by Ladew, Lisa
“Are you hungry?”
She glanced at the food and seemed to consider it. She nodded slightly, and Craig got her the plate. As she took a few bites he checked his messages - Dennis’ name filled the screen.
Dude - she asked me out on a date. I told her no.
Craig’s mind reeled. Anger and disbelief battled to get the upper hand. She asked him out? What in the Hell? Why would she do that? With my friend? Is she that kind of person? He looked up from his phone to Emma. Horror at what he was probably reading showed plainly on her face.
“Craig, I, uh.” There she went stammering again. This night was just filled with Emma tripping over her words, wasn’t it? She didn’t seem to have any problem finding words with Dennis though.
Craig leapt to his feet. She was safe. His job was done. He was out of here.
“So Emma, like I said, I’m glad you’re safe. I’m gonna go now.”
And he went.
Chapter 16.
Emma couldn’t believe her stupidity. She had to be the dumbest, most thoughtless, foolish, senseless loser on the damn block.
Why, oh why did she ask Dennis out?
Well, she knew why. Because he was dark skinned and had dark hair and could have been the man in her vision. But still! Craig had been here! Craig was friends with him. Craig brought him into her life! And she didn’t even have the good sense to wait a week or two if she absolutely had to ask him out!
What was worse, she didn’t even feel attracted to the man. He was OK looking, but definitely not her type. What was going on with her? This vision was making her crazy!
Emma got up and locked the door, then rounded the house to make sure all the other doors and windows were locked. Then she sat on the couch cross legged, arms over her head, and rocked herself, calling herself a new name with every sway.
Loser. Jerk. Idiot. Horrible person. Mean. Simpleminded. Unthinking. Blockhead. Fool. Senseless.
The list went on until she could think of nothing else. Her heart was sick. Her stomach was sick.
She wanted to hurt herself. She wanted to pull her hair out by the roots or bang her head on the table. She felt like she deserved it. That was all she deserved.
And Craig hadn’t said a word to her. He hadn’t yelled. He hadn’t blamed. He had just left. And now he was gone. What had she done? She pushed away the love of her life, the living, breathing, sweetest, sexiest man she had ever met for a dream. A maybe. A could-happen.
Understanding crept into her brain slowly. Craig was the man in the vision. Sure, he couldn’t be the actual man she saw, because his hair wasn’t the right color and his skin wasn’t the right color and she didn’t think his voice was the same, but like she told Jerry, she knew the heart of the man in the vision, and it was Craig’s heart. He was strong and sweet and selfless and would have taken care of her if she only had given him the chance.
And now she’d driven him away. He’d never forgive her, would he? Of course not, she didn’t deserve forgiving.
Emma’s head hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut against the threatening tears. She couldn’t cry anymore. That was a relief she would now deny herself. She didn’t deserve to cry.
She pulled at her hair and dug her fingernails weakly into her cheeks. Ohmigod I don’t deserve anything.
Emma slid off the couch and lay on the hard floor. Hard and cold like her stupid heart.
***
After a long night of fitful sleep on the floor, Emma was back at work early the next morning. She had no good reason not to be there. She wasn’t injured. The bruises that had finally materialized on her throat were small, barely noticeable. Besides, she didn’t deserve a day off. She felt dead, dull, slow-witted. Her head was full of sand, her eyes scraped as she blinked.
She went about her morning checklist with no enthusiasm. Jerry sang a hi to her from outside the ambulance.
“Hi Jer,” she whispered.
They hit the road. Jerry started in on her immediately.
“Emma, what in the world is wrong with you? You look like someone ran over your puppy.”
She pasted a pained smile on her face and in a small voice said “nothing Jer.”
He looked straight at her for a second, eyes widening. They were passing a McDonalds. He did a hard right into the parking lot and drove to the farthest stall in the lot.
He put the ambulance in park and turned, swinging his legs over the side of the seat to face her completely.
