Tonic

by Heather Lloyd

  “Oh. I’m sorry Craig. Is Annabelle ok?”

  “Yeah, she’s doing ok.” He pauses, uncomfortable with being here. “Well, I’ll leave you alone now. Hope you get better fast.” He smiles and lifts his hand in a small wave, turns and leaves.

  I turn back to Ryan; he’s watching me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “No regrets of leaving him?”

  I snort loudly, then wince from the pain in my ribs. “Ohmigod, Ryan! No! Do you not remember all the crap he put me through? How could I have any regrets over him when I have you?”

  He leans over to hug me gently. “Good. Just checking.”

  Laughing, I hug him back. “I love you, Ryan.”

  “I will never tire of hearing you say that. I love you too, Olivia.”

  The rest of the day passes quickly. Ryan stays with me all day while visitors come and go. That night I’m given more pain medication so I can sleep well. It totally knocks me out.

  The next morning, Dr. Bruce says I can leave at eleven. I am ready to go. One of the hospital orderlies brings a wheel chair to my room and wheels me to the exit doors. Ryan drives me home. It’s super hard to get around with a broken leg and broken ribs. Ryan picks me up and carries me into the house. On the counter are more red roses.

  “You got me more roses?” I ask Ryan.

  “No, I didn’t,” Ryan replies as he sets me on my foot.

  “These arrived about an hour ago,” mom says as she walks to me with something in her hand. “Here’s the card. It was sealed so I didn’t think I should open it.”

  I take the card from mom.

  Ryan picks me back up and take me to my bedroom, which is where I will be the most comfortable. He gets me settled in bed - TV remotes, cell phone and laptop all close to me so I can do whatever I want. I have a feeling I’m going to get bored extremely fast.

  I still have the card from the flowers in my hand. On the outside, it said ‘for Olivia only’. Oddly, I have a creepy feeling about this. I look at Ryan. He’s watching me. He must see that I’m uneasy. He sits down on the side of the bed and rubs his hand up and down my thigh lightly, meaning to comfort me, I guess. I tear open the envelope and take out the card. The words are typed instead of hand written, which makes me even more uncomfortable. A feeling a dread surges through me.

  “Get well soon Olivia. You don’t need to worry about that crazy

  bitch again. I took care of her – for you.”

  Chills encase my body. All the hairs on my body feel like they are standing up. My breath catches, I start shaking and I gasp.

  “What’s wrong, Olivia?” Ryan asks, concerned. “Are you hurting?”

  I can’t answer him. I cannot get my thoughts out through my mouth.

  “Olivia! Are you hurting?” Ryan exclaims. He moves to sit in front of me and grabs my face so he can look into my eyes.

  I shake my head. I realize I so scared that I can’t answer Ryan. My hand shakes terribly as I make myself lift my arm to give him the flower card. He looks confusingly at me. But he releases me and takes the card. As soon as he reads the card, I see the confusion slide away and in its place is horror and anger.

  “What…what…” I try to get out.

  Ryan pulls me so I’m sitting up and then pulls me into his arms.

  “It’s ok, Olivia. You’re ok. I’m here.”

  “What does he mean that he took care of her,” I finally whisper.

  “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Ryan.” I pull back and wait until he looks at me. “Please tell me what’s going on?” I plead. “What happened to that woman? My stalker?”

  He grimaces. I know he doesn’t want to tell me what happened to her, but I don’t think he really wants to lie to me either. He gives me an exasperated look and sighs.

  “I didn’t want to tell you this yet. It’s too soon. I don’t want you to be afraid.” He stops and sighs again. “You assumed the police caught the woman and that they have her in jail and we…, I, let you believe that. But the truth is the police found her back in the trees behind your house a little ways. She was already dead when they found her.”

  I shake my head back and forth - confused.

  “She…she’s dead? She killed herself?” I ask. I’m so confused why Ryan wouldn’t want me to know that. What difference does that make?

  Ryan looks down at our joined hands. “No, baby,” he whispers. “She didn’t kill herself.”

  Then all the pieces of the puzzle fit for me. I look at the card from the flowers and know exactly what happened.

  “She wasn’t my real stalker,” I say.

  “Well, she was your stalker, or one of them.” Ryan shakes his head.

  “He killed her,” I whisper. Then I hold up the card. “This person killed her.”

