by H. B. Stumbo
I shook my head and winced at the memory. “I had one more battle with Jackson before he disappeared for good. A few weeks after everything calmed down, I was staying at our house in New Haven. I was going to move back in with Rich and Lara but I wasn’t finished packing up all of my stuff. Lucky for me the house was in my name, something Jackson had requested and I never understood why until I realized that his name was attached to the girl he killed, he wanted to remain invisible, even a few states away. I had put the house up for sale and was washing my hands of the painful memories etched into its walls.Kim had taken off work and helped me pack during the day. No one wanted to leave me alone, I wasn’t talking much and I was ashamed of what I had let happen to me. I was sad for the girl he had done this to before, I was sad for the years I lost, for the years he kept me hidden and away from the love I should have been feeling, but I was also nursing a broken heart. Despite everything, I loved Jackson very much. He was my first a lot of things, and even in those dark hours I was hoping he would be my last. I knew I needed to get that emotion out of my body, I knew I needed to hate him and let him go, but my wounds were still healing as was my heart.”
“Kim left for the night and said she would be back in the morning to help haul my stuff home. She wanted to stay with me but I wanted to spend the last night there alone, I wanted to make peace with my decisions. The house was quiet and it felt empty, I felt empty. I took a shower and then decided I’d go to bed. After my shower I went to our room and Jackson was sitting on the bed. I don’t know how he got in, the locks had been changed and the windows were all locked, too. He was just lying there, looking as perfect as ever. He approached me, never said a word and kissed me. I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t kiss him back, at first I did, but the information the cops gave me along with the painful memory of his most recent attack jolted forward in my mind and I pushed him away. He laughed at me; he told me it wasn’t this easy to get rid of him. He told me I was and would always be his; he told me there would never be anyone but him. I turned to leave the room and he hit me from behind. I woke up and my hands were bound together. I was in our bed, but I couldn’t move. I felt like someone had beat me senseless and basically he had. I don’t know how long he hit me or what he hit me with, but I was immobile.”
Vance’s grip on me tightened as I choked on the memory. He pulled me closer to him and I felt the tears well up in my eyes. “He hit me over and over, he kicked me and was yelling at me. I remember bleeding and being terrified. It was the first time that he had ever been this brutal and it was the first time I begged him to stop. It seemed like me begging him made everything so much worse, and he just hit me harder. I screamed and screamed for help and that was the last thing I remember.”
Vance shifted next to me, I could feel his heartbeat quicken, I knew the thought of this happening to me was boiling his blood.
“I woke up in the hospital a few days later. I had internal bleeding and when I arrived at the hospital the doctors thought I was dead. I went straight into surgery. Luckily I survived, but it took two surgeries and weeks of physical therapy to get me out of the hospital. I had broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a broken arm and a fracture in my leg. Besides that I was covered in bruises and cuts. I was honestly lucky to be alive, I shouldn’t be alive. I should have ended up just like the girl he killed before; sometimes I wished I would have died. Living like I did those first few months was worse than death.”
Vance stood up then and removed himself from me. He made his way to one of the windows and pressed his hands against it to hold himself up. He was breathing hard and it looked like he was about to lose control.
“Nothing is worse than the thought of you dying,” he whispered.
I felt the tears roll down my face more and I pulled my knees to my chest. Why couldn’t I have met Vance instead of Jackson? Why couldn’t he have been the boy who showed up at my apartment that night?
He turned back towards me and leaned against the glass, “How did you end up at the hospital?”
I shrugged my shoulders. That was the question I had spent a year searching for an answer for. It was the one thing that haunted me more than Jackson. “I don’t know.”
Vance eyed me oddly and shook his head, “What do you mean you don’t know?” He was confused, he looked warily at me.
“Someone saved me. Someone heard what was happening and came in and found me. At least that’s what the authorities assume.”
Vance still looked confused, like he was waiting for me to have some divine memory creep into my head so I could explain things further, but that wasn’t going to happen.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand and tried to explain it better. “Apparently my screaming did some good. Had I not screamed, no one would have heard and came running. The authorities think that whoever saved me hit Jackson hard enough to knock him out. The person took me to the hospital and delivered me to an ER nurse before they disappeared. I owe my life to a stranger and unfortunately I have never been able to find him and thank him.”
“Him?”
I nodded, “The nurse in the ER remembers that it was a man that brought me in. All he told her was there had been an accident and he found me knocked out and bleeding. He gave the hospital staff and the officer at the entrance the address to the house and told them to let the authorities know there was a man involved with nearly killing me. He told them that he was still there and to get someone there as soon as possible. He left after that, never gave his name, never gave any other information.”