“Emma, what in the world is going on? You have to tell me right now. Did someone die?”
Emma couldn’t hold back the tears for one more second. Her face crumpled and her hands flew to cover it.
“Oh Jerry no one died. I’m just the biggest idiot that ever lived,” she wailed.
Jerry was at her side in a second, hunched over in the small cab. He held her tight and smoothed her hair.
“No Emma, you’re never an idiot, you’re sweet and smart and fine. There, there, get it out.”
The damn broke again, and again. The feelings she had tried to turn off all night because they hurt so badly spilled down her cheeks and broke out her throat. She cried until her throat hurt and Jerry held her tightly.
When she slowed a little, Jerry picked up the radio and told dispatch they were out of service for 30 minutes. He locked the doors and said “Come on, lay down in the back and tell me everything.”
Emma didn’t know where to begin.
She took a deep breath, intending to tell him what she had done to Craig, but instead “Reece almost raped me,” came tumbling out of her mouth. She avoided looking at Jerry. He wasn’t one to say ‘I told you so’, but he had been right about Reece and now they both knew it.”
“That rotten bastard. Is he in jail?” Jerry spat.
“No,” Emma covered her face with her hands. “He said you called him and told him I like it rough. I fought him and hurt him and he told the officers he wanted to press charges against me so -”
The back ambulance door opened and Emma broke off, looking up. Jerry was out of the ambulance, pacing, fists clenched, eyes on the pavement. She could see a vein in his forehead she’d never seen before.
He stopped pacing and came to the door.
“He told you I called him and said you like it rough?” he demanded through gritted teeth. “That bastard tried to use me to justify putting his hands on you? I’ll kill him.”
“Jerry, stop, calm down, I know you wouldn’t tell him that,” Emma pleaded.
“That’s not the point!” Jerry yelled, and he was off pacing again.
After a few laps he stopped at the door again, his words slow and deliberate. “It doesn’t matter if you believe him or not. He still said it. Only a coward would do something like that. And only a monster would rape women. This man doesn’t deserve to be a doctor, much less a head of surgery.”
“He still might be prosecuted. An FBI agent came and took my report after the local PD wouldn’t do it.”
“FBI? How did you get the FBI involved? Wait, wait. I want to hear the whole story from beginning to end. I promise I won’t freak out again.”
Jerry climbed back in the ambulance and took Emma’s hand. “Ok, go.”
Emma told it, a shameful blush creeping it’s way onto her face at first, beginning with throwing Craig out of her house and deciding to call Reece and ending with the report to Agent Rollins. She wanted to share the next part with Jerry too, but she couldn’t just yet.
Jerry sat back, thoughtful, anger gone. “Well thank goodness you came to your senses and called Craig. That man is just what you need Emma, you know that right?”
At this Emma lost it once more. She had an endless supply of tears, it seemed. She put her hands over her face and tried to push them back.
“I messed that up Jerry.”
“You messed it up - when? Didn’t this all happen last night?”
“Yes. Agent Rollins? He had dark hair and dark skin.”
Jerry didn’t say anything for a few
moments. Emma wasn’t sure if he was in a state of disbelief at her stupidity, or if he didn’t get the connection.
“I asked him out,” she whispered.
“In front of Craig?” Now she could tell. He was in a state of disbelief at her stupidity.
“He wasn’t right there, but Agent Rollins told him after it happened.”
“Ohmigod Emma, what did he do.”
“He left. He didn’t say anything. He just left.”
Jerry gave a low whistle. “Emma, you have got to just forget about his vision. Whether it’s going to happen or not, it’s ruining your life right now.”
“I know!” she cried, dropping her hands and looking him in the face. “You are right Jerry, I know you are right! I figured that out last night when Craig walked out of my life and my heart broke into a hundred pieces!”
Her hands crept to her face again. “I’m such a jerk.”
