Hide and Seek Her

by H. B. Stumbo

  “Did you dabble often?”

  He nodded. “Do you really want to know these things? I mean what does it matter now, it’s my past?”

  I shrugged suddenly feeling the aching threat of my past lurking nearby. “I guess I just wonder about who you were before and what you were like before me.”

  He smiled and slid closer to me, “Well all that matters is that you are my current. At least that is all that matters to me.”

  I smiled, he never even commented on the fact that I haven’t given him an ounce of explanation about my past, “So you really never had a girlfriend before?”

  He shook his head and smiled, “Nope, never wanted one.”

  I felt a crease form in my forehead as I mulled over his words. “You never wanted to have one person you could tell everything to, or one person that you shared something special with?”

  He shook his head, “I never had a problem telling people what they wanted to hear. I just didn’t ever want to be tied down. I was sixteen years old when I first had sex. I didn’t have an emotional connection to the girl who I lost my virginity to; that feeling was never there for me. I enjoyed sex don’t get me wrong, I just never had the urge to settle down with anyone or actually get to know them.”

  I took in his words and took a deep breath before I spoke, “So what was different about me then?”

  He turned away from me and bit his lip. Worry and possibly fear gripped at his features but he brushed both of those emotions off quickly and sighed, “I don’t know. From the minute I saw you, you were just different…I just felt like I had to get to know you, like I had to help you. I felt bound to you in a way I couldn’t explain, a way I still can’t explain.”

  This was deep for Vance and it was burning me to my core, I swallowed the lump in my throat, “What do you mean you had to help me?”

  Worry crossed his face again and he pinched the bridge of his nose like he did when he was agitated or stressed. He sighed and pulled himself away from me and leaned forward while looking at the ground, “Charlotte, it wasn’t hard to tell that you were broken…that you had been hurt. Seeing you and watching you and the way you carried yourself, even after we got to know each other a little bit, it struck a nerve with me. I wanted to help, I felt like I was compelled to help you. Like I was in the right place at the wrong time, like I had been waiting for years for you. I’ve never had an urge to really be with someone the way I had the urge to be with you, to even be around you.”

  My heart was beating loudly and I had to remind myself to breathe. Vance was the most sincere and most caring person that had ever shown up in my life and I felt unworthy of him right now. He was telling me things that most people would keep to themselves. He didn’t seem shy or concerned what I would think. He was telling me how he felt about me without putting it in just a few words. As I stared at him I felt my chest tighten and my palms sweat. I knew what I needed to do, what I needed to say to make him aware that I felt just as strongly about him as he did for me.

  “Vance…” My voice broke a little and he looked nervously at me. I felt myself begin to shake but I reminded myself that this was necessary, it was time. He stayed hunched over still sitting away from me as I began to speak.

  “The first time I met Jackson Greene I was nineteen.”

  Chapter 22

  Vance’s eyes were huge as I began to tell him the story that was my life for a while. He never moved, he never took his eyes off me, he just stared.

  “I was in college at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. It was nearing the end of my second full year of college and I was majoring in interior design. One of my roommates was having her friends in from Mobile and wanted us all to go out before everyone departed for the summer. Her friends met us that evening, they came to our apartment and brought a few of their friends along, one of them was Jackson Greene.”

  “Jackson was tall and slender, and he was devastatingly beautiful. He was unlike any man I had ever envisioned myself to yearn for. He was dark and quiet yet somehow confident and alluring. Jackson was a friend of a friend of a friend, he was nothing more to me than a straggler, but I was hooked. No one knew much about him really, the guy who brought him had befriended him at work and said he was new to the area, he was from out of state. I spent that night watching him mostly. He seemed to be attracting most of the girls and it seemed as though he didn’t care too much for the attention. I was aware that while I was watching him, he was watching me. Stolen glances here and there and smiles when we would catch each other looking, but that was it. When the party we went to died down, some of us wandered back to our apartment, Jackson was one of those people. He followed me to my bedroom and neither of us spoke a word to each other. We ended up making out, it was the most unplanned thing I had ever done not to mention the most out of character thing I had ever done. I had spent most of my childhood in step; I had finished school on time, stayed out of trouble, brought home good grades, and rarely made Rich or Lara worry. I never had a boyfriend before, never wanted one, until that moment I was fine alone. I should have known that night that Jackson Greene was trouble just by the way he kissed me; it was violent and angry, possessive even. I ended up losing my virginity to him that night; it was not the way I ever saw it happening in my head, but I don’t think it ever plays out perfectly for anyone. I wanted to say no, to stop him before things went too far but even that early on Jackson possessed me in a way I could never understand. It’s not that I didn’t like it and to me it did mean something, it meant I belonged to him. All of those other girls who had swooned over him at the party were going home to empty beds and would never know what it was like to have Jackson Greene kiss them. The only words he whispered to me that night were ‘you’re mine’. In the morning I woke up alone, Jackson was gone. He had left early with the guy that brought him. There was no explanation about what happened, no communication about it. He didn’t even leave a number for me to call, he just vanished. The only piece of Jackson I had besides the memory, was a small piece of paper I found that evening with the word mine written on it. I clung to that piece of paper for weeks like a lovesick teenager. I never told anyone about my one night stand until much later, or the fact that I lost my virginity to someone I would never see again. I let the memory that was Jackson Greene float away as quickly as it had happened, but I knew deep down I belonged to him and part of me always would.”

