Dim luminescence from the recessed lighting didn’t do it justice. The necklace and earrings still sparkled, but with a used, dejected shimmer. She knew what they had been through.
Sean must have taken the necklace off her when he’d found her. Of course he would have. With his medical training he would know to take it off. The earrings she wasn’t sure about. Maybe they’d dropped to the floor. She could barely remember the attack, and she hadn’t been thinking about the jewelry at the time.
Hurriedly, Abby placed the jewelry back into the box and tucked it securely away from prying eyes. If word got out on the streets that there were thousands of dollars’ worth of jewels in the storage room of the hospital, walls would surely be torn down to find them.
She wouldn’t mention them unless he did.
Several weeks passed. Abby and Sean would go on a date once or twice a week. They had yet to repeat the kiss, but Abby knew it had been desperate measures that had brought it forth and wasn’t fully aware if either of them were ready yet. At least, she knew she wasn’t.
Sean still had so much anger in him. She loved him, and she wanted to be with him, but he scared her. He would lose his temper quickly. Even being double-charged on a salad brought Sean into a fury that sent Abby into herself, not talking, not wanting to be near him. She didn’t want that. She didn’t not want to be with the person that she loved. Abby felt torn into pieces.
Yet, on their ninth date, Abby challenged herself to take it a step further. The ninth date was when they’d had their official kiss at Swan Lake, and she wanted tonight to be special as well. She had even purchased a new dress for the occasion.
Tonight, Abby had insisted on driving herself. They would be having dinner at a restaurant near his hotel, and it was silly for him to drive forty-five minutes to her apartment just to make the trek again later. She borrowed a car from Oyana’s sister, who was in Mozambique for the month, and took to the streets alone for the first time in ages. Sean had let her drive his car several times, and it had been liberating. She enjoyed having her hands on the wheel of a fast, loud machine again, and as Abby pulled into the parking garage, she laughed in glee when she discovered that it had only taken her forty-one minutes compared to Sean’s forty-five.
She continued to smile as she entered the elevator, allowing it to whisk her to Sean’s suite. The sparkle of the jewels on her neck and ears reflected in the mirrored metal of the elevator door, and she felt a smile spread across her face.
Abby knew that Sean had a plan for after dinner, but she couldn’t begin to guess what it was. He’d said to dress warm, but with the heat of the day still pressing down on her, Abby had chosen an off the shoulder slip dress and high heels. She hadn’t worn high heels in ages and they felt awkward on her feet. She had also borrowed a scarf from Oyana. It matched the dress perfectly and was just the right size to cover the scars on Abby’s back.
She’d also brought a sweater, just in case they were going to see a movie or something. It was always cold in movie theaters, and Abby’s mom’s most recent movie had just come out, so she wondered if Sean would be taking her to see it. But she didn’t know if she was quite ready to see Mom’s face. A year wasn’t time enough.
When she arrived on his floor, Abby adjusted the earrings and necklace. She couldn’t wait to see his face when he saw her wearing them. He probably thought the package had gone missing in the unreliable Nairobi mail system. She was surprised he’d not had it couriered instead.
Butterflies tore rapidly through Abby’s insides as she knocked lightly at the door. Her heart was racing, and she bounced up and down on the uncomfortable stilts that encased her feet as she waited. When the door opened, Abby watched a smile break out on Sean’s face as she stepped into his suite. He took her in from head to toe. She wasn’t wearing makeup, that wasn’t her style anymore. But she’d pinned her hair up into a chignon to show off the earrings. She watched as Sean’s eyes took in her hair, then down to her shoes, up her legs and paused at her waist. The dress made her hips look fabulous. Not scrawny and bony like she usually looked, but elegant and pretty. Then his eyes danced up to her chest. She hoped that he didn’t notice how her breasts had shrunk at least two sizes with the weight loss. His eyes lit up and she saw that he didn’t seem to mind at all.
