He smiled and answered, “I haven’t eaten what one would consider a decent dinner in over a week. So yeah; yeah, I would.”
Chapter Nineteen
Lindsey stayed in bed for almost a week straight. There was nothing interesting enough for her to get up for. She only arose to pee and drink water. Sometimes, she ate tidbits of the food Gretchen made for her. To her profound relief, they left her alone. They never came in and demanded that she get up. They never expected anything from her. She knew Noah was still there as she often heard his low, rumbling voice speaking to Gretchen. She wondered why he remained. How long did he plan to stay? How well did he and Gretchen get along? It must’ve been awkward for him, since he and Gretchen were practically strangers. She should’ve cared about mooching off Gretchen, or at least, told her about why she came there. She hadn’t even thanked her for her hospitality. She did nothing but sleep and stare at the white ceiling. She didn’t even know why she did that.
Rolling over in bed on the sixth day, Lindsey groaned. It was nearly two o’clock in the afternoon. She had stayed in bed for close to twenty-four hours again. The thing was: she didn’t want to stay awake. She didn’t want to eat. She didn’t want to go outside or see people functioning like normal people, and moving on normally with their lives. She didn’t want to hear the mundane TV sitcoms or any depressing news. She didn’t want to talk to Gretchen or Noah. She didn’t want to see their pained expressions, or the pity in their eyes. She didn’t want to endure their bumbling attempts to figure out how to talk to her, and be with her, now that they knew she was a victim of abuse. That made her different. Special. Pathetic.
She wanted to roll over and bury her thoughts in the covers. She wanted Xanex and Vicodin, any of the pills Elliot procured for her, which she usually had to take for a week or more after he punished her. It helped her get through the pain, and Elliot was more than willing to promote that. Eventually, however, she always went off them and had to face her miserable existence again. She tried to be careful and not get hooked. But she really wanted them now. She wanted to just space out and vanish. She couldn’t bear to face a world where her father was still alive and well, and living in Canada. She couldn’t face a world where Elliot could attain important and influential political presence. She didn’t know how to go on with her life after leaving Elliot so unexpectedly. The very thought of his reaction to her disappearance resulted in convulsions that traveled down her body. No! No! No! She should never have done this. She couldn’t handle it. The fear, the abject terror she felt just thinking about him, and what he’d do to her, caused her entire body to go numb.
She also couldn’t bear to face Noah, or see the sympathy and hurt in his eyes, while he kept wondering why didn’t she ask for help? Why didn’t she leave? Why did she let Elliot do this to her? Most of all, she didn’t want to think about how she could have let this happen to her.
Her shame became a knot in her chest. It was much more painful than any of the bruises or cuts she suffered at Elliot’s hand. Nonetheless, she had to pee and she was thirsty. It was time to face reality and she could no longer hide behind her shame, although she preferred to hide forever.
She opened her door, being extra careful and trying to keep silent before padding to the bathroom across the hall and using it. By the time she stepped into the living room, Noah was alerted to her presence. Gretchen must’ve been at work. Now, she was alone with Noah, and it was probably the right time for her to speak to him.
He stood up quickly, dropping the computer tablet he was scrolling on. It thudded to the floor as Noah realized right before he tried to grab it and exclaimed, “Shit!”
He often got nervous around her and dropped things. Or said things she knew he didn’t mean to say. He would grimace at himself and run his hands repeatedly through his hair when he seemed stumped over what to do with her. Which happened often. Lindsey was almost shocked at the pulling of her lips. Noah Clark, just then, might have been the only person alive who could manage to make her feel even remotely like smiling.
Dressed in black jeans and a t-shirt, his hair curled around his forehead. There was something endearing about him. Something adorable, but very sexy. There was something intriguing about a man who didn’t want to see her hurt or hit or raped. A man who really never knew what happened to some women, but once he did, look out! He came to rescue her. He drove her mute, comatose ass across the country, all the while without any idea as to where she was directing him. Never once doubting her. Never once arguing with her. Never once distrusting her.