Vance was eyeing me strangely. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
I nodded. “I’ve had my theories about who it was. For a while I thought it was Jackson. I thought maybe he realized how badly I was hurt and how close to death I was and he suddenly had a moment of realization and rushed me to the hospital. I thought this mainly because by the time the authorities got to our house, it was empty and Jackson had disappeared again. The nurse debunked my theory pretty quickly though. I showed her a picture of Jackson and although she had a hard time remembering the man’s features, she knew it wasn’t him. The authorities told me I should be thankful that someone heard me, they also told me that maybe someone was just doing their Good Samaritan duty and that there were people like that in the world. You have to understand though; at that point I didn’t believe that good people existed at all.”
Vance was still staring at me and his gaze was icy. “So Jackson…he’s gone?”
I nodded, “He disappeared again, except this time he didn’t come back or make himself known like he did when I was younger. Well at least not until now.”
Vance cocked his head to the side.
“The night I was at the police station, it had to do with Jackson.”
Vance pulled himself away from the window and made his way over to me. He kneeled down in front of me and grabbed my hand.
“He called me. He didn’t say much just that he wanted me. The police have been searching for him since he disappeared and they immediately came to the house and ran a search on the number that called me. They couldn’t find him but they did find that the phone was registered to him and it was a Texas number. I haven’t heard anything since and I actually haven’t even thought about it or worried about it much.”
Vance ran his hand along my cheek and tilted my chin upwards to meet his deep gaze. “That scares me a little, the fact that you’re not worried about it.” His voice trailed off and I offered him the smallest smile I could manage.
“That’s because of you.”
The emotion that ran across his face was deep and it fueled that fire in my soul.
“You have been more help than you can ever imagine, Vance. If it weren’t for you I’d be a nervous a wreck and I’d be terrified. These last few days I’ve been more thankful for you than any one person I’ve ever come across. I’m more thankful for you than I am for Lara or Rich, or even the stranger who saved my life.”
The wind and rain picked up
and pounded against the glass and Vance leaned in towards me until he was just inches from my face. “Charlotte…” My name was pained as it made its way across his lips. I knew this was all going to be a shock to Vance and I had no idea how he would take it. Part of me thought he would cut me off halfway through and never want to know the full story, another part of me thought he would leave after he heard the whole thing. It was a frightening mess to be any part of, past or present.
His lips brushed against mine lightly and I could hear his heart pounding in his chest.
“You never for any reason have to worry again. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I promise that he won’t get within fifty miles of you. I won’t allow it.” He spoke with such a conviction that it warranted a deep shudder from within my soul. I didn’t know how he could make that promise to me but I believed him, it was the most ultimate truth I had ever heard.
“I’m glad you told me what you did but I’m sorry I just made you relive it.” A sadness swept over his features and he looked down.
I could feel the tears prick the corner of my eyes but before they had the chance to spill down my face Vance’s thumb brushed underneath my eyes and he caught them. He pressed his lips against my forehead and I snuggled as close to him as I could get. He didn’t say anything else he just let me wrap myself in his arms and he held onto the back of my head as I quietly cried into his shirt. The rain trickled on outside and he hummed quietly. I wasn’t sure if he was humming for his own peace of mind or for my own but the strangely familiar tune lulled me to sleep.
I was aware that I was being moved and I could hear the creaking of the floorboards beneath my feet. I opened my eyes and Vance was holding me close to his chest and moving slowly up the stairs. When he got to the top he glanced down at me and a small smile crept onto the corners of his mouth. He leaned down and kissed me and I kissed him back hard. He carried me back into his room and the roll of thunder was just an echo now off in the distance. He laid me down in his bed and never once broke away from my lips. I ran my hands across his chest and moaned slightly against his mouth. Before I wanted him, earlier tonight I wanted him to touch more than I needed him to. Right now I needed him. I looked up into his eyes and silently pleaded with him.
“Charlotte…we’re going to start at the beginning.”
He could see the confusion across my face and he leaned down and kissed me gently before answering my silent question.
“This should have been your first time. It shouldn’t have been meaningless or lacked a thing.”
I was done for. In the twenty-five years I had been alive not one person, not even Jackson had sparked a flame as violent as the one Vance had just ignited. No one had ever made me truly feel how absolutely beautiful certain emotions could be, not until now at least.
“What I feel for you is so deep it terrifies me,” I whispered.
He smiled and kissed me gently. “What I feel for you also terrifies me, but not as much as the thought of being without you.”
I knew what he wanted to say, it was the same thing I wanted to say but neither of us were ready or knew how to approach the depths of our feelings for each other. My fate was sealed and my world was whole, everything that never made sense to me before suddenly made sense now. The balance of the Earth on its axis was right, everything aligned. In that moment I knew I had fallen in love with Vance Wait and it was a love deeper and more pure than anything I had ever experienced, I just wasn’t ready to tell him yet.
Chapter 23
Vance and I spent Tuesday wrapped up in each other. When we finally made it downstairs it was late morning and we opted to eat on the back porch. Riley came home around two and looked at us like we were lovesick teenagers. We couldn’t keep our hands off of each other and judging by the way Riley’s eyes traveled to his brother, he had never seen him like this with anyone. It seemed like Riley approved though and it made me love Riley even more.
