Today's Promises

by S. R. Grey

  Looking away sharply, Jaynie murmurs, “I still need time to think about it. I just don’t know if I can do it.”

  The detective stands and places his hands on the counter. “Please, Miss Cumberland,” he says, his tone pleading. “Give this some serious thought. I can take a statement from you at any time. You still have my card, right?”

  Jaynie’s lips are pressed together tightly. I can tell she’s striving to stay composed.

  “Yeah,” I say, answering for her, “we have your card.”

  “Well, call me when you reach a decision. In the meantime, I’ll keep you abreast of any new developments at the Lowry property. But, let me say again, it does not look promising.”

  And with that downer, he walks out the door, taking all the peace and solace of the wintry weekend along with him.

  Jaynie

  “What do you want to do?” Flynn asks me after the detective leaves the sandwich shop.

  I shrug, unsure of where to go from here. I know what I should do. But talking about what I went through is easier said than done. Plus, will it even matter?

  Nonetheless, Flynn insists, “I think we should try and get back to Detective Silver as soon as possible. You have to decide whether or not you want to give him a statement and let him know either way.” He stops and runs his hands through his hair. “I have to say, though, that it’s not looking good up at the Lowry property. The old barn is apparently nothing but an old barn. Not a burial spot, after all.”

  I sigh. “Yeah, seems not. Still, Flynn, I don’t know. I hate the idea of Allison being released early, but I really can’t imagine how much help a statement from me will be in keeping her locked up.”

  “Detective Silver told you it could keep that bitch behind bars for quite some time. That should be more than enough motivation, I’d think.”

  “It’s not you who has to talk,” I snap.

  Shit, what am I doing? I’m not really mad at Flynn. He’s only trying to help. I know he just wants me to reach a place where I feel comfortable telling my story—the whole story—to strangers.

  But the truth remains that I’m scared as hell.

  “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I say.

  “It’s okay, Jaynie.”

  He looks so dejected, and I know it’s because of this one thing I keep bottled up. In any case, I at least owe him an explanation as to where I’m at.

  “Look, Flynn.” His eyes meet mine, and I try to smile so he knows I’m not mad at him. “Part of me wants to give a statement,” I go on, “but I’m terrified it’ll send me reeling backwards. You know, like back into a total funk?”

  He nods. “That is always a possibility,” he concedes.

  I appreciate him not bullshitting me, and I add, “What if that does happen, and I can’t get out of it this time? Flynn, seriously, things were so bad when you were away that some days it took all I had to get out of bed.”

  “But you did,” he reminds me.

  “Yeah, I kept going, but I wasn’t, like, really here. I wasn’t living, not at all. I only existed. I went through the motions of life, but with no heart in any of it.”

  “You were living, though,” Flynn insists.

  “Barely,” I counter.

  He takes a tentative step toward me, compassion clear in his sad, gray eyes. “I know it felt impossible back then, but that feeling never beat you.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “Christ, it kills me that I wasn’t here for you. I feel responsible. You should never have had to go through all that shit alone.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I say, shaking my head. “You couldn’t be here.”

  “I know, but still… I’ll never forgive myself for failing you.”

  “You didn’t fail me, Flynn.” I go to him and give him a hug. “God, we’re so broken,” I whisper.

  “We’re doing much better, though,” he mumbles into my hair. “You especially are. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

  Leaning back, I ask him, “Do you really believe that?”

  “I do. You’ve made great progress lately, Jaynie.”

  Warming up to the idea that I may be able to do this statement thing, I say, “If I talk with the detective about what happened, you’d be with me every step of the way, right?”

  He gives me a look. “Do you even have to ask that question, babe?”

  “No,” I admit. “I guess not.”

  He then assures me, “We’ll get through this the way we work best, the way we always do things—together.”

  “You know what?” I touch the little scar below his eye.

  “What?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too, babe. And”—he catches my hand—“you got this.”

