I Found You

by Lark, Jane

“Hey,” two of the guys called from across the road.

  “Suitably dressed…” Declan spoke.

  Oh my God. He was high, he’d taken cocaine. I knew the look in his eyes. He was off his head, they all were…

  The others were crossing the road as Declan reached out for me, trying to grip my arm, but I stepped back, sliding on the ice, only now feeling how cold it was on the soles of my feet.

  I lifted my hand crying out, “Stay away!” when he tried to grab me.

  My hand pressed against the wall to stop me falling.

  “You came down.” Declan laughed. “You must want it…”

  Tears tangled with a scream getting caught in my throat, blocking my airway, as I faced the person I used to be. No!

  “Don’t you want to party?” One of the others said. They were all dressed in dark suits. They’d come from a club, and I knew which one. I recognized the guy. I recognized them all.

  “Come on.” The guy who’d got out of the passenger seat of the car, beckoned with his fingers. “Declan told us he found you. We fancy a bit of auld lang syne.”

  I shook my head, stepping back. But by looking at them, I hadn’t been looking at Declan. He’d got closer. By the time I noticed, and tried to turn and get behind the door, he was too close. He caught hold of my arm before I could move.

  Leave me alone! My fear snapped to anger, like he’d clicked it from one to the other, and I swung out. I didn’t know what I’d done until the moment the blow hit. I slapped his face, and the sound rang back from the apartment blocks lining the street. Stupid, stupid… I’d forgotten this life.

  “Just like old times,” he hissed, the second before he struck me back. It was a hard weight that came into the side of my head, deafening me for a moment and knocking my head to the side. Bile rose in my throat but I swallowed it back.

  That was the instant that Jason came through the door. Like some sort of battering ram, he charged past me and drove into Declan, knocking him to the floor and falling onto him. My heart pounded as I watched, terrified again. But Jason was fitter, younger and faster, and he rose quickly, kneeling astride Declan to thrust a sharp punch into his jaw and then a second into his ribs. I saw the impact jolt Declan’s body; even his legs jerked.

  Jason rose, straightening up and stepping back, giving Declan no time to respond. He stood in front of me, shielding me, like he’d done in a much less aggressive way so many times.

  He was wearing his jeans, but at least unlike me he’d shoved his feet into sneakers, though the laces trailed. He was breathing hard, and his breath misted in the air.

  Declan groaned, moving.

  Jason’s hands lifted palm outward as the other guys looked up from Declan to him. “I’ve got no argument with you, if you go… Just go.”

  Declan sat up in the street, touching his bloody lip. He started laughing. Of course, he didn’t feel the pain, the ton of cocaine he’d taken probably blocked it out. It would hurt like hell in the morning. The other guys looked down at him again then at Jason and started laughing too.

  Jason had a naked torso, it was four on one, and I’d lay odds one or more of these guys were carrying knives or even guns. I should know; I’d had numerous blades and guns pulled on me in the last year when Declan and his friends were drunk or drugged up. Image after image was replaying in my head, reminding me. One night, one of them had held the flat blade of a knife against my cheek the whole time…

  “Jason,” I whispered. Recalling everything I’d let these guys do to me.

  He glanced back. “Just go inside.” Then he looked back at them and said, “You ought to know, I called the cops.”

  My heart was pounding. I couldn’t leave him. They could kill him before the cops got here. “Jason.” I whispered, trying to warn him, the painful memories of the past year filling my head …

  This is where it had begun with Declan, in the club they’d come from. I wasn’t suffering with hypomania, I don’t think I’d ever suffered with that, but I was pretty manic when I met him. I’d had girlfriends at the time. I’d met them working in a store. I’d been so full of myself then. I was elated ‘cause I’d managed to bribe my way into the V.I.P. area at this one club, by sleeping with the security guy. I’d done it night after night, after that.

  This one night I took the girls from work, to show them how cool I was. They weren’t impressed with me taking the security guy into the bathroom, and when Declan and his friends had come over, offering us a line or two of cocaine and a good time, I tried to pressure them to say yes and do it with me, both the drugs and the sex.