  I looked at Vance oddly but his face gave nothing away. He looked curious but also concerned, but there was no sign of jealousy on his face. I wanted to reassure him that Jackson had nothing on him, but the look on his face told me I didn’t need to.

  “I turned twenty in May and spent the summer at Rich and Lara’s. Micah was graduating from college but planning on travelling the county to ‘find himself’. Kim was studying abroad that summer in Europe so it was just me. I really had no one to tell my college tales to. I had other friends in the area, but no one would understand the way Kim would. I was working part-time waitressing at one of the pubs on the pier. It was late one night and summer was halfway over. I left the pub and went I got to my car I was uneasy. I felt like I was being followed but there was no one else around. When I got to my car and unlocked it, I could see someone standing a few feet from me. I don’t know where he came from, but he neared me and I couldn’t move. Part of me thought I was going to die and I remember thinking what an awful way to go, alone and in the darkness. When the person reached me he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me fiercely. I knew right away it was Jackson and I felt like I had died and ended up in heaven.”

  “He told me he had been looking for me, told me that he had found out where I was from and came looking for me. I remember thinking then that it seemed slightly off and slightly idiotic that a man who had sex with me once, who never even bothered to leave his number, and who disappeared for a couple of months would come searching for me, but I was young and I had been waiting a long time for someone to make me feel the way Jackson had. He was
the hero I longed for.”

  “I introduced Jackson to Lara and Rich who found it odd that I never mentioned him before. Jackson swooned them the same way he swooned me, he had this ability to get anyone to trust anything he was saying. He made up a story about being away for weeks for work and he had wanted to introduce himself properly to my family before he asked them if he could court me. I will never forget the look on my Uncle Rich’s face when Jackson asked that. No one asked permission anymore, no one was raised that way; Jackson won them over in seconds. He had already won me over.”

  “Our relationship was fast and a whirlwind. I had a hard time leaving his side and when I did he seemed to get anxious. When it was time for me to return to school he rented an apartment outside of the city limits and asked that I move in with him. I obliged only because I really thought I loved him. I obliged because there was something deep in his eyes that begged me to say yes to him. He never mentioned his parents, never mentioned how he came into as much money as he did but I knew Jackson had a lot of it. I assumed he was a trust fund baby, there were a lot of those around me. He was very good to me that first year, maybe a little possessive but I just assumed that was what love did to people, made them crazy.”

  “It was shortly after Easter when I was asked to go intern with a company in Dallas for a week; I said yes right away, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than to be a successful interior decorator. I came home and Jackson was still working, he was working for an advertising company in the city. When he came home I told him the good news, his reaction was not what I expected. He thought I was leaving him. When I told him it was for a week and it was for school, he began to shake and again thought I was leaving him. He was upset and I couldn’t understand why, he knocked one of our chairs over and left in a hurry. I had never seen that side of him and I was upset. I called him several times but he wouldn’t answer. He sent me one text message that night, all it said was ‘mine’ and it reminded me of that crumpled up note I still had hidden that he gave me from our first night together. I cried myself to sleep that night, but I woke up when he stumbled in around two that morning. He was drunk and he was mad, he found me in our room and I sat up to try to talk to him, before I could even say anything he slapped me across the face and I fell onto the bed. That was the first time Jackson Greene hit me.”

  Vance stiffened beside me and moved a little closer to me. His eyes were wide but filled with a deep sadness. I had seen that look before and I recognized it immediately. It was the same look Micah and Kim had on their faces when they found out what was going on; it was shame.

  “The next morning I woke up and I hurt everywhere. He had spent a few minutes beating me black and blue. I had bruises on my legs, neck and face, there was no way I’d be able to go anywhere looking like this, which was exactly what Jackson had wanted. He told me that I could never leave him, that I was his since the first night and he would never let me go. He told me he was sorry for hurting me but it was the only way he could get me to understand. He promised to never do it again as long as I listened to him and did what he said.”

  I sighed and rubbed my temples. The story was old to me but it didn’t make me feel any better, that first night was the worst. Vance pulled me close to him and pressed me against his chest. I felt safe here, protected even.

  “You don’t have to say anymore baby,” Vance whispered and then kissed my head but I shook my head and glanced up at him.

  “Yes I do, you need to know.” And I need to tell you. I thought to myself.

  “After that I really thought it was because he was drunk, but Jackson reminded me daily I was his and I needed to do what he said. I finished school that term and we stayed in Birmingham although I wanted to go home. Micah was home from traveling and Kim was around, but Jackson told me if I wanted to see them they would have to come to us. He told me I was his life and he was mine, and every once in a while he would give me a fresh bruise or cut just to prove it.”

