by Maci Dillon
Charges? Fuck me. This night got worse by the second.
All my focus right now was on Chloe. Surely, they could deal with me later.
Frustration grew, and the officers surrounding me exchanged knowing glances when I offered no response.
The female officer added, “As this appears to be a domestic violence matter, we must inform you, we have full control over issuing a domestic violence order. Once an order is in place, it will prevent you from any form of contact with Chloe for some time.”
Fuck! I deserved to go to hell for this, but I couldn’t be kept away from her. She needed to understand how fucking sorry I was.
“It’s in your best interest to cooperate, son. We’ll keep an eye on Chloe for you.” Jamie’s dad, Peter, came to stand by me, concern laced with dislike in his eyes.
I exhaled heavily and surrendered reluctantly. The team of officers walked me toward the exit. I hung my head low, embarrassed and angry at myself for my actions.
As we passed the nurses’ station, the senior officer addressed one of the nurses. “Please ensure Mr. Jamieson here is refused any access to or contact with Chloe Lee in room fourteen until further notice.” The nurse agreed and scribbled in her notebook. “We will have an officer back here to sit by her door within the next hour.”
“You’re not fucking serious?” I yelled back at him.
“Dead serious, now keep walking.”
Doors burst open, and a gush of warm air wafted into the emergency waiting room as we neared the exit.
Graham.
Chloe’s dad rushed through the door.
His steps faltered when he saw me. He charged at me, nostrils flared and fists closed in anger at his side, seemingly oblivious to the police officers at my side until two of them advanced on him. “You fucking bastard,” he spewed at me through gritted teeth as the officers held him back.
“I fucking trusted you, you cowardly prick.” His fingers pointed at me like poisoned darts, with each word adding a layer to the knot twisted in my chest.
“You better pray she pulls through this in one piece.” Chloe’s father twisted free from the officers’ hold and pushed past us toward the front desk. I cowered in despair as he requested information on the whereabouts of his daughter.
Chloe’s parents had recently separated. With all the uncivilized drama going on between them, she had insisted on inviting neither of them to the engagement party. Instead, she arranged for us to celebrate with each of them separately.
Her mother was currently traveling out west with her new country band. Her father, I was amazed he was sober enough to make the hour-long drive from their property into town so late on a weekend.
Since his separation from Nicole, Graham battled demons of all kinds. He fell victim to the alcohol again and fought to keep his head above water. Recently, he’d taken an extended break from work to get his shit together and appeared to be more like himself since his return.
After an hour or two at the police station, I was escorted to the home I shared with Chloe. I tore the home phone from the socket when it wouldn’t stop ringing. I bolted the doors shut and pulled the blinds. It was now the early hours of the morning, and I didn’t have it in me to deal with anyone.
I narrowly escaped assault charges but was promised a visit on Monday to be served with a domestic violence order. Time would tell what stipulations were imposed by the court. I hoped and prayed that seeing Chloe was not going to be an issue.
I needed to be with her.
To apologize.
Try to make things right again.
I had no idea the extent of Chloe’s injuries nor when she would be coming home from the hospital. I was ordered by the police to pack my belongings and leave the premises, our home, within two days to ensure I wasn’t present upon her release.
Would she even want to return here after this?
She would never forgive me. Nor should she.
I’m a fucking monster.
Two Months Later
“Will, stop!” Jamie’s screams pulled me from a deep slumber. I woke to find myself alone in my room. Another dream. A recurring nightmare. No amount of alcohol kept them at bay.
Every morning I woke with a heavy heart, less hopeful she would contact me again. Months have passed and still not a word from her. I’m not surprised, but I held onto hope with all I had left.
Relationships were strained at work, especially with Chloe’s father. It was difficult for both of us when I returned to work shortly after, but we agreed to put our personal differences aside. Thankfully, neither of us spent a lot of time in the office.
I kept my distance from my friends and preferred to dwell in my self-pity and personal loathing. They remained loyal to me and turned their backs on Chloe. It made me sick. She didn’t deserve to have her world ripped further apart, and I didn’t deserve their support. More than ever, Chloe needed people in her life right now. People she trusted.
A few weeks before the party, there were rumors Chloe had taken some guy home from town while I was traveling for work. Chloe had been struggling with her parents’ separation and had started to withdraw, and emotional outbursts replaced her usual laughter and easy-going attitude.
We were quick to shut down the rumor mill. What did or didn’t happen was nobody’s business, but unfortunately, some chose to use the rumors to excuse my actions.
There was no fucking excuse for my behavior. The rumors may have fueled my insecurities, but the fact I let them fester into a rage was not Chloe’s fault.
My actions were my own.
My phone buzzed with a message.
Trev: Will, where you at?
It was the middle of the afternoon, and I was still hung over from the night before. I chose to drink more often at home now, away from the sympathetic looks of the locals—people who used to respect and admire me. After moving out of our apartment, I shacked up with my brother and sister-in-law. It wasn’t ideal, but I had my own space all the same.