With a step forward, Sean closed the door behind her, raised his hand to her face, and caressed her cheek with the backs of her fingers. “You look beautiful.”
But then his smile turned into a shocked scowl as he took in the necklace.
“Where did you get that?”
Abby immediately stepped back. Horror began to seep through her veins. “You… you mailed it to me. For my birthday.” Second thoughts flit through her mind. “Right?”
“You weren’t wearing that jewelry when I found you,” he whispered, his voice a frightening growl.
The fear and outrage in Sean’s eyes told Abby all she needed to know. The jewelry instantly became fire to her flesh and she scratched at the offending jewels, scrambling to get them off her neck. It wasn’t budging. She pulled the earrings out, pain shot through her left ear as she tore the wire from her earlobe, but her only goal was to get it off her body. She continued pulling at the necklace when Sean’s voice surrounded her.
“Wait, Jamie. Stop. You’re scratching yourself. Stop it!”
Abby could hear the words but wasn’t able to react. She continued to claw at the necklace, pulling and lifting it off her neck, but it wouldn’t unclasp. Tears dropped down the sides of her face to join her grasping hands until she felt Sean’s wrist grab one of her hands and shove her towards the wall with the other. “Abigail! Stop!” he yelled.
The sound of her given name on his lips shocked her enough to stop pulling at the necklace, but the tears wouldn’t cease. “Sean. Get it off me. Please, get it off me.”
“Promise me you’ll stop scratching yourself.”
Abby nodded her head. She hadn’t even realized what she was doing to herself. She’d only known the urgency of removing the vile jewels from her already tainted skin.
Sean gently pulled her away from the wall and stepped behind her. The feel of the metal on her skin made her nauseous. She needed it off immediately. After what seemed like hours, Sean huffed in outrage. “Dammit! I can’t get the clasp with my fucking…”
“Wait. If I look in the mirror I think can get it,” Abby said, not wanting Sean to have to speak the words.
His touch had calmed her to a point where could finally think clearly, so she took a cleansing breath and gathered her wits, then spun the necklace around on her neck and stepped over to the mirror that hung over a side table. The sight of the necklace on her body now brought forth revulsion and anger, very unlike the passion it had unleashed when she’d first placed it on her neck over a year ago.
It was a complicated clasp, reinforced to ensure against a quick theft. She thought about the man that had removed it when she was attacked. Had he taken his time to undo the clasp? It must have been covered in blood when he took it away. Abby felt the word flow through her once again - revenge. The word that had been carved in her back took hold and she found herself embracing its meaning. When Abby finally got the necklace off, she threw it across the room and dropped to her knees in a ball of anguish.
After several seconds of hauling himself to the floor, Sean was able to join her. She felt him wrap his arms around her shoulders and held her until the tears stopped.
“Tell me, Jamie,” he asked. “Where did it come from?”
Her body was still shaking, and she felt as though the jewelry tossed throughout the room were little snakes, waiting to bite her. She never wanted to see them again. “In the mail, on my birthday,” she whispered, her voice barely working.
“What was the address on the package?”
“It was addressed to me at the hospital. Jamie Poser. The return address was a post office box in the city.”
“You wouldn’t happen to remember what post office, would
you?”
“No. But I just opened it several weeks ago. The paper is in the storage room trash can. That hardly ever gets emptied. It’s probably still in there.”
“Your birthday was a while ago, why didn’t you open it until recently?”
“I didn’t know who it was from. I was scared. Then I found out that you’d been living here for a month, and I thought it was from you, so I opened it. But now… I guess… it’s not from you, and I just… I don’t know.” The lights of the room became unfocused and too bright. Abby closed her eyes to their intensity. She gripped Sean’s arms and began to shake.
“You’ve got to calm down. You’re having a panic attack. Take deep breaths.”
Abby breathed in through her nose and out through her nose, just like Veena had taught her. Focus, focus, focus. Eventually she was able to think again. Barely. “You didn’t send me the jewelry.”
“No. You weren’t wearing it when I found your body… when I found you.”