  “Yes, it seems that way.” He sighs, “I need to call the detective in charge of the case and tell him about this card.”

  While Ryan calls, I think about the woman and this other person that is now my stalker, too. I guess he was before too but I just didn’t know it. That woman deserved to be caught and punished for what she did to me. Some small part of me is relieved that I won’t have to deal with her any more, but she didn’t deserve to die. I wonder how she died. Did she suffer? Or did it happen fast?

  In my mind, this other person has to be a guy. I suppose that in a crazy obsessive way he thought he was protecting me by killing her. That is unnerving. To what extent would he try to protect me? Now I have a whole new person to worry about. But I have no clue who it is. It could be anyone. I might pass him on the street and not even know it. How the hell am I supposed to be safe?

  I shudder. Ryan rubs my back when he feels me shiver.

  Ohmigod. What am I going to do? How am I going to live? How can I function knowing someone is probably watching me?

  Ryan gets off the phone and tells me the detective is on his way over. He wants the card and envelope to test for prints and DNA.

  “How did she die?” I ask Ryan.

  “Bloody hell, Olivia. You do not want to know the details.”

  “Yes, I do. Please tell me? I need to know what kind of person I’m dealing with now.”

  He growls and scrubs his hands over his face. “Don’t you want to get better? Aren’t you hurting enough? You want to add being terrified to everything else you’re dealing with?”

  “I already am terrified. But you are here to protect me. I know I’m safe with you here. Please tell me.”

  I’m afraid he’s not going to answer me. He been quiet for so long.

  “She was stabbed fifteen times. Carved in her back were the words ‘DIE BITCH’.”

  I have tremors now. Ryan tightens his hold on me. Holy shit! What kind of psycho is this? And what does he want from me?

  “Did she die right away or did she suffer before she died?”

  “Jesus, Olivia.” He whispers disapproving.

  I wait for him to answer. I think I know what he’s going to say.

  “They didn’t find her until the morning after your attack. Police said she didn’t die right away. She suffered.”

  Tears trickle down my face.

  “She didn’t deserve to die that way.”

  “No one deserves to die that way, Love.”

  We sit there quiet for a while in silence. I find myself feeling sorry for this woman, which is so stupid. She hurt me; she tried to kill me. But to have suffered so much before she died is inhumane.

  The doorbell interrupts my sorrowful thoughts. A little bit later, dad brings the detective back to my bedroom. He takes the card and envelope, hoping that there are fingerprints or DNA on the saliva from the envelope. The detective tells us that the woman’s name was Lauren Haase. She was 28, from Las Vegas. She had stalked other women before. She would get obsessed with someone; she would convince herself that the guy she was obsessed with was hers. When she felt threatened, she started stalking whatever woman she felt was a threat. She had never got
ten this involved before, especially enough to leave Las Vegas and follow someone to the middle of the country.

  They found a sister in San Francisco who was coming to identify her and take her home to be buried. The sister said Lauren was supposed to be on medication to help her.

  Ryan walks the detective out and comes back with some cheese and crackers that he tells me I’m supposed to try to eat a little. I feel like I’ll throw up if I try to eat anything right now. Ryan sits down on the bed beside me. I look at him and sigh.

  “So, I have another stalker.”

  He puts an arm around me and pulls me to his side.

  “Don’t you even worry about that now. I’m here. I’m going take care of you. And when I leave, I’m going to hire a body guard.”

  “No, no body guard. I don’t need another person following me around – whether he’s paid to or not.”

  Ryan kisses the top of my head.

  “You liked Jeremy, didn’t you? This body guard would be like him. My love, I can’t have anything else happen to you. I just found you.”

  I get choked up by his statement. It’s so wonderful to have someone tell me this. It makes me feel so cherished. This was what was completely missing from my marriage with Craig.

  “We’ll… we’ll talk about it later.”

  In order to get my mind off of the picture I’m seeing in my head of the woman with stab wounds all over, I turn on the TV, trying to find some romantic or funny movie. As I flip through the channels, I glance over at Ryan. He’s watching me.

  “What?” I ask. He has a silly grin on this face. He must be amused by my bruises. “Oh, I must look hideous. Right? Black eyes and all? I didn’t have anything to try to cover it up with at the hospital.”

