by R. R. Banks
You didn't deserve this. You didn't do anything wrong. There was nothing that you did that made him that way.
"Why are you doing this, Daniel?" I asked, feeling stronger now.
"Don't be stupid," he said. "I've always hated when you acted like you were stupid."
"I want you to tell me," I said.
"You should have just said yes. You have no idea how lucky you are. You have no idea how many women would do anything to be in your place."
I was getting incredibly tired of being told how lucky I was to be tormented.
"Then why didn't you just choose one of them?" I asked. "If there are so many others who want you, why didn't you just choose another one? Why me?"
"Because I don't want any of them. I want you. You are the one that I picked out in high school and that means that you are the one that I want. That means you are who I am going to have. And if I can't have you, then no one else is going to."
I saw his finger move on the gun, but before he could pull the trigger, I heard him cry out. I didn't know what had happened, but when I scrambled to my feet I saw that Daniel was on the snow, his hand gripping his leg. He was glaring ahead of him and I looked to see Scout standing there, baring his teeth in a way that I had never seen him before.
"Scout" I cried out.
Daniel was getting to his feet and I saw that Scout had bitten his leg, tearing through his pants and scraping his skin. He took a lunging step toward the dog, before he could get to him a massive figure came out of the trees and landed on him. It was Micah, who pushed up from Daniel and punched him in the face. Daniel tried to fight back, but Micah grabbed the fist that came toward him and punched him again. Daniel was lying still now, and Micah got off of him, turning around to look at me.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"He had a gun," I told him. "Where is it?"
Micah and I looked around and I saw the gun a few feet away. He reached to get it and out of the corner of my eye I saw Daniel standing up. His hand was lifted nearly over his head and I saw that he was gripping a knife. It glinted in the moonlight and I screamed just before he brought it down, plunging it deep into Micah's back. Micah reared back and roared with the pain, but then whirled around and knocked the knife out of Daniel's hand. It skittered across the frozen surface of the snow and landed just a few feet from me. I snatched it up and brought it close to me so that Daniel couldn't get it again. The two men were grappling now, fighting fiercely as both struggled for dominance over the other. Scout lunged in and bit Daniel again, tearing away a chunk of his skin.
Micah managed to get Daniel on his back and was holding him down when he turned to look at me over his shoulder.
"Charlotte, go to the lodge. Call the police. Scout show her the way."
I didn't want to go. I didn't want to leave Micah, but I knew that we needed help. I reached for my cell phone, thinking that I could call and still stay with him, but then I realized that I had left my phone in the car. Scout was next to me now as I stood. As soon as I was on my feet he took off, nearly disappearing into the darkness. I chased him, relying on the light from the moon and the stars to bounce off of the white patches on him so that I could keep him in sight, as he led me to the lodge. I had only been running for a few seconds when I heard a gunshot split the night air around me.
Chapter Seventeen
Charlotte
I sat beside a hospital bed the next afternoon, holding Micah's hand and staring into his face. There was still blood splattered on my clothes from where I tried to hold him when we are riding in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I didn't care. I wasn't going to leave until he was awake. The doctors had spent hours working on him, but he had gotten through the surgery and they said that he was doing well. I had never felt such incredible gratitude as I had in that moment. I was grateful to the team of doctors who had worked so hard to save him, and I was grateful to Micah for literally putting his life on the line for me.
I felt in that moment, more than any other moment in my life, more than when I was going through anything else that I had ever faced, that the true horror of Daniel was really illuminated. In that moment I saw more than I ever had before, the impact of what I had suffered at his hands, and how far-reaching that impact could really be. It wasn't just the way that he had treated me. It was that I had made the decision, over and over again, to continue putting myself in that place and allowing that treatment to continue, and to worsen. I made the decision over and over again to stay with him. I knew now that there was nothing that I did that made me deserve the way that he treated me, and it was in no way my fault, but he had always managed to make me feel as though it were. He made me feel as though I deserved the way that he was treating me and like I would never be able to find someone who wouldn't treat me that way. It had gotten to the point where I felt like maybe he was right. Like maybe this was inevitable, it was just something that I was going to have to deal with. There was a small part of me that believed that maybe, in some way, everyone dealt with this.
But I knew that that wasn't the case. I knew that my mother never had to deal with treatment like this from my father. I knew that neither of my sisters ever had to deal with anything like this from their husbands. None of them had ever experienced what I had, and that it was part of what had made them unable to see what I was going through and how serious it really was. There was a part of me though that believed that it was me. There's something about me that attracted the type of man who would treat a woman that way. If that were the case, if it was something about me, then there was no point in trying to escape Daniel because I would only find myself in the same position again and again. At least with Daniel, I knew him. I knew the look in his eye and how to gauge his emotions and his moods. I knew what he looked like when he was angry. I knew what it looked like when he was tired. I knew what he looked like when someone had said something to piss him off or when he had been disappointed or overlooked. I knew those sides of him and what to expect when I saw those looks. Though it didn't protect me, it prepared me, in a way that was far preferable to what could be waiting for me with another man.