“Lindsey!” His tone sounded happy. He must’ve been glad she was up. Then he seemed to realize he sounded a bit too chipper for the situation. He cleared his throat, “I mean, hi. How are you?”
She stepped into the room, but it was so freaking bright, she had to pause. One entire wall was all windows with a view of a pretty park and neighborhood. They were five stories up and the bright sunlight had her blinking furiously.
“Hi.”
“Do you feel better? I mean, did you sleep well? Did sleeping help?”
She smiled slowly, “I slept. It did help. I do feel better.”
He shook his head and pushed at his glasses. “You don’t have to be better, just, you know, not so raw?”
She tilted her head. That was a good description of how she felt. “Yes.”
“Are you hungry? Thirsty? What can I get for you?”
The thought of food was like sand in her mouth and her stomach nearly cramped in response. She had barely eaten a thing in weeks and was wasting away. Her eyes looked sunken in her head and her cheekbones jutted out with unnatural definition . So, yeah, she should eat. “Okay, I’ll eat.”
He quickly set the tablet down and went into the kitchen where he started rummaging through the cabinets and fridge. He asked her, “How about a sandwich? Ham and cheese okay?”
“Okay.” She came closer to the bar and sat on one of the black stools. Noah moved around as if he were Gretchen’s childhood friend, and not a week-long houseguest and former stranger. Apparently, they must’ve bonded while she slept, nearly catatonic, in her room.
“Is Gretchen at work?”
He stopped opening the bread bag. “Yes. She’ll be back around six. She was going to pick up a pizza for dinner.”
Noah quickly and efficiently made a sandwich that was far beyond what Lindsey would have bothered making for herself. It looked like a gourmet deli item, all the way down to the lettuce and tomatoes. She smiled her appreciation as she took a small bite, while he poured her some lemonade. She had to drink. Returning to the hospital to be treated for dehydration was the last thing she needed. She took several bites, and all the while, Noah watched her. He shifted his weight in obvious discomfort, and finally leaned his hands on the counter.
“So is she shocked? At me? At this?”
He swallowed. “Yes. You do realize how shocking it is, don’t you?”
She stared hard at the white plate. “I do.”
“She wants you to stay here. For however long you need. She isn’t saying that to be nice either. She really means it. She left this stuff for you to read. I looked through some of it.”
“What is it?” Lindsey asked as she took the pile of reading material. She immediately saw some pamphlets about domestic violence. There was a sad looking woman, cowering against a wall with her head on her knees. Depressing. Pathetic. Victimized. Only… didn’t she also cower against a wall, and hold her knees up to her face, while trying to obliterate the images of what she just lived through? The pamphlets depicted some of the signs and symptoms of domestic violence. They explained the abuse cycle. No. No cycle with Elliot. He simply did it whenever he felt like it, often completely unprovoked. She pushed the pamphlets away with disdain.
“Gretchen said you should look through all these to start.”
Lindsey raised her eyebrows. “You two seem quite close?”
He glanced up, his expression puzzled by her tone. “Sure. She’s r
eally nice. I don’t know.”
Lindsey stared at her food. Half the sandwich was all she could manage, and she pushed the remainder away. With a deep breath, she said, “I owe you some answers.”
He shook his head. “No. You owe me nothing.”
She raised her head. “I owe you everything, Noah.”
“You wouldn’t have come without him. It wasn’t me who got you out.”
“Yes, but you were there. You were sitting there, waiting for me. You were waiting to help me, whenever the opportunity arose. If you had not been there, I would have had no way to leave. So what you did was important. It was, perhaps, the most important thing anyone ever did for me.”
He straightened up. “I don’t care about that. I don’t care about anything I did. I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything. I don’t want your apologies either. Just do this for me: stay here, Lindsey. Don’t go back. Please. I will do anything just to ensure you won’t go back to him.”
“Don’t you want to know why I went back to him in the first place?”