  “Then I think I’ve made a decision,” I whisper.

  “What have you decided?”

  “I’m going to do it. I have no choice, not really. Not with the excavation going so poorly.” I blow out a breath. “I’m going to call Detective Silver and tell him my story. And then we’ll go on from there.”

  He tightens his arms around me. “You’re doing the right thing,” he says. “Though I’ll always wish it was my statement they wanted instead of yours. I swear I’d take your place any day if I could.”

  “I know, Flynn,” I tell him.

  And I know he would too. So would Mandy. But their stories are not what the detective wants. My story has lifelong implications.

  “I’ll be there with you the whole time,” he assures me again. “And if they need any corroboration, or whatever, to your story, I can help with that.”

  I hold on to my lifeline—this boy who loves me beyond bounds, this boy who makes me recognize my own strength.

  “Thank you, Flynn,” I whisper. “Thank you so much.”

  I mean it for so much more than just today.

  It takes until evening for me to build up enough courage to make the call to Detective Silver. And like Flynn promised, he is right there by my side.

  In our room, with both of us perched on the edge of the bed, I hit “call.”

  When the detective picks up, I’m in no mood for small talk. I get straight to the point. “This is Jaynie Cumberland. I’m ready to make that statement.”

  After a pause, the detective replies, “Excellent. Can you hold on a minute?”

  I don’t know why there’s a delay, but I say, “Uh, okay, sure.”

  Flynn, seated next to me, pats my knee encouragingly.

  When I glance over at him, he gives me a ‘you-got-this’ smile, and mouths, “You’re doing great.”

  “It’s only been a minute,” I say back, laughing.

  Ah, now I see what Flynn is doing—distracting me, putting me at ease.

  It works, until I hear the detective shuffling around papers and realize he’s preparing to take notes. Damn, this is real now.

  I mutter a cautious, “Here we go.”

  “Okay,” Detective Silver says when he returns to the phone. “This is how it’s going to play out. I’d like for us to meet up as soon as it’s good for you—so I can take a formal statement—but until that time, me jotting down a few notes now will tell me how much evidence we have to make a case.”

  “All right,” I murmur.

  I remind myself that this is me taking control.

  A few seconds later, Detective Silver, adopting a much more business-like tone, says, “As I understand it, you were physically hurt by Allison Lowry. Is this correct?”

  “Yes.”

  At my trying-to-be-strong tone, Flynn reaches over and takes my hand.

  “We’ll go through the events leading up to the assault when we meet in person, but for now, I need to ask, were the injuries you sustained of a serious nature? In other words, was there significant harm done to you? Harm which required medical intervention?”

  Was there significant harm done to me? And could I have benefited from some medical intervention? Yeah, that would’ve been nice. Maybe I wouldn’t be facin
g a life of infertility if I’d been able to see a doctor.

  Swallowing the lump that’s threatening to close up my throat and shut me down, I croak out, “I miscarried because of Allison, Detective Silver. She kicked me in the abdomen, over and over again. She beat the hell out of me, really. So yes, I’d say there was significant harm done to me… And to my baby, who never even had a chance.”

  The detective pauses. And then he says in the kindest of tones, “Miss Cumberland, I had no idea. I am so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  Flynn squeezes my hand.

  “Well, this takes Ms. Lowry’s offense to a whole new level,” he then informs me. “May I ask which hospital you went to, Miss Cumberland? With the records they have on file, we’ll be able to throw the book at Alli—”

  “Wait,” I interrupt, panic rising. “There are no records. I never went to a hospital that night. I couldn’t. For the love of God, I was running for my life!”

  I start to sob, but even over my anguished cries, when the detective replies, I hear all too clearly that this admission, this fucking pouring out of my heart, has all been for nothing.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Cumberland,” he states. I hear his pen clink to whatever surface he’s been writing on. “Without hospital records documenting your injuries, there’s no way to prove Allison ever laid a hand on you.”