  “Why didn’t you run, why didn’t you get help?” Vance’s words were pained, he knew me to be a runner because in the beginning that’s what I did. Back then I didn’t run, back then I hid inside and hid from the world.

  I shrugged my shoulders and I knew he wouldn’t understand my answer but it was the only answer I had, the only one I ever had. “I thought I loved him.”

  Vance nodded like he understood but tilted my face up towards his. “You know if someone hurts you, physically or emotionally but mainly physically, that isn’t love Charlotte.”

  “I know that now Vance, but back then I didn’t care.”

  He nodded again and looked like he wanted to apologize for interrupting, “Maybe it was more than love, maybe I was trying to survive, for as long as I could.”

  He looked concerned, like he knew this wasn’t the end of my story. I wanted it to be the end. I wanted Jackson to get bored with me and dump me, I wanted to cry and have a broken heart and then go home. That would have been an easy tale to tell but unfortunately my tale was longer and darker than that.

  “Jackson kept me hidden from the world I loved and the people I loved. We lived secluded in Birmingham until graduation. There was no way I could deny my family and friends the right to see my graduate, but I took some pretty swift hits from Jackson when I defied him on that. Kim and I were speaking little at that point and she and Micah had become close friends. It was as though neither of them could understand what happened to me so they clung onto each other because they each held a part of me that the other wanted or missed. I think they bonded over my absence. Graduation was brutal and I thought Jackson was going to kill me when Micah and Kim insisted on coming over to the apartment after. Kim never really liked Jackson but she chalked that up to not really ever getting to know him. Micah hated him much to Rich and Lara’s distaste. They both tried to convince Micah that he was good and he was taking care of me, but Micah could see through him.”

  “That night before he left Micah slipped a piece of paper in my pocket when he hugged me. When Jackson was showering I read it, it had the number to a woman’s crisis line. Micah knew what was going on and I will never know how he figured it out. We never spoke about it, he never confronted me, but he knew.”

  “I wanted to move back home after graduation. I was offered a part time job at Rine’s Designs and I wanted to raise a family where I grew up, besides that I missed everything about Locke’s Point. Jackson refused to live in Locke’s Point and settled on a house in New Haven. We moved there and I felt like it was going to be a rebirth for me. I wanted the old Charlotte to come alive. The new Charlotte was shy and reserved, I had no relationship with anyone other than Jackson and I longed for Kim to be a constant in my life again and I yearned for Lara’s Sunday night feasts. That never happened though. When we moved home Jackson became more anxious and wouldn’t let me go anywhere other than to work. I worked late one night and when I got home Jackson attacked me. He accused me of cheating on him and said it was a bad idea coming back here. He beat me worse than he ever had. I couldn’t work for two weeks and I told Rick I had mono, it worked and no one ever questioned anything. I remember clutching onto the scrap of paper Micah had given me for dear life. It was the first time I admitted to myself that I wanted help and I wanted out. I called the number when Jackson went to work and I talked to a lady whose name was Vickie. At first I just gave her bits and pieces, but I broke down and told her I was scared, I told her if I ever left he would kill me and he had threatened that before. Without me knowing she connected me to the local police department, they sent a car immediately. I’ll never forget the way the officer looked at me, and in hind sight I probably looked awful. I wasn’t eating and had lost a lot of weight, besides that I was covered in bruises and scrapes. They sent cars to Jackson’s work immediately and ran his plates, but they couldn’t find him. It was like he had vanished again, like after we first met. The man was incredible at hiding when he needed to, it was scary that someone was able to disappear like that. Ric
h and Lara picked me up at the station and Lara’s face was white. No one could believe what had happened to me, no one wanted to, I didn’t even want to. The only person who never questioned me about it, never asked anything was Micah. Micah knew all along, and I think Micah blamed himself for not telling someone sooner.”

  “Jackson was MIA for weeks. The cops couldn’t find him; there was no trace of him anywhere. They wanted to get in touch with his parents but I told them I never met them and I had no contact information for them. They ran a background check on Jackson and called me into the station immediately. When they told me what was on his record I remember questioning everything the last few years had offered. The officers on duty dropped a pretty large bombshell on me that night. The year before we met, Jackson was involved with the daughter of a big time businessman in the Carolinas. From what the authorities could gather, the relationship had been a quick one and had ended not so greatly. I have no idea on the details of their relationship, I have no idea if Jackson beat her the same way he beat me, I know nothing other than he had killed the girl and went to trial for it. Apparently, Jackson got off Scott free. I don’t know the details of the trial, I never looked into them because I feared that it would be too similar to my own life. All I know is he was somehow acquitted of the charges and his Father had something to do with that. Jackson Greene apparently came from a wealthy family and a family who was able to sweep things under the rug or change the outcome of events to what they desired. They could even sweep murder under the rug. Deep down in my soul I knew he was guilty, there was no other option for me at that point.”

  Vance was incredibly tense beside me and his face seemed to go pale. The lightning flickered against him and I noticed a look on his face I’d never seen before, it was as though his world was shattering. I sighed and leaned against Vance as he rubbed my arms and came back to life a little. “So that’s it, Jackson is just…gone?”