by Lynn Stevens
“And he won’t.” Lena tapped her salad plate with her fork. “He’s a good guy.”
I shrugged. A “good guy” didn’t mean anything. Sam was a good guy at first. “There was a studio apartment over on Wilson I wanted to look at.”
“Wilson?”
I nodded.
“No way,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s over three miles from the café and it’s a terrible area. You’re not moving over there.”
“I can’t live off good will forever.” I stabbed at a tomato. I won’t.
“Valerie, you’ve been through hell. Just give yourself time.”
Time. Easier said than done. I nodded.
I tried to focus on the positive. If I wasn’t paying rent, I could take two online classes instead of one over the fall semester. Maybe I’d get my degree before my twenty-sixth birthday. Doubtful, but hope never hurt anyone.
Josh didn’t push me to talk to him, and I wasn’t volunteering anything. It was a quiet fourteen days. July turned into August before I realized it. I’d been hiding in Chicago for a little over five months already. Nobody’d found me, if they were even looking and I prayed they weren’t. I started to relax.
One Tuesday evening, my usual night off, I sat in my room until I couldn’t stand the glare of the laptop or the drone of the professor’s pre-recorded voice anymore. Ethics shouldn’t be this hard.
Josh wasn’t home much on Tuesday evenings. I’d overheard him tell Ryder the week before he had a standing date, which was odd because who has a standing date on a Tuesday night? Feeling safe, I risked spending the rest of the night in the living room for a change of scenery. I picked through the worn paperbacks on my nightstand, settling on Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Elizabeth Bennet was Austen’s ultimate heroine, but Fanny Price deserved more recognition.
The room was quiet, so I didn’t notice Josh sitting by the window in the darkness until he cleared his throat. I started to back down the hallway, hoping he hadn’t seen me and knowing he had.
“You don’t have to leave, Val.” The light outside illuminated the side of his face in pale yellow. “And you don’t have to hide in your room all the time.”
I didn’t move, or even breathe. This wasn’t good. I’d interrupted his solitude. My heart sped up as scenarios flashed in my mind so fast I could barely keep up with them.
Josh switched on a light, one I was certain Lena had given him. The brocade didn’t look like something either Josh or Ryder would pick up. I tore my gaze from the lamp and stared into the brown carpeting before me. And I waited. Waited for him to snap at me, to raise his hand, to give a blow somewhere nobody would see it.
“Okay, look, we need to talk about this arrangement. You’re not a prisoner here. You can come and go as you please. And you don’t need to run from me just because I walk into a room. I don’t know what your life was like before, but you don’t have anything to worry about here. Okay?” Josh shifted, but I didn’t look up to see where he was or what he was doing. When I saw his feet, I tried not to flinch. “I’m not going to hurt you, Val.”
I glanced up at him as he raised his hands. My heart raced, bile burned up my throat as I tried to keep from falling to my knees, to keep from begging for mercy. Josh’s eyes widened. His hands fell to my upper arms, gripping them gently and holding me in place.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated.
He meant it, or at least, my instincts told me he did. But the fear, the pure terror overruled all logic. I pulled away from him and backed down the hall as fast as I could without taking my eyes off him. I knew Josh wouldn’t hurt me. I knew he wasn’t Sam, but I ran anyway. And I hated myself for it.
Chapter Four
I avoided him the rest of the week. It wasn’t hard. I worked as many shifts as I could and stayed at the café to do my homework. When it was time to go back to the apartment, I walked around the block until I saw the lights go out on the second floor and turn on in his loft bedroom on the third. Then I was safe. Then I knew I wouldn’t bother him.
But avoiding him in person and avoiding the notes he left for me were two totally different things. It started the morning after I ran from him and locked myself in my room.
The first note was merely, “Good morning.” Over the next few days, they grew longer. Little requests like “Could you start the dishwasher before you leave?” to a more detailed note left taped to my door when I got home from work, “Lena mentioned you make a mean soufflé. I bought the ingredients. Could you show me how? It’s one of the few things I haven’t mastered.”