Trev: The boys are headed down to the local for Jamie’s going-away drinks. Get your ass here!
I turned the phone off, uninterested. The one time I went out following Chloe’s incident, I ended up in a fight and barely escaped assault charges. Again.
I needed to get a grip on myself. I threw myself into work, ignored the world, but the guilt and heartache—the fuckers wouldn’t let up.
Every waking moment I thought about Chloe, wondered where she was, what she was doing. Nobody knew where she was staying, or at least, nobody would say. I assumed she was living with her mother, Nicole, but I wasn’t allowed within a hundred feet of her without breaching the fucking domestic violence order.
Everyone was looking out for me. The less information I was given, the better my chances of staying away from her and keeping out of trouble, but I hated not knowing.
Hated not fucking being with her.
I rang her occasionally from a private number, the desire to listen to her voice on the answering machine too much to ignore. I kept telling myself she would contact me if she had any interest in seeing me again. Why risk reaching out to her if she wasn’t ready. But as the days passed without communication from her, any hope I had slowly died.
Jamie visited her after she was discharged from the hospital. I heard from another friend she was packing up the apartment, ready to move. Jamie never bothered to tell me he’d seen her, and when I probed him for information, he told me to fuck off.
Apparently, she was no longer my business.
“I can’t do this with you, Will. You made a choice, and you chose wrong.” Jamie’s words burned through the fragments of my heart.
“Yeah, I fucking did. Don’t you think I know?”
“She’s not yours to worry about anymore. You never deserved her, Will.”
I threw the beer I was holding against the wall at the back of the house where we stood.
“You came all the way over here to rub it in my face, Jamie?” I pushed him, surpri
sed when he regained his footing and came at me. He wrestled me to the ground and landed a right hook to the side of my head.
“That’s for Chloe,” he spat.
I didn’t fight back. I didn’t have it in me.
He was right.
I didn’t deserve her.
A few days after our fight, Jaime called to tell me he’d accepted a transfer up north, and I haven’t seen him since. It was a shitty thing to do, not making an effort to attend his going-away party but the guilt I was already dealing with outweighed everything else.
Jamie was a great guy who thought the world of Chloe. Despite the jealous rage I flew into at the party, he had always treated her like a kid sister. Clearly, he struggled with my actions and had spoken of his guilt numerous times. He hated he was unable to stop me from hitting her.
The moment my rage took over, he recognized the warning signs and raced toward me, yelling at me to back off.
But it was too late, the damage was done.
I wished more than anything he had made it to me in time, but nobody was to blame but me. I destroyed everything with one cowardly punch. And I was paying the price.
I was lost.
Alone.
And regret crippled me.
Chapter Four
Broken
You were a dream. Then a reality. Now a memory. ~ Unknown
CHLOE
Ten Years Ago
Sleep escaped me.
Every time I closed my eyes, Will was there. The pain of waking to my reality of a life without him pulled me further into depression. The doctors told me to expect low moods and gave me a heap of prescriptions for pills and numbers for counseling services and psychologists. But no amount of talking about it, crying, journaling, or group sessions would change what happened.
The part I struggled with the most was not why he hit me but why he left.
Why he failed to contact me.
The pain of him leaving far outweighed the pain—physically and emotionally—of being assaulted.
Many will never sympathize with my outlook on this, but it’s my story and my heart.
Did he not care?
I believed he loved me, but maybe he couldn’t get past my indiscretions and decided it was the perfect opportunity to walk away. He assaulted me and left me all alone without explanation.
No apology.
In part, it was my fault. There was some weight to the rumors circulating recently, but not as much as he was led to believe.
I should have told him the truth.
I let him imagine the worst. Regardless, he had stood firm in his decision to move forward together. Will forgave me, and we moved on, or so I believed. Before I knew it, a concoction of alcohol and insecurities had me waking up in the hospital.
Alone and afraid.
My jaw still ached as the fracture healed slower than expected. To assist the process, I was on a strict liquid diet for a few more days. For me, it consisted of beer, bourbon, and tequila with the odd pineapple juice or smoothie to wash away the seedy feeling from the night before. My appetite was poor, and I rapidly lost weight. I was aware the concoction of pills and alcohol were dangerous, but they were the only things capable of getting me through my darkest days.
My energy and motivation weighed in at zero. I cared little about moving on.
What did I possibly have to look forward to?
I hadn’t left the house since I moved my belongings into my mothers’ home last week. Packing up the apartment where I lived with Will was difficult, but there was little left of our life there. Will had taken all our photos and memorabilia from our time together.
He probably burned them.
I didn’t need something tangible to cry over, but I would have appreciated a keepsake to show for the good times. Every day was worth remembering, right up to one detrimental moment in time when he lashed out and left me unconscious in front of all our friends and family.