  I can no longer hold back. I am racked with sobs. It’s like Allison still has the power to put me in my place. “She will always beat me,” I mumble, defeated.

  I drop the phone.

  Allison is going to walk this summer, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

  Flynn

  “We must come to accept that which we cannot change. Take comfort, however, in knowing there is a bigger picture at play in the universe. Yes, we may be blind when it comes to what the Lord has in store for us, but trust me, my flock, He will never give us more than we can bear. And, eventually, we will see the light.”

  I’m listening intently to the minister, leaning forward on the pew, even. But not Jaynie. Nope. She’s too busy fidgeting next to me. She hasn’t heard a single word. Perhaps bringing her to church, to listen to this sermon, wasn’t such a bright idea.

  Confirming my suspicions, she leans in to me when I sit back and whispers in my ear, “Can we go soon?”

  “In a few minutes, okay? Hang in there, the service is almost over.”

  Jaynie sighs, loudly. She’s clearly not pleased with my response. Smoothing the light cottony material of her latest thrift store find, a lavender-colored dress, she lets out an irritated groan.

  Despite her agitation and restlessness, my girl still looks so pretty today. All dressed up, and with her usually loose auburn hair pinned up in a messy bun, I can barely keep my eyes off her.

  Too bad she’s so unhappy with me. If she wasn’t, the first thing I’d do when we get out of here would be go home, let her hair down slowly in a cascade of curls, and shimmy that sheath dress right the hell off of her.

  I don’t think that’ll be happening, though. Not after I dragged her to this Sunday service.

  Attending church was all my idea. When I first threw it out, Jaynie looked at me like I’d gone crazy. I guess because we’re not overtly religious people. Still, I was hoping she’d find some solace in the minister’s words, especially when I saw in a bulletin someone left in the sandwich shop and it indicated today’s sermon was to be about ‘accepting that in our lives which we cannot change.’

  From the look on Jaynie’s face at the moment, though, and her clear desire to go home, I think I was hoping for too much.

  It’s a shame too, since we have a problem—a big problem.

  Ever since Detective Silver informed us that without hospital records there is no case to build against Allison, and with the excavation of the old barn still looking like a bust, Jaynie has fallen into a serious funk.

  Not only have her nightmares increased in frequency, but she’s been hoarding more food than ever. Plus, there’s a new development. Jaynie has taken to fastidiously cleaning our little apartment every Sunday, like—no pun intended—religiously.

  The significance isn’t lost on me, Sunday used to be cleaning day at our former foster home.

  “Oh, one more thing,” Jaynie blurts out, a bit on the loud side.

  The white-haired lady on the other side of her shoots her an admonishing glare, along with an annoyed, “Shhh!”

  Jaynie sheepishly replies, “Sorry, ma’am.”

  In a greatly lowered voice, Jaynie cups her hand around her mouth and says to me, “We need to stop at the grocery store on the way home. I’m out of that Scrubbing Bubbles stuff. You know the one, the cleaner I like to use in the tub.”

  Oh, I know it. I know it all too well. We’ve never had such a sparkling clean tub, all porcelain-white and shiny as all get out. The sink is amazing too, and the toilet. Plus, don’t even get me started on the glowing linoleum floor.

  Despite the rigorous Sunday cleaning Jaynie has adhered to, she sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night simply to shine up something anew. I caught her just the other night when I got up to take a piss.

  There she was, on her knees in the bathroom, scrubbing our already shiny-as-glass tub. As I whipped out my dick and let a stream of urine flow into the pristine toilet, she informed me—as nonchalantly as if we were having a discussion of the benefits of cleaning in the middle of the day, instead of in the middle of the night—that the tub absolutely had to match the sterile cleanliness of the sink.

  “Whatever you say,” I murmured groggily. “They both look good to me.”

  “Of course you’d say that,” she snapped back, eyeing me over her shoulder as I flushed the commode. “You don’t see all the dirt like I do, Flynn.”