The major difference other than the fact that we both couldn’t get enough of the other’s presence was that Vance was more aware of me. After I explained my past with him, his touches were lighter, the tone of his voice was softer, and he would look over his shoulder at me every once in a while. It didn’t make me mad or upset me that he was doing this, if anything it made me love him more. He looked at me like he thought he might break me, he was overly cautious of everything but in a good way. I wanted to tell him he had done the exact opposite of what he feared. He was the reason I was whole again.
We had dinner with Riley that night and Riley and I had too much wine. We were giggling and laughing about Kim and Alex when Vance finally cut us off. We made it through dinner but not without a few laughs and a few eye rolls from Vance which only increased our humor.
After dinner Riley went out to the garage and Vance I sat on the front porch as the breeze blew in. We were stretched across the wicker couch and huddled together and he was humming lightly in my ear. I closed my eyes as the sky began to turn shades of pink and blue.
“I love this,” Vance whispered and I smiled.
“Me too.”
He kissed the side of my head and smiled, “I don’t deserve you Charlotte but it’s not going to keep me from wanting to be with you all of the time.”
I turned towards him and kissed the tip of his nose. “Don’t doubt yourself, sometimes I think it’s me that doesn’t deserve you.”
We sat in silence as the sun started to disappear beyond the trees. “I want you to move in here.” He spoke quietly and my heart thudded. “It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, it doesn’t have to be next week or even next month, but eventually I’d really love it if you’d live here, too.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Of course I wanted nothing more than to be with Vance twenty four-seven. I loved this house and the location and not just because of my profession, but because it was everything I ever wanted for myself and Vance just added to my idea of perfection. I wasn’t ready for that leap of faith yet, eventually I would be and I couldn’t think of anyone other than Vance that I wanted to bind myself to.
“Okay,” I whispered.
I felt Vance exhale underneath me, “Okay.” He replied as we watched the remainder of the sun disappear beyond the trees.
I went back to work Wednesday morning and I hated my decision to go back when I looked at Vance stretched across the bed sleeping peacefully. I walked over to him and kissed his forehead before heading downstairs and grabbing my things.
“Where you headed?” Riley shouted from the kitchen. He was eating a bowl of cereal and glancing through the paper.
“Some of us have to work for a living,” I smiled at him as I pushed my shoes onto my feet.
“Hey,” he whined between bites, “I work…when I want to.” A wicked smile spread across his face and I shook my head.
“Can you do me a favor and tell Vance I’ll be back after work? He was still asleep and I didn’t want to wake him.”
Riley nodded but curiosity spread across his face, “It’s not like Vance to sleep this late…ever.”
I felt my cheeks get hot and I hoped Riley didn’t hear too much from the night before, we were up a little late. “Just let him know please.” I grabbed my things and headed out the door but I was certain I heard Riley laugh from inside.
When I sat down at my desk I immediately wanted to leave and go back to Vance’s. It was littered with scraps of paper and numbers of people I needed to call back. My message light was lit up and blinking indicating I had a voicemail, or most likely ‘voicemails’ from potential or current clients, and I hadn’t even turned on my computer to check my email yet. I was confused, I was only gone a few days and yet it looked worse than it did when I was gone a week.
Halfway through message number nine Rick shuffled over towards me and sat down. I wrote down a few more things as the message finished and then hung up. Rick looked tired and like he had been on an all-night binger. His hair was a mess and he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, not his u
sual attire.
“Are you okay?”
Rick shook his head and attempted to smooth some of the pieces of grey hair into place. “Not really, I’m sick and I’m overwhelmed.”
I pushed my chair back at the mention of him being sick and covered my mouth.
“Not to worry, Charlotte, I think I’m on the other end of it now.”
“Then why are you overwhelmed?” I asked uncovering my mouth.
Rick forced a smile and relaxed in his chair a little, “The college kids are about to head back to school soon, hence the reason for the numbers on your desk. Instead of giving them any new projects I figured to hand them over to you.”
I rolled my eyes, “Rick, I’m still not ready to be swamped again.”
He shifted uncomfortably, “I know, that’s what overwhelms me.”
“So hire someone else, truly Rick you need to. I can only do so much and I don’t plan on being as available for these clients as I made myself a year ago.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, “Why? Are you losing interest in the company?”
I shook my head, “No, not at all, it’s just…certain aspects of my life have changed and I want to have a life outside of work.” I didn’t want Rick to know about the relationship with Vance yet. I could see how it might pose a problem for him. Vance owned part of the company, Rick owned part of the company and I was going to be the middle man caught between the pull of both of them. Even though Vance was a silent partner, I knew Rick would be a nervous wreck every day. It was better that he didn’t know, at least not yet, he was already overwhelmed.
Rick eyed me oddly but he didn’t seem healthy enough to pry and it calmed my nerves down a bit, he really must be sick. My phone started ringing again and I rubbed my temples.
“I’ll leave you to your work but we’re not done having this conversation. I’ll take into consideration offering something to one of the interns, any one of the strike your fancy?”