But now I knew what was waiting for me with another man. It was sheer happiness and contentment. It was the feeling of being safe, adored, and loved. It was the knowledge that he would keep me safe and would never hurt me. That was what made this moment, as I sat by the bed and held his hand, waiting for when his eyes would open again, so painful and difficult. This was the moment that illuminated how bad that relationship really was and the fact that it wasn't just me that it affected. Up until now I believed that I was the only one who Daniel would hurt. I was the only one he had ever done anything to. He was arrogant, conceited, snobby, and elitist. He thought that he was better than virtually everyone around him and was known to be dismissive and even mean to those who he saw as beneath him. But he was in good company in that behavior. Unfortunately, that was not unusual in our world. I hated it, but it wasn't violent. It wasn't cruel. It wasn't dangerous. Now, though, that had completely changed. Daniel had now brutally injured someone else. The man I loved. I was overcome with guilt, but there was another feeling deep inside me, a feeling that I welcomed, and that I knew was never going to change. I was utterly, passionately devoted to Micah.
**********
Micah
Charlotte was sitting beside my hospital bed when I opened my eyes. Feeling her hand wrapped around mine and having her face be the first thing I saw was the most wonderful moment that I could have imagined. I wasn't entirely sure what had happened as I looked around.
"Where am I?" I asked.
She laughed.
"Do you know who you are?" she asked.
I nodded.
"Yes," I said.
"Then I still have you beat," she said.
Though she was doing her best to smile and laugh, I could see the tears in her eyes and the streaks down her cheeks created by hours of crying. She was now gripping my hand with both of hers and lean
ing forward onto the bed. It was as if she was trying to get as close to me as she possibly could.
"What happened? I don't really remember much after Scout brought me outside and I heard you screaming."
"Scout was amazing," I told him. "He saved me. You could probably go ahead and start calling him Lassie now."
I laughed and felt a sharp pain go through my back and my stomach. I groaned loudly.
"I don't think that he would like that very much," I said.
"He probably would," she said. "But he did. He saved me. Daniel had come after me with a gun. He was trying to kill me, but Scout bit him and he dropped the gun. The two of you fought and he stabbed you in the back. I was heading for the lodge to call for help when I heard a gunshot. I found out that he shot you in the stomach while you were fighting."
I drew in a breath as I tried to process it
"Did they find him?" I asked.
Charlotte nodded.
"Before you passed out you managed to hit him one more time and it knocked him unconscious. You were both lying there in the snow when the police came. They brought him here and fixed him up a little, but now he's at the jail. He'll be away for a long time."
"Good," I said. That's when I noticed the blood on her clothes.
"Did he hurt you?" I asked.
I didn't care about what I had gone through. All that mattered to me was whether she had been hurt.
"No," she said. "This is your blood. I brought the police to you and when I saw you all I wanted to do was hold you. Your eyes were closed, and you were just laying there. There was blood in the snow. I thought…"
Her breath caught, and she looked down. I felt a tear hit my hand and saw her shoulders shaking.
"Shh,” I said, trying to soothe her. "I'm here. I'm right here. I'm going to be fine."
"You rescued me again," she said. "One of these days you are going to get tired of having to come to my rescue."
"Never," I said. "I will never stop wanting to rescue you. I just hope that you won't have many more things that you need to be rescued from."
"I'm so sorry that you had to go through this," she said.
I shook my head again.
"I would do it again. I would do all of it again. I feel like this is the culmination of everything that I have gone through. Everything that I have suffered in my life has been worth it, because it culminated in me being there in those moments to save you. I only wish that we hadn't waited so long. I wish that I had known you more and that we could have spent more of our lives together."
"Maybe we would have been able to protect each other."
I reached up and cupped her cheek with my hand, stroking across her cheek bone with my thumb.
"What has happened has happened," I told her. "There's nothing that we can do to change it. All that we can do is change every moment going forward. We will never be able to go back and make those things go away, but we can make sure that nothing like that ever happens again. We can make every moment of the rest of our lives so incredible that they drown out every one from the past. I don't regret any of it. I will never regret any of it."
"You sound like you think I'm going away," she said.
"I didn't know how you were feeling anymore, I don't want you to feel like you are being forced to do anything ever again."
Charlotte smiled and brought my hand forward to press against her heart.