I did make a mean soufflé. The trick was to get enough air into the eggs. Nothing really complicated, but if not done just right, the soufflé would collapse. I smiled at the request. It was straightforward, and as much as I enjoyed being in the kitchen, my cooking skills weren’t as awesome as I liked to believe. The only reason I knew how to make a proper soufflé was because my grandmother demanded I help her every Sunday before church for our family brunch.
Saturday morning, I woke up and half expected Josh to be waiting for me in the kitchen. He wasn’t. Disappointment unrepentantly gripped my chest and squeezed. I reached for my favorite mug and saw the note.
“Let me know about the soufflé. And when you’re available to teach me,” he’d written in his sharp all-cap way.
It hadn’t really dawned on me that he’d wait for a response. I was used to doing what I was told, even if it seemed like a request. I assumed Josh would just expect me to show him whenever he decided. But he asked when I could teach him. The disappointment released me and was replaced by something I didn’t recognize. Only I didn’t know what that meant.
I stared at the note after showering for work. Before I left, I scrawled, “Tomorrow morning, okay?” under his signature and taped it to the wall by the steps. When I slipped into the apartment after work, the note was taped on my door again.
“Tomorrow’s perfect,” it said. Underneath that was a question. “How many apples grow on trees?” An arrow indicated I needed to flip it over. “All of them.”
The bad joke made me smile. Then reality hit. My breath shot from my lungs as I stared at the words. What was I thinking? The kitchen wasn’t big enough for us to maneuver around without bumping into one another. And I’d have to … I closed my eyes, blocking out the panic attack. It was just a soufflé. Only an easy dish. And it was a onetime thing.
I closed my door and set the alarm to get up at six, hoping to have the kitchen prepared to make it as painless as possible. Then I didn’t fall asleep until almost three a.m. All the things that could go wrong ran through my mind like a silent movie. When one scenario would end, another would start. They mixed into my nightmares. Josh became Sam and I became mute.
The alarm jolted me awake, and I fell off the bed trying to disentangle myself from the sheets. My head slammed into the wall. Stars blurred my vision as I tried to get my bearings straight. Somehow, I’d lost all sense of direction.
Warm fingers wrapped around my upper arms, pulling me up into a sitting position. The pain in my head overrode any panic caused by the sudden presence of my roommate. He let go of my arms. I missed the warmth of his touch almost immediately. But it didn’t last long. He lifted my chin gently and brushed the hair off my forehead.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded, but a wave a dizziness overcame me. The door, I’d forgotten to lock the door. I couldn’t stop my face from twisting into a scowl. A lump grew on my forehead above my eye. It throbbed in three-quarters time. I could almost hear Mozart’s Piano Concerto 14 in the rhythm. The music filled my ears, drowning out the current ache and bringing up something entirely more agonizing.
“Okay, I’ll take that as a no.” Josh’s arms wrapped around my waist. He grunted as he lifted me off the floor and onto my bed. “Ow,” he whispered on a sharp intake of breath.
My head shot up, bringing another bout of dizziness. Before my eyes glazed over, I noticed how Josh held his left sh
oulder. His eyes were closed and the grimace on his face must’ve matched my own.
“Josh?” I whispered. Something in the back of my head told me this was the first time I’d even said his name. We’d been living together for over a month, and I’d hardly opened my mouth. “Are you okay?”
He opened one eye. “Fine. I’ve had worse. What about you? That’s a nasty bump.”
I almost smiled. “I’ve had worse.”
Darkness flashed across his face, but it disappeared into the light expression I’d seen a few times. “Maybe baking isn’t the best thing this morning.”
My throbbing head agreed, but I didn’t want to break my promise.
“How about omelets?” Josh stood and offered me his right hand. “We can bake some other time.”
I stared at his hand for a moment. It was harmless, right? Josh wasn’t about to hurt me. There was no reason to be afraid of something as easy as making an omelet. I lifted my gaze toward his face, expecting anger and getting something else entirely: hope. Biting my lip, I raised my hand, unable to hide the shaking, and slid it cautiously into his. He closed his fingers around mine and smiled. An electric current surged up my arm, lighting my cheeks on fire. Josh tugged me harder than I’d anticipated. I shot to my feet and slammed into his chest. His arms went around me as we fell back against the wall.