  “I guess I don’t,” I conceded, knowing then for sure that this cleaning obsession was another symptom of the bigger problem.

  I was then ordered to squirt some of that blue stuff in the toilet. “Let it soak,” she told me. “You can go back to bed. I’ll get to it after the tub.”

  She resumed scrubbing, and I left.

  Heaven help us, but I truly think Jaynie believes she can scrub and disinfect our worries away. That’s what this latest obsession is all about.

  Ah, if only things were that simple.

  But if this new cleaning craze helps her cope, who am I to make her stop? I fear the alternative, anyway.

  Patting her knee, I say in a comforting tone, “Sure, babe. We can stop at the store.”

  Later, when we arrive back to our apartment—after the detour to the grocery store, of course—Jaynie shrugs out of her dress, and then throws on a pair of white boy shorts and a pink tank top.

  Sighing, I sit down on the edge of the bed.

  When Jaynie heads to the bathroom, as I knew she immediately would, she grabs up a sponge and the new can of cleaner we just bought.

  “Do you want any help?” I ask as I unbutton my dress shirt.

  She turns to me and purses her lips. “No, I think I got this,” I am told.

  “All right, Jaynie.”

  I shrug out of my shirt, and then, taking preemptive action, I open the window a crack to dispense with all the fumes that will soon fill the apartment. I then finish undressing. Once I’m down to just boxer briefs, I flop back on the bed. “Shit, I’m exhausted,” I mumble.

  I really am tired, though it’s more mental exhaustion than physical toll. In any case, as I listen to Jaynie’s rhythmic scrubbing in the other room, I am eventually lulled to sleep.

  I’m awoken a short while later, however, when a warm body is flattened against mine, one I notice rather rapidly is devoid of all clothes.

  Immediately stirred—in more ways than one—I open one eye and look up. “Jaynie,” I breathe out.

  Her hand closes over the hardening bulge in my boxers, making me gasp. “What are you doin’, babe?”

  She slips her hand down in my underwear, causing me to in
stinctively lift my hips to grant her better access.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” she rasps as she slides my boxers down my legs.

  This is another new development—Jaynie wants sex all the time. And sure, we always desire each other, but this is different. She’s disconnected. She just wants to give me head and fuck.

  Like now, her head is already between my legs, and within seconds she’s bobbing up and down on my cock.

  Jesus. That feels good.

  I should stop her, I know. But I can’t. I’m a raring-to-go eighteen-year-old male, for fuck’s sake. If she’s looking for sex to take away her pain, I’m her guy.

  After sucking me off just to the brink, she stops what she’s doing and climbs up my body. “You ready for me, Flynn?” she asks, her voice all husky.

  Hell, my response is to line her up with my cock.

  As she lowers herself down on my length, she chants, “Oh-my-God, oh-my-God.”

  Seems Jaynie found God today, after all. Just not in the way I was hoping she would. This wasn’t what I had in mind when I took her to church this morning, but, shit, I can’t complain. Sex is a damn good escape for me too.

  Flipping Jaynie over and onto her back, I drive into her in the way I know she likes it these days, hard and fast. Hell, who am I kidding? I like it this way too.

  “Fuck,” I mutter as I try and hold off on my release, mostly by thinking of things other than how hot and wild this abandoned sex is.

  It’s difficult to stay focused, though. Especially when Jaynie starts scraping her nails down my back and screaming out shit like, “Fuck me harder, Flynn. Oh, yes, that’s so fucking good. I love your fucking cock.”

  That does it. I lose myself inside her, leaving me caught up in nothing but my release.

  And for that little delicious slice of time on a Sunday afternoon, all worries are forgotten.

  Jaynie

  I’m floundering, I know it. And I can’t deny that I really need to stop this craziness. The hoarding, the compulsive cleaning, the nightmares, and my insatiable need for sex—all these things are indicative of my mental state, which is currently fucked-up.