  That was the point they’d left. I hadn’t cared. I’d told Declan I could take them all on myself. They’d taken me at my word.

  I didn’t know anything about anything after that for what seemed weeks. I’d totally lost it.

  It was only when my mood brought me down, and I came around sitting on a floor in the corner, naked and shaking and feeling like using one of the guns they’d used on me to blow my brains out, or their brains out, that I realized what I’d got involved in. But I didn’t get out. He’d just given me stuff to convince me to stay, and a credit card so I could spend whatever I liked. I remembered the first day, deciding I wanted a bracelet, and then buying fifty once I’d picked out the trays, ‘cause I could and I couldn’t chose just one. His anger after that had provoked me into doing similar things again and again.

  Then there had been more and more sex, and always the sex had pulled me out of, or into, moods, like it charged me with energy or knocked it out of me––until the last night, when after the others had left he’d begun again, and I’d had enough.

  “Rach…” Jason said sharply, like he’d said it before, pulling me out of my memories. “Go in.” His voice was getting more insistent, but I could be stubborn too. I wasn’t gonna leave him out here. He wouldn’t leave me in trouble, and this was my mess, not his. I shook my head.

  “You don’t want to be with this piece of nothing…” Declan laughed, as the other guys got closer.

  Jason wasn’t nothing, Jason was everything, he was worth a dozen of the fortunes Declan had. “I’m only going in if you come too, Jason.” My tears sounded in my voice.

  Why had I ever let these people touch me? Lord, maybe the child wasn’t even Declan’s, most of the time the others had used condoms, but when I’d been high…

  “Jason, come with me.” He was standing like an iron statue in my defense while the guys had him half-ringed, one on every side. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t moving… “Jason?” I couldn’t leave him. I stepped forward and slipped my fingers into his hand.

  I’d been cold and empty the night he’d found me on the bridge. I was full now, filled with him. I’d have a family, and a home. I wasn’t gonna leave him, I wasn’t gonna let him go. I wanted to be happy.

  “Go away,” I said in a shaky voice. They all looked at me, like I was a piece of meat and they were hungry. But that was what drugs did to you, they made you base. Sadly that was what bipolar could do to you too. I gripped Jason’s hand tighter. His was holding mine with a grip of warm steel, braced and ready to pull me out of the way if he had to. I gathered courage and my voice grew in volume. “Go away. I’m not interested. Just go away.” My words broke at the end, but it told them I was serious.

  Declan had stopped laughing. He wouldn’t even be here if he wasn’t high on cocaine. He just looked at me. “Take them away,” I said to him. “Didn’t you hurt me enough? You knew I was sick, and you used me.”

  He started to get up, but I didn’t know if it was to fight or leave.

  “You can fucking have her…” he said viciously to Jason, turning.

  The other guys burst into laughter and turned too.

  I turned and hugged Jason, my arms about his shoulders, while he stayed still, his attention on the guys, as they got back in the car.

  I heard the doors slamming and then, when there was a noise of tire wheels screeching on the road as it pulled away, I started so
bbing, holding Jason tightly with my face pressed into his neck as he hugged me back, gripping me hard. I felt the muscles in the whole of Jason’s body relax.

  “Come on, Rach, let’s get you in.” I couldn’t stop crying, and I started shaking. I felt the cold now, and my feet were like the ice they were stood on. As though he knew, once he’d pressed the code in, he picked me up, swinging me into his arms. I gripped his shoulders, pressing my face against the firm muscle of his pecs as he carried me.

  “Shit, Rach…” Jason said, as he pressed the elevator button. “Why the hell did you come out? You should’ve just woken me; and with no fucking shoes on…”

  It was the bridge all over again, I knew he thought it too.

  “I just didn’t think,” I said in a sob against his chest, gripping him harder.

  “Well, Rach, next time you’re not thinking, just try to put some clothes on.” His voice had lightened like he was jesting and trying to make me laugh. But I couldn’t laugh. I just cried more, and I didn’t think he could really joke either.