“Mother –” Josh slammed his jaw, cutting off the curse. His right arm tightened around me while his left arm slacked.
I glanced toward his shoulder. Blood seeped through the white t-shirt.
“Oh my God, you’re bleeding.” I reached up to put my hand over the wound, because that’s what they do in the movies. The coppery smell hit me, almost knocking me to my feet. This was one of a million reasons I’d never make it in the medical field.
“Yeah, that tends to happen a lot.” Josh tried to smirk, but he failed miserably.
My hands fell to his hips and I stepped back, pulling him away from the wall. I pushed him toward the bed. Josh didn’t fight me. He sat down on the edge and inhaled deeply.
“What can I do?” I asked. My gaze focused on the growing spot of blood on the shirt.
“Get the scissors and cut my shirt. I need to see how bad it is.” Each word came through gritted teeth.
I hurried to my dresser where I kept my sewing kit. “What happened?”
“Got shot.” Josh fell back on my bed. His face turned white and a thin layer of sweat covered his forehead.
“But wasn’t that like a few month ago?” I had overheard Josh tell Ryder a little about his wound his first week back. During the middle of a routine patrol, shots rang out. Josh’s unit took cover, but a bullet ricocheted and slammed into his shoulder. Surgery immediately followed and Josh was shipped home once he was stable. “Shouldn’t the wound have healed by now?”
Josh didn’t answer me. I sat on the edge of the bed, afraid he’d passed out.
“Got the scissors?” he asked.
Nodding, I slid the metal under his collar and cut along the seam until I reached the arm, then I cut through the fabric to the end. I could easily make a new sleeve and repair the shirt along the sleeve if he wanted to save it.
“Pull it back and hand me a mirror.”
I hurried to the bathroom for a hand mirror. While I was in there, I wet a wash cloth with cool water and grabbed some antiseptic spray and bandages. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. What did I know? I wasn’t a doctor. I wasn’t even qualified to hand out aspirin.
Josh hadn’t moved in the two minutes I was gone, but his skin didn’t look as ashen as it had. I slipped the mirror into his hand and waited. What if I needed to take him to the hospital? I honestly had no idea how to get there. Josh had an old pick-up, but I thought it might be a manual transmission. I didn’t know how to drive a stick. Maybe Ryder was home. Or Lena. She’d let me take her ugly red hatchback. All these thoughts flew through my head as I watched Josh lift the mirror and inspect his shoulder. The bleeding had stopped.
He sighed and his relief filled me. The weight slipped away, and I sat on the bed next to him, patting his forehead with the cool cloth. Josh’s eyes fluttered shut and his breathing evened out. This time I was certain the stress of the last several minutes had exhausted him and he was asleep. Again I was wrong.
Josh’s soft voice stopped my inadequate nursing.
“My Tuesday evening physical therapy wasn’t helping the pain. I had out-patient surgery a few days ago.” He opened one eye and stared at me as he continued. “You heard what I told Ryder, right?”
I nodded, unable to admit verbally to eavesdropping.
“Well, that’s not exactly what happened.” Josh let his eye fall closed. “We were on a routine patrol like I said, but I wasn’t hit by a ricocheting bullet. We ran into a couple of insurgents who opened fire on us in front of a school. Bastards didn’t even care about the little kids inside. Fortunately, none of them were hurt. Their school got shot up pretty bad though.” He swallowed hard, his lip trembling. “Anyway, one kid froze before he go to the door. His teacher shouted at him, but he couldn’t move. I wasn’t about to leave him open like that, so I told my buddy to cover me and ran toward the kid. I pushed him toward the door and his feet did the rest. My buddy covered me like I asked, but he had to reload. In that split second, they shot me.”
I reached out and covered his hand with my own. It wasn’t enough, but it was the most I could do. Hugging him would’ve been better, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.