Glancing around at all the boxes stacked in my moms’ garage, I pondered whether I should waste time making it my home. Cedar Ridge had nothing left to offer me. I hadn’t stepped out in public yet, still waiting for the bruises from my fractured jaw and eye socket to fade. The cuts on my head from where I hit the gravel were healing quickly, but sharp pains were too frequent, each one a painful reminder that Will was gone.
I slid down the wall and wept in the darkness, unable to decipher a way through this.
I was lost without him.
Would anger follow if I moved past the heartbreak?
I longed to call him but was warned against it. I was gutted when I heard the police issued a restraining order on my behalf. I would never have allowed it if given the opportunity to oppose it.
Not as though he didn’t deserve it, but given the chance, I would have forgiven him and moved on.
I had no idea who he was that night, but it sure as hell wasn’t the man I fell in love with. He had never been aggressive toward me before, and I had no reason to believe it would happen again.
My mind sifted through multiple reasons for why he hadn’t called to check up on me if nothing else. Was he scared I would report him for contacting me? Did he believe I had the domestic violence order placed against him?
I wanted to speak with him and tell him I forgave him. Tell him I still loved him. My heart ached to be back in his arms. But he hadn’t called me, so I hesitated each time I dialed his number. My number hadn’t changed, so he had the opportunity to contact me, but he never tried.
Not once.
A few close friends and work colleagues took turns keeping my mind occupied with visits, chocolates, corny romantic comedies, and plenty of conversation, but I was exhausted physically, emotionally, and mentally.
I needed time alone to heal.
Weeks Later
Taking a bottle of wine from the refrigerator, I headed for the shower. I overlooked the glass because, let’s face it, it was extra washing up, and I didn’t give a fuck how I got my fix.
All I wanted was hot water to soothe my aches and pains and alcohol to mask my feelings. Mixed with the few painkillers I took an hour ago and maybe a sleeping pill when I was ready to retire, I might manage to sleep a little tonight and avoid seeing his face.
Undressing, I caught a glimpse of my bare stomach in the mirror. My heart dropped, and tears rolled over my cheeks as I massaged my belly, shrinking, not growing.
Not long after I woke in the hospital, I was pumped full of sedatives to calm me down. Distraught and confused when I came to, I was screaming out for Jamie. He was running toward Will, yelling at him before darkness took over.
My mother had returned from her trip when she received word I was in the hospital, and I woke to find her sitting at my bedside, dried tears on her face.
When I was more coherent, an older female doctor I hadn’t seen before visited and suggested that Mom step out of the room. When we were alone, she introduced herself as Doctor Knowles and pulled a chair close to my bed. Concern laced her features as she took my chart in her hands.
“Chloe, now you’re awake and lucid, we should go through some of your results,” she explained, patting my arm.
“A doctor has been in to visit with me already, is there something else I’m unaware of?”
Her facial expression caused a wave of panic. Silently answering my question, she cast her eyes down my body. “Yes, there is something we didn’t want to tell you immediately, well… until the rest of your injuries had been explained.”
“Oh God, did they find a tumor when they did the CAT scans?” My chest constricted as if hands gripped me from the inside.
“No, no. Please don’t panic, there’s nothing wrong,” she replied, rubbing her tiny hands over my arm. “You’re pregnant,” she announced with a half-hearted smile.
“I’m sorry, what?” How was this possible? We were always so careful.
“Your blood tests showed you’re approximately ten weeks along.”
I’m unsure whe
ther to laugh or cry or if I even understood the difference. I immediately wanted to speak with Will.
We’re having a baby!
The situation isn’t ideal, the timing is all off, but together we’d make this work, no doubt in my mind. Obviously, the doctor didn’t share my optimism. Her posture remained rigid, and I sensed her hesitation.
“We do have some concerns about the baby, Chloe. Given the trauma you’ve experienced, we’ve been monitoring the baby’s heart rate since we received the test results, and it’s erratic at best.”
Confusion overwhelmed me, and I became lightheaded. The doctor stood to turn back the bed sheets to reveal my stomach was covered with bands attached to a small machine sitting to the side, out of view. I had no idea.
How did I miss the straps across my midsection? I struggled to sit up, but my head pounded, forcing me back into the boney mattress. “No need to move, Chloe. The best thing to do is stay calm and rest. Letting your body heal will give your baby the ultimate chance of survival.”
“Survival?”
No! I cannot take any more.
“Are you saying I’m at risk of losing my baby?” As I made sense of the severity of the situation, panic rose, and my head began to pulse painfully at an increased pace.
“Unfortunately, Chloe, it’s a possibility this early in the pregnancy. Our job is to keep you calm and your pain minimal without the use of any drugs which may cause your baby stress.”
This cannot be happening. I covered my face in my hands and cried until numbness took over.
Now I understood why I hadn’t been feeling well. Why I’d been a hormonal bitch from hell. The fight-or-flight response. The insanely out-of-character decisions. The feelings of insecurity. My baby had turned me into a hormonal maniac, and I failed to recognize the signs.
Why would I? I was on the pill, and we weren’t planning a baby yet. We were supposed to be getting married first.