  When we got up to the apartment he had to put me down, to search for the key in his jeans pocket. Now my feet were burning, while my body still shook. I just wanted to be inside, safe. I clasped my arms across my chest.

  When he got the door open, he held it for me to go past him. I did. I felt like I’d taken drugs. I felt in shock.

  He followed.

  My legs were too weak to hold me up, and I just sat down with my back up to the wall by the TV. I clutched my knees and put my head down. I felt sick and faint all at once, and I was still shaking.

  “Rach?” I squatted down in front of her, my sneakers slipping off my heels. It seemed like seconds since I’d woken when the door banged, and realized Rach wasn’t in bed. I’d got up ‘cause I couldn’t understand why the door had banged. Then I’d looked out the window and seen the guys getting out of the car below. God, my heart had been thumping like the fucking loudest bassline rhythm ever since. I don’t even remember how I’d got downstairs or even powering into the asshole. But fuck, I remembered seeing him slap her and her head whip sideways from the force and I remembered punching him. The first had been to stop him, the second… the second had been revenge, and I’d felt his ribs crack.

  She was shivering, and she hadn’t lifted her head, I lifted it for her and turned her face so I could see where he’d hit her. There was a dark bruise already. I kissed it. I was shaking myself, as the adrenaline started to ebb from my muscles. She could do with an ice pack on it, but I couldn’t give her that when she was freezing.

  “I’ll run a bath,” I whispered. God, this was taking me back. I went and turned the taps on in the bathroom, but my own muscles were shaking more. Shit, I needed to stay focused. I needed to help her.

  I went back into the living room. She hadn’t moved, but I didn’t go back to her. I went over and flicked the switch on the kettle, to make some instant coffee. It boiled in a couple of minutes as I stood watching her. Her shoulders were jerking but I didn’t know if that was because she was crying or just cold.

  “Rach?” I said as I poured the water onto the coffee I’d spooned into the cups.

  Her head came up, but her green eyes were blank, like they’d been the night I met her. She didn’t answer. I was starting to worry, starting to wonder if I needed to get her to a hospital. “You okay?” I asked, pouring some milk into the cups.

  She shook her head and tears spilled down her cheeks, in two narrow streams. This wasn’t like the night I’d met her, she hadn’t shown any emotion then. She’d been as tough as steel on the outside, that night. I shoveled teaspoons of sugar into both cups, even though neither of us took it. We both needed an energy rush.

  I took them over and then knelt down in front of her, setting the cups on the floor.

  I didn’t need to reach for her, she reached for me, opening her knees and leaning through them. I stroked her hair. “It’s okay, Rach,” I said quietly. “They’re gone.”

  She just cried more.

  “Rach, you need the medicine, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Just 48 hours, honey. Two days. We’ll stay that long, and then we’ll get them to ship all your records to Portland, and we’re out of here, okay? That won’t happen again. And if you like, we’ll move to a hotel before we go.”

  She was still crying, but she shook her head against my shoulder. “It was my fault, I shouldn’t have gone down. But he was going to ring the buzzer, and I didn’t want him here…” She sobbed. “I didn’t know about the others.”

  I asked the question I didn’t want to ask, but it was stuck in the back of my throat and it forced its way out. “Have you been with all of them?”

  My stomach plummeted when in answer she just cried harder, her body shaking beneath my hands.

  God, I had seen it all now. The stuff she’d had, the place she’d lived in, and now just how she’d lived. They’d taken advantage of her. I’d worked that out long ago though, but not how much.

  “The bath.” I’d left it running. I got up and went to turn it off. It was nearly brimful. I had to let some water out. I left it deep enough for the two of us. I needed to get in it too.

  I went back in to her. “Come on, honey, you need to get warm.”

  She didn’t really respond.