“Anyway, the bullet was a hollow point. It shattered inside my shoulder on impact.” He turned his hand over, squeezing my fingers. He opened his eyes and caught my gaze. “They thought they got it all, but there were still some fragments imbedded in the bone causing me serious pain.”
“Did they get it all this time?” My voice trembled from fear at asking such an intimate question. The shame flooded my veins. That fear should be for someone like Josh who stood up for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves. It shouldn’t be for a scared little girl who jumped at her own shadow.
“Yeah, they think so.” He spread his fingers and laced them with mine.
It was such a small gesture, but it scared the hell out of me. I tried not to show it, but my heart raced for all the wrong reasons.
“Anyway, what do you say we make those omelets?” Josh asked as he let go and sat up. “I say we go southwestern and add some hot sauce my buddy in Texas sent me.”
The panic subsided, but the guilt replaced it. I shouldn’t be afraid of Josh. He wasn’t Sam. Forcing a smile, I nodded. Josh smiled back and stood, offering me his hand once again. This time I didn’t hesitate to take it.
We danced in the kitchen like two people who’d done this before. I cut the veggies while Josh worked his magic on the eggs. Instead of our usual coffee, I steamed milk on the stove and served lattes. Josh talked nonstop. He told me stories about Ryder during their days in boot camp. I found myself laughing and more relaxed than I’d been in a long time.
My cell rang in my purse. It could only be one of two people: Lena or my boss at Café Bristol. I didn’t bother to look at the caller ID as I pulled it from my purse. That was my first mistake.
“Hello?” I answered, still chuckling about the time Josh jumped into a fox hole and landed on a snake.
“Hello, Valerie.” The voice chilled me to the bone. My entire body just stopped. “Are you having fun in Chicago?”
I wanted to demand how he got my number. I wanted to scream at him never to call me again. Most of all, I wanted to run. Again. Because I hadn’t run far enough. Even when I got off the bus in Chicago, I knew it was a matter of time. I just thought there’d be more of it. After the first month, I felt safer. Then it had been five months, and I thought I’d be able to stay. I should’ve known better. I should’ve known he’d look for me. I should’ve known he’d find me.
“Oh, honey, were you not expecting to hear from me?” he asked.
I opened my mouth, but the
words wouldn’t come out.
“Now, darling, you really shouldn’t give me the silent treatment over the phone.” I could almost see him checking his nails like some movie gangster. “It’s quite annoying.”
The phone slipped from my hand, and I’d thought I’d dropped it. Until Josh said, “Hello.”
I closed my eyes. This wasn’t a panic attack. It was worse. The entire world stopped moving around me. I heard nothing. I saw nothing. I felt nothing. Where am I going to go? and How can I hide? were the only thoughts in my head. Until another one broke in, and it sounded an awful lot like my mother, He’ll always find you, Valerie. You agreed to be his wife. He expects you to honor that.
“No.” It took me a minute to realize I’d said it out loud.
Josh tapped my arm and held his finger up to his lips. “Look, man, I don’t know who you think you called, but you need to lose this number and stop harassing my wife.”
Okay, the panic attack hit me then and my legs decided supporting me wasn’t an option. I slid to the floor, wishing the rushing rhythm wouldn’t take over completely. Mozart rang in my ears, and I prayed it would all go away.
“I don’t give a shit who you are.” Josh’s expression was darker than storm clouds as he sat beside me. His eyes searched my face. “Yeah, this is Valerie’s phone. Valerie Cooper. I don’t know who Valerie Woods is. My wife’s maiden name is Ryder.” Josh paused again and raised his eyebrows. “Man, you don’t listen. Lose the number.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and hit the end button. He rubbed the back of his neck as he slid it into his pocket. “Friend of yours?”
I shook my head, and the waterworks exploded from my eyes. His arm slipped around my waist, pulling me onto his lap on the floor. I knew this was wrong, but I felt safe with Josh. Even when the irrational fear overtook me, Josh never once made me feel like he’d hurt me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face in his good shoulder. His left hand rested on my thigh, squeezing gently as his right arm pulled me closer. He held me as the music faded from my ears, taking the memories with it. For the moment anyway.