Noah shook his head. “The same reason Tessa would have. Shame. Embarrassment. Fear. Call it whatever you want. It doesn’t matter why you did; what matters is where you are now.”
What a beautiful thought Noah had! It didn’t matter why she went back, only that she was away from it now. It was also a load of shit. “What do you mean, Tessa would have?”
He nodded. “It was just like you said. Not even a week after you left, Dean went home and started calling her. He was spouting all kinds of shit about how he would change and how she needed to come home. She actually considered it even after I talked myself blue in the face explaining all the reasons why she couldn’t. Once I convinced her to move in with me, well, that helped. She doesn’t talk that way anymore, or at least not as much.”
Lindsey choked on the lemonade she tried to sip. “Wait, what? You moved Tessa and her six kids into your house?”
He shrugged, feeling obviously uncomfortable with her questions. “It’s just temporary and until they can get on their feet. And it’s also to make sure they won’t go back home.”
“Noah, you can’t move a strange woman and her six kids in with you! That’s crazy. It’s insane. It’s way too much. It’s… well, it’s the most thoughtful thing I’ve ever heard someone do.”
He walked around to the doorway of the kitchen. “I don’t know about that. I just couldn’t let her go back to Dean. And she needed a house for all those kids, and I have that huge, old house, with all those rooms going unused. So it seemed like, why not? I couldn’t stand the guilt of letting her go, especially if she got hurt again. Besides, they aren’t so bad, and the kids love my dogs. They help me take care of them. You could just say they are house-sitting for me.”
“But what about Dean? What if he comes after her? Or you? No, you shouldn’t have done that.”
Noah’s jaw tightened. “Nobody’s going to let that happen. The police and a battered women’s advocate are both working with her, and protecting her. The community currently shuns him. It’s not okay, Lindsey. People don’t condone what he did to her. They also don’t sit around, wanting to punish her because she couldn’t leave. It wasn’t ever her fault. It was all his.”
Tears pricked her eyes. God, he was so wonderfully good. She was sure she’d never met another man like him. She kept her eyes down. “Of course, it wasn’t her fault. She had six kids and no means of supporting them.”
He stepped closer to her and she could feel his body’s warmth. The proximity of his physical presence comforted her. It had been a long time since someone being so close to her didn’t repulse her or instigate fearful thoughts. He put his hand on her chin and raised her gaze to his. “It wasn’t her fault. Just as it wasn’t your fault. Kids or no kids.”
Shaking her head, she tried to jerk her chin from his grasp. “It was. It is. I mean technically, I know I didn’t hit myself. I know he had the problem. But I stayed. I could have told someone. Anyone. I could have called the police. But I did nothing. I was there, in the hospital and the cop was right beside me. And I told him a stranger came at me, one I’ve never met before. I told him that! I voluntarily went along with that! So, please tell me, how is that not my fault?”
His fingers tightened on her chin, and again, he silently demanded her eye contact. But there was not one thing harmful or hurtful in his grasp. His fingers were long and strong, but very gently held her, making her heart swell with gratitude. He stared at her and his blue eyes were bright with intensity. With care. With tears. Her heart practically dropped to the floor. There were tears in his eyes; were they for her?
“Lindsey, he did it. Not you. It is not your fault. You are a victim. You are a complete and total victim of Elliot Johanson’s. You are a victim of domestic violence, whether you want to call yourself that or not, you most certainly are.”
“I stayed so I chose it.”
“You didn’t choose it. You didn’t.”
He kept his gaze on her and very softly said, “It’s not your fault.”
“It is. It is my fault.”
“No, it isn’t! Why are you so obsessively focused on that? Not what was done to you, or how you feel, or what you’re going to do about it now. Not how Elliot should be punished for it, but that it’s your fault? Why is that all you take from this? That has nothing to do with it.”
“Nothing to do with it? I should have been different. Stronger. Better. You know that, Noah. You know in your heart, I should have left him. The day he came back for me, you were there. Right there. All I had to do was say, ‘Noah, I can’t go with him.’ And I knew even then, you would have helped me. You would have helped me like you did Tessa. But instead… I pushed you away and followed him like the good little girl I always tried to be with him. I did exactly as he said. Always. That was my fault.”