Jerry knelt down on the floor of the ambulance and pulled her hands away from her face. “You’re not a jerk Emma, you’re just someone who had been through a lot more crap than most of us will ever know or understand, and so sometimes your issues seem a little bigger. You can’t help it that you’ve never had a family, so all you want in the whole entire world is a family. That drives your whole life and every thought in your head, especially since you’ve had this vision. That would mess me up - it would mess anyone up. But I bet you can fix this.”
Emma sat, dumbfounded at Jerry’s insight into her issues. After a few moments she asked him, “Fix it how?”
“You have to tell Craig the truth. He’s a good guy, he will understand.”
The truth. Tell Craig that the only reason she went to Reece and the only reason she asked out Agent Rollins was because she had some stupid vision that told her one of them could be the love of her life? But now she knew he was the love of her life and she was so sorry for messing things up? Would he understand? Would he care?
The thought of telling him why she’d been so stupid caused a quivering feeling in her chest. The thought of not telling him and possibly never working things out with him caused a weakness in her legs and made her want to scream.
Jerry was right. She had to tell him. She had to share everything with him and hope he could understand and forgive her.
She jumped up. “You’re right Jerry. I will tell him. Pray he will understand.” She stopped and hugged him. “Thanks Jerry, you’re so smart.”
“Don’t mention it Em. I’m going to call us back in service.”
Emma grabbed her phone from the front and texted Craig.
I’m so sorry about last night. I had a good reason, or at least I thought it was a good reason. Can you talk?
***
Three work days later, and Emma still hadn’t talked to Craig. He hadn’t responded for 2 days, but finally he texted her back.
It’s ok. It’s fine. I don’t really want to talk right now.
That response hurt her heart, but at least he had replied. She couldn’t bring herself to look for him at the firehouse. She knew an in-person rejection from him would shatter whatever small sense she had that things would be OK. Miraculously, she hadn’t seen him on a call lately. He must have had a few days off.
Emma was trying hard to regain some sort of normalcy and keep hope alive in her heart. She let herself sleep on the bed again, replaying Jerry’s words over and over in her brain. She wasn’t bad - she just had a bit more issues than most people. It wasn’t totally her fault.
Finally, she decided to write him a letter and explain it all. He might not want to talk to her, but if he heard the reasons without having to talk to her hopefully he could forgive her. She allowed herself small fantasies about what his reaction might be. Maybe he would call her and ask her out on a date. Maybe they would run across each other on a call, and he would give her a small smile. Maybe he would come to her house and when she opened the door he would take her in his arms and kiss her like he had kissed her at his truck after the wind tunnel. Or like he had kissed her on her couch.
With these big dreams in her heart she sat down and poured the whole story onto paper.
She told him about her past. How her mother had died in childbirth and there was no father’s name on her birth certificate, and no one had ever adopted her. Instead she entered the foster system. Her first foster home had lasted until she was almost 2. She didn’t remember it. Her second foster family had lasted until she was 7. Her foster mom and dad had made all their money with welfare and payments for being foster parents. They weren’t horrible parents, but they didn’t really care about her or the other 4 children they fostered either. After her vision about the little girl that died, that family had taken her back to social services. They didn’t want a girl who was ‘weird’. Emma had then lost contact with Gigi, the oldest girl in the family. Gigi had been 10, and had taken care of Emma, singing her to sleep, calming her fears, and soothing her hurts. Gigi had been like a real and true sister to Emma and Emma had never seen her again. She still sometimes cried over the loss of Gigi, 23 years later.
She shared how she had then bounced around a lot, never staying with a family for more than 2 years. When she was 15, one of the teenage boys, also a foster, in the family she was in had taken to teasing her mercilessly in the home and at school. One day he pinned her to the ground behind the shed on the property they lived on and ripped her underwear off. He was touching her all over and her scrabbling hands found a good-sized rock. She pried it out of the dirt and brought it down on his skull, then stood over him feeling more helpless than she ever had in her life as he shook on the ground, blood leaking from his ear. Finally, she started screaming, which brought the family on a run. She shared how she was kicked from that family and went straight to a home for girls. She was never charged with anything, but she never found out if the boy lived or died or recovered or what.