  Dropping to one knee, I stripped off the tee she’d put on, and then pulled her up on to her feet. I could see her feet were sore though, they were bright red. I bet they stung like hell. I only had to slip my boxers off her a little and then they fell all the way down, they were so loose. She stepped out of them, but I didn’t encourage her to walk. I picked her up. Her body was pliant as I lifted her. In the bathroom I set her on her feet and left her, so she could use the toilet if she needed, going back for our coffee.

  When I came back in, she was lying in the bath, reminding me of the night I met her. “Sit up,” I said, “I’m getting in with you. But don’t turn around just stay as you are, then I can hug you while you drink your coffee.”

  She nodded, sitting up and making the water sluice.

  I knocked the toilet seat down and set the coffee on it, using it like a table, then undid the buttons of my fly. My jeans and boxers slid into a heap on the floor, and I left them there, along with my sneakers, getting into the bath behind her. She fitted perfectly between my legs, and rested her back against my chest. Tipping her head back on my shoulder, she started crying again.

  “Rach?” I stroked her hair off her face as warm steam and hot water surrounded us. “Are your feet stinging?” She nodded.

  I wanted more words from her. Words were the only thing that would convince me she was okay.

  They came as she turned sideways, swilling the water over the edge of the bath and slipping her arms about my chest. “Do you hate me? God, you must. I can’t believe they came here…” She spoke against my neck, as she clung, so different to the girl who would have run from me when we’d talked about her promiscuity weeks ago.

  Did I care about those guys? Yes. I felt sick. I was still angry. I still felt violent. But I wasn’t letting her go. That was her past. I was her future.

  I held her. “No. I don’t hate you, I love you, and I don’t think you’re awful, just unlucky, ill and confused. But we know that. You know that. And you’re going to get help, and you’ve got me. And we’re moving away from this city. You’re going to be small town, like me soon, Rach, and you’re going to be safe.” I stroked her hair and she nodded against my chest.

  “Jason,” she said against my chest. “When the baby’s born, that note you got from Declan won’t stand for anything. We need a lawyer. Would your mom and dad help? I want you to get a legal statement from him. I want you to adopt the baby. Will you?”

  “God, Rach, of course, I will––” The anger shifted to something else. Love. God I loved her, it didn’t matter who she’d been with before. It didn’t change who she was and it didn’t change how I felt.

  “It’s
just if anything happened to me––”

  “Nothing is going to happen to you, sweetheart.”

  “I know, but it would terrify me to think the child would go to Declan.”

  “It won’t.”

  Her cheek brushed my chest as she nodded.

  “We’ll sort it out. I promise.” My hand stroked over her hair again. I’d thought those guys were either going to abduct her or kill her. But she was okay––safe.

  Her fingers pressed on my chest, as she rose up a little, to look into my eyes. The tears in hers caught the light. “Jason. I’m not sure it’s his. It could be someone else’s. But he never––”

  “It doesn’t matter, Rach.” I was going to spend the rest of my life making sure she was okay. She needed me. She’d taken me into hell with her tonight. I’d glimpsed the sort of stuff I’d only ever seen in movies. Shit. I couldn’t believe that was how she’d lived.

  But it was okay, now, and every down moment like this was worth every up moment with her. It was. She was special.

  Dammit, I sounded like I was trying to convince myself. But she was addictive, like a rollercoaster ride I couldn’t resist. I did love her.

  “Would you get the coffee, Rach?” I was really cold, and shivering more than her now, as shock twisted to an overload of emotion. My God.

  I sat up, slipping from Jason’s hold. The water swished. It was hot, and my feet were tingling and stinging. I gripped one coffee and handed it to him. Then I saw the knuckles on his right hand when he took it. They were cut and red, from when he’d hit Declan. I brushed my fingertips across them. “Jason…?” Then I noticed how much he was shaking.

  I turned in the bath, swilling more water over the edge on to the floor. “…Your hand?” I said, still looking at his knuckles.

  “It’s okay,” he answered. “Just sore.”

  But there was something different in his voice that made me look up. A catch. “Jason…” He was crying; a tear had slipped from his eye and onto his cheek, and his gaze sparkled. “Are you okay?” He wiped the tear away and nodded sharply, going manly on me again.