"I'm not being forced to do anything. I never want to be away from you again. You're never getting rid of me."
"Even if you forget who you are again?" I asked, a slight laugh in my voice.
"Even if I forget who I am again," she said. "My heart didn't forget you this time and it won't ever again."
Epilogue
Charlotte
"You really should have stayed in the hospital for a little bit longer," I said.
I had my arm wrapped around Micah's waist and was carefully helping him over to the sofa in the great room. He dropped down onto the cushions and let out a sigh. I wasn't sure if it was a sigh of relief or in response to pain in his still healing wounds.
"Absolutely not," he said. "A measly little gunshot and stab wound aren’t going to keep me from celebrating our first Christmas together."
"I didn't know that you liked Christmas so much" I said.
"Well, I didn't really until you came along."
"Why is that?" I asked mischievously.
"Maybe because you are the best thing that Santa has ever brought me."
I looked over at the incredible tree that filled one side of the room. I had never seen a Christmas tree that big and it was truly breathtaking.
"How did you manage to get a tree like that in here? You've only been home from the hospital for six hours and I was only getting two of your prescriptions filled.
"Scout helped me," Micah said.
I laughed.
"Scout helped you go out into the woods, pick a tree, chop it down, and set it up in the lodge?"
"All of this rescue stuff has given him a new sense of confidence," he said. "He believes he can do anything now."
I looked over at the dog who was sprawled in front of the fire, shamelessly turning his belly toward the warmth of the flames.
"Somehow, I just don't believe that that's true," I said.
"Alright," Micah said. "I might have had a little bit of help."
"A couple of little Santa's helpers all your own?"
"Something like that. Come on out the jig is up."
I looked in the direction that he was calling and saw Madeline, Miranda, William, and Seth come into the room. My sisters were carrying boxes of decorations and all were smiling happily.
"Direct from the North Pole," Miranda said.
I grinned, crossing the room to my sisters and gathering both of them in hugs.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Micah told us that he wanted a little bit of Christmas magic in the lodge," Madeline said.
"But since he is just a touch incapacitated at the moment, we offered to give him a hand," William said.
I was nearly overwhelmed by the happiness that filled me. In the days following Daniel's attack, each of my sisters had come to me and apologized. They told me exactly what I had suspected, that they didn't even know what I had been going through. They had heard a few rumors and thought that they had overheard me when I tried to tell Mom what I'd been experiencing with Daniel, but they didn't believe it. They never knew the full extent. They felt horrible about it, but I couldn't blame them. How could I possibly hold them accountable for not understanding what I was going through and for doing nothing to stand up for me, when for so long I didn't understand what I was doing to myself? I was just so happy to have my sisters back and to know that they accepted Micah and my desire for a future with him.
"Thanks for your help," Micah said. "So, what do you think? Should we start decorating?"
"Absolutely," I said.
"If a couple of my little helpers don't mind, there's some eggnog and cookies in the kitchen."
"OK," Madeline said as she walked to the great room and into the kitchen, "I think we got a little bit too far with Santa's Little Helpers thing."
"Never," Micah said.
He pulled himself slowly off of the couch and started toward the boxes of decorations that my sisters had put down. He started pulling out containers of glass balls and tinsel in shades of burgundy and gold. Seth and William had already gone to work trying to wind strands of lights around the enormous tree and for a moment it looked as though I might lose one of my brothers-in-law to the branches. Madeline and Miranda came back into the room carrying the eggnog and cookies. Micah gestured at them.
"See? Regular elves."
Both sisters laughed and set the treats on a table up against one wall. We started hanging the decorations and after a few minutes Micah offered me one that looked slightly different from the others. It was a round burgundy ball with gold accents, but a band around the middle made it
look as though it could open. I took the ball in both hands and looked at him questioningly.
"There's something that I've been meaning to give you," he said. "It might be somewhat overdue, but I hope that you will accept it all the same."
I carefully parted the ball and looked inside. Half was filled with a velvet pillow and tied on the pillow was Micah's high school ring. Tears sprang to my eyes even as I laughed. I untied the ring and took it out of the ball.
"It's perfect," I said.
"I'm glad you like it," he said. "It might be a little bit big on you. Maybe you'd rather wear this one instead."
I looked up at him and saw that he was holding an intricate diamond ring in his hand.
"Micah…"
"Charlotte, I have loved you for so long, and I will never stop loving you. When my life flashed before my eyes I saw so many moments that you should have been a part of, and I don't want us to miss any of those moments moving forward. I want to share every single one of them with you. Now that I have you, I feel like I have found everything that I have ever wanted or needed in life, even if I didn't know what I was looking for. Will you marry me?"