was suffocating her. There was a smell in the bag. Medicinal.
She tried not to panic. Panicking wouldn’t help her escape.
He licked her neck where the bag ended and his arm started. “Don’t fight it, Patterson.”
His voice was muffled through the bag and her adrenalin, but she knew who it was. She shuddered. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t do any of that with the bag and his arm. She struggled again. Trying to get her arms up, but they were wrapped tight in his grip. She tried to kick again, but this time he was prepared, and just lifted her off the ground like she was nothing. This caused the arm at her neck to choke her more, and she gagged.
He licked her a second time.
“You taste like peaches and cream. Don’t fight it. It’s my turn. I’ve waited a long time for this. We’ll have you out of here before He-Man can show up and stop us.”
And then she’d lost consciousness.
When she came to, her ankles and wrists were bound together and she was lying in a dark, tight space. But the hood was off her face, and she could breathe. She took a huge breath just to be sure that it was true.
The rough carpet beneath her smelled like gasoline, and she was moving. She realized she was in a trunk. Her heart pounded, tears springing to her eyes. She was trapped. She didn’t want to scream. She didn’t want him to know she was awake.
She had to think. She shook her head and tried to move her ankles and wrists again. Zip ties or something equally snug held them, digging into the sensitive skin.
Her eyes slowly adjusted to the space. She tried to calm her erratic breathing. Tried simply to concentrate on what was around her to help her out of that terrifying place. That’s when she saw it. The safety latch. Either he hadn’t expected her to come to so soon, or he’d been a moron and forgotten about the child safety latch.
She rolled and tried to reach it.
Arms bound behind her, she couldn’t see where she was pulling, but she kept at it and kept at it, until finally, her fingers hit the plastic but they slipped off.
She gritted her teeth as pain from the movement flowed through her wrists and tried again. This time she held on and heard the satisfying sound of the trunk lock clicking.
The light blinded her as the trunk popped open, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care that they were moving. She was getting out of the car. She pulled herself to a sitting position, back to the edge of the t
runk. She could feel the car slowing. He’d seen the trunk open. She didn’t have much time, and without a thought except of getting away, she flung herself backwards out of the car.
She hit the pavement on her bound hands and her back and her rear end. Pain searing through her at the same time as the air was knocked out of her. And then her head bounced against the pavement, and that was all she remembered.
Eventually, the light and the agony from her head and her arm, reeled her back in. The lights in her eyes had been almost as excruciating as her arm. “Welcome back, Patterson.” Someone had said. And she’d been frightened at first, thinking she was back with him. No one called her Patterson.
But then she saw the hospital garb and the nurses, and she couldn’t help the sob of relief that tore from her.
“You’re okay sugar. You’re safe now.”
And then she’d passed out again.
When she’d come to once more, she was in a hospital room, with the same nurse hovering nearby. She asked if PJ was in pain, and PJ had just nodded. Because she was. Her hand. Her face. Her head. Pain everywhere. But also relief. She wasn’t with him.
When Seth had come into the room, her heart had soared. She’d wanted to leap from the bed and hug him tightly to her. The fear in his eyes when he approached told her so much more than he planned. When he’d choked out that, “Bella,” it was all she needed to know. He loved her, and she was safe. She was with him.
And like when she was a hurt toddler, and wouldn’t cry until her mom was holding her, that’s exactly what happened. Once Seth had her in his arms, she broke down into sobs, crying until there wasn’t anything left inside her dried-up body. And then after Locke hugged her too, she fell asleep again. She’d been so unbearably tired.
When she woke up next, it was to angry voices. She turned and saw Seth slamming Justice up against the wall, his arm at Justice’s neck like her attacker had had her. Justice turning blue. Liv panicking.
“Seth!” PJ croaked out through dry lips and a throat that felt like she’d swallowed a wall of salt water.
He turned and looked at her, but his anger was palpable, burning from him like its own being. Surging through the room.
“Seth! Let him go!” she’d whispered. And he had. Justice pushed him hard in the chest as Seth’s arm relaxed, and they would have been back at it again if Liv hadn’t stepped between them with the baby.
Seth glared at Justice again before moving over to the bed, grabbing a cup with a straw off the tray. Bringing it to her. “You’re awake,” he tried to kiss her, but she pushed him away.
“What the hell?” she’d demanded in a voice so scratchy it hurt to hear it.
“Drink, Bella,” he demanded. And she wanted to refuse him, but she didn’t because her throat hurt. She drank, and then she pushed the cup and his hand away and tried to glare at him.
“Seth?”
PJ didn’t doubt that he’d started it. Justice would never fight with anyone in her hospital room. Seth. Seth would fight anywhere if he thought it would prove his point.
Justice reached her other side, trying not to make eye contact with Seth. He gently touched her bandaged wrist. “Quite some damage you’ve got there to your scaphoid and ulna, S&M.”
“Guess that’s better than permanent damage to my glabella,” she tried to tease back, but Justice didn’t smile. Instead, he looked like he wanted to cry.
“I’m okay, Justice. Honest,” she said and squeezed his hand with her good one.
Liv wedged in between Justice and the bed and kissed her on the cheek while the baby tried to grab at everything around him, gurgling happily, unaware of the tension in the room.