“That’s a load of bullshit. That is something he needed for you to believe. He totally and completely mind-fucked you, along with everything else he did. I saw it. The moment he walked into the clinic, you instantly became his helpless victim. Tell me, Lindsey, what were some of the things he said he’d do to you if you ever left him?
She bit her lip and shook her head, pressing her hands to her temples. They were pounding. “No. No, I don’t want to talk about that. Or any of this.”
“I don’t either. But, I can’t let this go any further. Too soon or not, I can’t let you keep thinking you somehow deserved this, or that it’s your own fault. Read the literature! Read the statistics! Read how your reaction was normal, and not an anomaly. And start by telling me what he threatened to do to you.”
She stared hard at the countertop. It was black granite with swirls of mauve and beige that looked like veins winding through the solid color. “Lindsey? Please. Start there. Tell me what he put in your head, what he promised he’d do to you. He’s not here. He can’t hear you. He can’t see you. He cannot get to you. He will never know what you say to me. Never. You are completely safe to talk to me.”
She stared at her fingertips while she picked at one, then another, and another. Finally, she mumbled, “He told me almost every time he hit me, that if I ever left him, he would hunt me down. He said there was nowhere I could go, nowhere I could hide, and that he wouldn’t stop searching until he found me. Whether it was now, or years from now. He promised he’d find me. He would never forget me. He would never forgive me. And he would never, ever let me go. He also swore he would hurt anyone who tried to help me.”
“What did he say he’d do to you?”
“Everything. Nothing. I don’t know. It was different every time he threatened me. It was his psycho ramblings and perverse fantasies. He said he would shoot me, stab me, gut me, and beat me until I couldn’t see or walk again. He would seal me up in a room and never let me out.”
Noah’s breath faltered. “He locked you up?”
“Sometimes.”
“I don’t know what you went through. I don’t pretend to kno
w. I just know it wasn’t your fault. Not one time. Not one hit. Not one kick.”
“I could have left when it first started.”
He shook his head again. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” she whispered, dropping her chin to her chest.
His hand touched her shoulder. His voice became softer and he chanted, “It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It—is—not—your—fault.”
He repeated the statement to her over and over as his tone started to rise. He turned her face to his and his eyes looked different. Suddenly, he wasn’t being so nice or unsure, and he wasn’t the awkward Noah. His voice was insistent, commanding, and completely confident in what he said. The conviction with which he spoke was not to be doubted. Tears leaked over her eyelids and rolled down her cheeks. She choked and lowered her head as her shoulders started to convulse before dropping her face into her hands. His words… they meant everything to her. They were exactly what she needed. What she wanted to cling to. What she wanted to believe.
But she didn’t know how.
His arms came around her. She should have flung him off. She didn’t want to be touched. She didn’t like to be touched. But the pain was too much and she couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t shoulder it alone. Not without the pills. Not with the threat of Elliot catching her. She used to avoid feeling any of it, when at any moment Elliot could walk into any room of the house and find her. That was simply unacceptable. So she didn’t cry. She rarely acknowledged what she felt in her heart. Her emotions were so locked away, she didn’t even know what they were anymore. They ceased to exist sometimes. The tears hurt her throat. They burned and choked her, making her mouth, her eyes, even her ears feel like they were about to explode. There was so much to feel, too many emotions at once. All from his simple words. Stupid words. Obvious words. Of course it wasn’t her fault she had her stomach kicked in. Or cigarettes burned into her back. Or the puncture wounds in her stomach from where Elliot stabbed her with a dinner fork. Elliot preferred doing things to her that were never obvious to outsiders. There were no telltale signs of abuse like multiple broken bones or unexplained bruises. And of course, that was not her doing either. But… wasn’t some of it, any of it, her fault?
The Good Sister (Sister Series, #2) Page 23