She explained how that had been a defining moment in her life, trying to keep too much emotion out of her words, hoping he would see that these experiences shaped her, but didn’t rule her. In the home for girls she had set out to escape the system. She spent every spare moment in the library or at her job grooming animals for a veterinarian. She saved $3000 and petitioned to be emancipated at 16. The court granted it and just like that she was on her own. She had to leave the home within 7 days, and her plan had been to find an apartment, but even with her emancipation letter in hand, no one would rent to her. On the last day before she was going to be homeless she heard the 1-800-GO-ARMY commercial on the radio and called it. Yes, the army would take an emancipated 16 year old as long as she was at least halfway to her 17th birthday.
She was, and so she joined. Boot camp and medic training were easy, compared to living in foster homes. She made friends, although she never got too close. The boys liked her but she was scared of getting pregnant, so she held them all at arms length. There was no way she was ever going back into the system. She wanted freedom, independence, and a real and true family, so she would wait for the right boy.
Finally, she found a boy who pursued her even though she tried to hold him at arms length. He was strong and sweet and handsome, and he never looked at any of the other girls who fawned all over him. He only seemed to have eyes for Emma. She was a working in the emergency room of the Brooke Army Medical Center at the time. He was a medic attached to an infantry unit, and was often pulled in to the E.R. to run sick call for the units. They spent many hours discussing getting married when their tours were over and buying a house and having kids and a dog. If you combined their savings, they had almost $31,000. They didn’t need much to live on in the Army.
Then he got deployed with his unit to Afghanistan. He never came home. Emma had had enough loss at this point. She pulled in on herself, shunning even her friends.
When her tour was over, she was 21 years old. She felt 51 - maybe 71. Dried up, and ready to be done with it all. There was no joy or sunshine in her life. She paid for paramedic school and tried to find a reas
on to be happy.
Emma thought about whether Craig would want to hear about Norman, and she decided that yes. He needed to hear every sad detail to truly know her and understand why she did what she did, and when it was all out in the open, she would never hide who she was again.
Emma wrote about finishing school, returning to Westwood Harbor, and getting a job - then meeting Norman - how he was a young patrol officer who turned women’s heads everywhere he went. Even Emma noticed him. She didn’t give him a second thought though, because he had a reputation of being a playboy. She had never wanted that.
Well when he set his sights on her she knew it. He was charming, and intensely focused. He sent flowers frequently. Sometimes he would go out and hand pick them for her. He would monitor her radio and show up when she was eating lunch, plying her with questions about herself, and then he would bring her gifts related to the things she loved the most. She felt flattered, loved, cared for, and wanted. Something she had never felt in all of her childhood. Slowly, she let him in. When they dated he seemed to good to be true. She had no idea that meant he probably was. He forgave her anything. He never got angry. The only emotion he showed to her was happiness and love. He was a tender lover, always putting her needs first. Would she marry him? Of course she would. She was in love with him. Or with the man he was pretending to be. He brought her happiness.
The evening of their wedding, after it was over, was the first time she saw a flash of the real Norman. She had danced with him first of course, and then the best man had asked her to dance. She did, thinking it was tradition. Norman had seemed cold after that, but she didn’t know what to think of it. He’d never said a cross word to her ever.
That night, in their suite, he had argued with her, saying she danced with his best man for too long and she shouldn’t have touched her body to his. She was dumbfounded. She had never heard him yell before.
Within a month he hit her, just once, a backhand slap across the face because she forgot to bring home something he asked her to get at the store. She left the house and didn’t come back.
He apologized. Said he’d been under a lot of stress at work. Said he couldn’t believe he had done it. He became dating Norman again. She found herself crumbling, but didn’t want to become one of those abused women, but also didn’t want her marriage to fail. She had dreamed of marriage and her own family for so long.