“You scared us, girl,” Liv said. She handed Cole to Justice.
“I think you boys need to go get some air while I chat with Peej,” Liv told the two males who still had chests puffed out like roosters ready to crow.
Justice didn’t bat an eye. He took the baby and swung him up in the air and then tucked him up against his side while heading for the door. Seth, however, didn’t budge. He wasn’t used to anyone giving him orders. Or maybe he just wasn’t used to anyone enforcing them.
Liv eyed him darkly. Seth just crossed his arms over his chest. What he didn’t realize, was that all of this was just pushing PJ farther away.
She’d been so happy to see him at first, love and fear and relief swelling through her. But now, everything was coming back to her in waves of anger. At her. At him. At everything in her screwed-up life.
He didn’t know that the intensity that was him was freaking her out almost as much as Michael had. Because there was no doubt that the attacker had been Michael. Michael had made two mistakes that day.
The first being the child latch. The second was that he’d called Seth a He-Man just like he had at the gym and at the bar. That wasn’t a coincidence.
Her whole body shook.
“Seth. I want to talk with Liv,” she said to him. He didn’t look happy. In fact, he still looked like he wanted to punch a wall. “Please, Seth.”
He just nodded and stalked out.
Liv and PJ just sat there for a moment in the silence that followed.
Finally, PJ turned to Liv, “What was that all about?”
“It was just stupid male testosterone stuff.”
“Just tell me.”
Liv debated and then sighed. “Seth was angry that Justice let you drive around in the Caterpillar for so long. And Justice said you were a grown woman and made your own choices. Seth said if Justice really loved you,” Liv’s voice bobbled. “He said if Justice really loved you, he wouldn’t have let you take your life in your hands.”
“Shit.”
“He’s just scared.”
PJ just nodded.
“No Peej, not regular scared. He’s terrified because you almost vanished from his life.” Liz’s voice caught on her own emotions. “We all are, but him more than any of us.”
It was all frightening. Michael. Seth. They both were holding on so tight to her.
It was unfair to compare them. She knew that. Michael was a psychopath. Seth loved her so much that he didn’t know another way to show it. Liv was right. He was afraid of losing her because he’d already lost so much in his life. But, that fear was holding her almost as tight as Michael’s zip ties had.
PJ started crying. She couldn’t help it. It was just all too much.
Liv put a hand on her head and soothed her.
“Peej. Did he… did he...?”
PJ shook her head. He hadn’t raped her. That’s what they all wanted to know. He would have. She knew that with every bone and muscle in her body, but he hadn’t had time.
Liv let out a deep breath.
“Okay.”
And she let PJ cry.
* * *
When Seth came back, they were wheeling her out so that they could collect whatever physical evidence was left after she’d been handled by EMTs and doctors and nurses and people she loved. From there, they were going to cast her hand.
When she told Seth that he couldn’t come, it hit him to the core. She could see it in his eyes, in the mask that came down over his face.
But she couldn’t help it.
She took Liv with her instead. Liv sat with her while they swabbed her neck where Michael had licked her. While they looked for fingerprints and hair samples on her neck and head and body. They’d already taken her clothes and the zip ties.
After that, they sent her to get her cast, and Liv sat patiently with her through it as well.
When they wheeled her back to the hospital room, Officer Tate was there with Seth and Locke and Justice. The men were all still scowling at each other. Tate looked like she wanted to slam all their heads together.
Seth picked PJ up out of the wheel chair, cradled her to him like she was just a little girl, kissed her gently on her bandaged forehead, and set her back down in the hospital bed.
She let him because it made him feel better.
; She let him because she already knew that she was leaving, and it was going to torture his already tortured soul. But she also knew that she wasn’t going to be able to stay no matter how much she loved him.
Tate asked if PJ felt like telling her what happened. PJ just nodded.
“Do you want us to leave or stay?” Liv asked.
Seth parked himself by the window. He was still in his tux from the party, and yet he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, she knew him too well.
“It’s okay. Stay,” PJ said. They would all just ask her the same questions individually if she made them leave. This way she could just say it once and be done with it. This way she had a shield between her and Seth.
She didn’t look at any of them while she told them what happened.
Officer Tate’s scratching pen was the only thing besides her voice and the machines in the room that made noise while she talked.
She hated reliving it all again. The black bag. The licks. His words. The choking sensation. The fear in the trunk. The fear of not getting away.
She wanted this all to be done.
“He said he’d waited a long time for it to be his turn. Do you know what that means?” Tate asked.
He’d said it in his letter to her too. The one he’d left on the car. It had made her think of high school and that awful party where she’d heard the stupid boy telling her boyfriend that he’d waited for his turn. The one she’d taken into the back room, helping him to lose his virginity. But that hadn’t been Michael. And she hadn’t known Michael in high school, had she? She’d gone to a huge school. And she hadn’t really been in the right frame of mind to even pay attention to any of her classmates. She hadn’t made many friends.
The girls had hated her because the boys liked her. Well they liked flirting with her because they thought it would get them in her pants. And for a few, it had. Some of the boys had broken up with girlfriends just so they could be with her. Because she put out.
Had she brought this on herself? With those awful years of poor decisions? Shame surged through her and she knew her cheeks turned a matching color.