“He knows I’m going by the name Jamie Poser. He knows where I am.” Abby said. Her heart rate began to climb again, and she felt the walls begin to cave in.
“Come back to me, Jamie. Stay with me.” Sean was in her face now, peering into her eyes, trying to convince her to stay in the real world, but she didn’t want to be in the real world anymore. She had left one world for another, thinking that she’d escaped the first one. But both worlds had been here all along. Her chest began to hurt and breathing became more and more difficult.
“C’mon baby, calm down. Please, Jamie. Please, stay with me.”
But she didn’t want to stay anymore. She wanted the blackness.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
WHEN Abby awoke moments later, she was laying on a fluffy mattress surrounded by soft blankets and cool, cotton sheets. Air conditioning surrounded her, and her body felt as though it was floating in paradise. This wasn’t her bunk in the apartment. Had she died and gone to heaven?
“Jamie?”
Sean’s voice interrupted her fantasy, but when she opened her eyes, she realized that it wasn’t her imagination. The bed was like sleeping on a cloud. After months of a thin mattress on the wooden bunkbed in a dry, hot apartment, the hotel bedding was unimaginable. She curled up around the soft pillow and began to fall back asleep.
But then her mind hit the rewind button. The necklace.
Abby scrambled off the bed and raced to the corner of the room, her eyes twitching everywhere, looking for the offending jewelry, waiting for it to jump up and bite her.
“It’s gone,” Sean said.
Abby looked towards him and hesitated to breathe. It was gone?
He cleared his throat, “I took care of it. Garbage chute in the hallway. It’s probably heading to the incinerator in the morning.”
Abby leaned her head back against the wall and pressed her palms against its cool surface.
“Thank you,” she said.
“How about we cancel our date and order room service instead,” Sean suggested. “You’re in no condition to go to a restaurant.”
“I think that sounds like a good idea.” Abby stepped to the mirror and saw that her carefully pinned hair had turned into a jumbled mess, scratches lined the edges of her neck, and her eyes were red from crying. Yes, she definitely wasn’t in restaurant condition.
As Sean ordered room service, Abby continued to stare at her reflection. Her eyes had gone from confident to scared. They knew where she was. She was no longer safe.
She watched in the mirror as Sean stepped behind her. He was looking at her back. “I thought your mom was going to have you get plastic surgery,” he said.
“It’s hard to get consent for plastic surgery from an adult woman who isn’t speaking.”
Sean nodded, then lifted his right hand, and softly traced the scars on her back with his weakened fingers. Injury touching injury. Loss touching loss. “How did you stand it?”
“I don’t remember him carving the letters. I must have passed out by then.”
“That’s good.” Through the mirror, she could see a wave of relief shoot through him at knowing she hadn’t had to bear the pain of whatever blade had been used to slice into her skin. He leaned down and placed his lips on her shoulder. Abby closed her eyes and felt the sensation calm her agitation, sending worry and anger from her body. His lips kissed her seven times along her back. One touch of his lips for each letter. She knew he wanted to heal it, to take it away. Just like she wished she had the healing powers to make his hand whole again.
“I’m going to ask you a question,” he whispered quietly, his lips now resting on her neckline, soothing the deep scratches where the necklace had dug into her skin. “You don’t have to answer it, okay?”
Abby nodded her head. With his healing skin against her own, she would tell him anything. She had nothing to hide. Nothing to hide from Sean, anyway.
“Were you passed out when he…” Sean paused. “When he raped you?”
Abby stepped back and turned, almost knocking him over. He put his hands up and stepped back. “I said you didn’t have to answer. I just... I hope that you weren’t there for it… mentally, I mean.”
“Who told you I was raped?”
Confusion shot through Sean’s face. He put his arms down and tipped his head. “Well, your dad. He…”
“My dad lied to you, Sean. I was never touched below my waist.”
She watched as realization kicked Sean in the stomach. He walked to the bed and sat heavily. “This whole time I thought…” His head dropped into his hands and Abby watched his shoulders convulse in a sob. Then he looked up and stared at her. “Thank God.”
“I do thank Him,” she said. “Every day.”
She stepped to the bed and sat next to him.
“So… you’re still…”
“If you call me a virgin I will slap you.”
“But you are, right?”
Abby nodded her head. “I know. Oyana and I both have a thousand Kenyan shillings riding on who’ll get popped first.”
Sean laughed. Abby wished she was on the other side of him, so she could see the dimple. “Well, I’m not planning on popping you tonight, if that’s what you were thinking.”
“Good, then I will still have a chance to get my thousand shillings.”
“So, the money goes to the person that holds out the longest?”
“Yes. Oyana can’t wait to have babies, so I’m totally going to win.”
Sean just smiled. “Maybe.”
Room service arrived with a delicious baked chicken and enough sides for an army. Abby’s stomach was still queasy from the evening’s drama, but she tried to eat enough to appease Sean’s nerves.
After dinner, they sat on the balcony and watched lights dance on the parkway. Sean was settled on the lounge chair and Abby was cuddled in his lap. If she held down her imagination and forced it to do her will, she could pretend that they were a normal couple having a normal vacation, but her mind, and reality, was far from normal.
“I wonder why my dad told you I was raped.”
“Your dad did a lot of strange things after you were attacked.”
“He did?” Abby was shocked. Her always calm and collected dad had never done strange things. Sean must be exaggerating. “Like what?”
“Let’s not talk about this now.”
Abby got it. Now wasn’t the time. She could wait.
“Do you want to go on our date?” Sean asked.
“I thought this was our date.”
“No. I’ve got something way better. And after the drama you’ve just had, I think you need something fun to replace it.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
AFTER throwing on her sweater to keep her scratched neck out of view, Abby followed Sean to the elevator. Instead of hitting the button for the lobby, he pressed a button labeled Ice Palace. When they reached the top floor, the doors opened to a hallway of worn-out red carpet and small cubbies lining the wall. “What is this?”
> “Take your shoes off,” Sean said.
“Gladly.” Abby sat on a bench near the wall and unfastened the straps of her heels. After finally wrestling them off her feet, Sean appeared with two pairs of ice skates hanging from his arm. “Your glass slippers, my dear.”
“Ice skating?”
“I prefer the term hockey.”
“You know I’m from Florida, right? Not much skating in the sunshine state.”
Sean laughed, then sat down on the seat across from her. “I do have a favor to ask you though.”
“Anything,” Abby said, wondering what favor he had in his mind. Hopefully nothing to do with Oyana’s bet.
He set his skates on the floor and pointed to the laces with his damaged hand. She understood.
Abby smiled. She kneeled down and pulled his shoes off, then held the skates as he pressed them onto his feet. As she sewed up the laces, Sean sat back and grinned. “I could get used to this,” he said, in mock bravado.
“Oh no, Mr. Court,” Abby replied. “I’m definitely buying you some loafers.”
They entered the small ice rink, attempting to avoid the eight other skaters that had purchased tickets for the one-hour session. When she stepped out onto the ice, it felt like she was standing on grease, her legs began to slip out from under her, but Sean stepped in and grabbed her by the waist to keep her from falling to the ground. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I have you.”
After an hour, the attendant announced that the rink would be closing. Abby unlaced Sean’s skates and he returned them while she placed her high heels on her feet and buckled them back in, like little prisoners being locked back into their cells at the end of the night. Not sure she would ever wear the shoes again, she debated giving them to Oyana once she returned to the apartment.
They took the elevator to the garage level and saw that an impromptu tailgate had started amongst the guests of the hotel. Sean tucked Abby behind his back as they passed the crowd and she could almost see the hair stick up on the back of his neck. She wasn’t worried, she’d seen revelers in all states of inebriation, but if you stayed out of sight, they left you alone. They didn’t want to ruin a good party by dealing with awkward foreigners.
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