  “Sweetheart, you look beautiful. Naturally beautiful even with the bruises,” he replies. “Even with all this going on, I have this overwhelming feeling right now. I am content. I haven’t felt content for a long time. I’m happy knowing that you’re ok and will heal without many scars. And I’m ecstatic because you told me that you love me, too.”

  “I do love you, so much, Ryan. We really are perfect for each other.”

  “I never expected to find the love of my life this early on. I was prepared to wait a long time for you. And now I don’t have to wait. I’ve heard of love at first sight, but this about knocked me off me feet,” he tells me.

  I think he’s trying to take my mind off the woman. And I’m ok with his distraction. I love hearing what he felt when we first met. Plus, I always get emotional when he talks like this. He grins as he wipes my tears away and continues talking.

  “When you bumped into me that first night, it almost felt like an electric shock zipped through me. It was weird. I didn’t know what had happened. And I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Wondering how I could find you again. Then the next morning, in the elevator, I was still thinking about you when the doors opened. There you stood, all pissed off until you saw me. My heart started beating like crazy and for no reason other than just being near you. Then it was my luck again when I saw you out shopping later that day, I knew that fate was putting us together. I went with it and now I’m so glad I did.”

  “I’m glad you did, too, because I would never have had the courage to come up and talk with you. I had some of the same reactions to you. I’m surprised you couldn’t hear my heart pounding sometimes.”

  “We have to figure out where we go from here,” Ryan says. “I know where I want it to go.”

  What? He wants to talk about our future. Can we just stay in this happy bubble we have right now?

  “Ryan. I’m terrified of our relationship failing – and I hate Craig for that.”

  “Sweetheart, you know that what we have is extremely different from what you had with Craig. There’s no comparison, right?”

  “It is completely different. But I’m still scared.”

  “I understand you’re scared and I know exactly where that comes from. You have every right to feel that way. But we have something so special. Something most people don’t ever feel in their lifetimes. And you having to go through all this crap with the stalkers makes me realize that I can’t just go on without you knowing how much you mean to me and have us at least thinking about our future.”

  “I know…,” I choke out, more tears escaping down my cheeks.

  “Baby, don’t cry.”

  “They’re happy tears,” I smile.

  That night I ask Ryan to sleep with me in my bed. He’s hesitant at first because of my parents. But when I admit that I’m scared to be by myself, he immediately agrees. Ryan slips his arms around me, protecting me, as much as he can without hurting me.

  “I love you, Olivia. Sleep well. Sweet dreams, my love,” he whispers in my ear.

  Time flies by. My parents go back to Arizona a week after I was released from the hospital. I have to go back to see the doctor a few times. I get a walking cast instead of having to use crutches. Much easier to get around. Except for my broken leg and ribs that would take more time to heal, everything else was back to normal. I go back to work but always come home right away to be with Ryan.

  I hear nothing from my unknown stalker since the roses he sent when I first got home from the hospital. I start to relax but am still cautious, wondering when he will surface again.

  Ryan tries to keep me entertained and busy. I help him rehearse his lines. He jokingly tells me that I shouldn’t quit my day job. Too soon he must leave to start filming in London. I am dreading that day. I have gotten so used to him being around for me and don’t want him to leave. I am scared to be by myself, but I also don’t want a bodyguard. I’ve won that little argument and no bodyguard will be hired.

  So, I keep my worries to myself because there is no need for Ryan to feel guilty about leaving or for him to bring up the bodyguard again. I suck it up and put on a brave face for him. Even when he asks if I have any apprehension about him leaving, I pass it off like it’s nothing.

  Taylor and Sarah aren’t as easily deceived. They know I’m getting depressed about Ryan leaving. They also know I’m still terrified from the whole stalker situation – both of them. Petrified that this unknown person will come back for me.

  The day before Ryan leaves for London, I am completely downhearted, but still trying to hide it. I find my heart racing one minute and on verge of tears the next minute. I am constantly taking long, deep breaths to calm down. Ryan catches me doing this a few times, gives me funny looks, but doesn’t say anything. Maybe he’s feeling the same way.

  We’ve been sitting on the couch watching whatever was on TV. I honestly haven’t been paying attention. I’m lost in my own pity, mourning Ryan leaving and panicking about the stalker. Ryan turns off the TV, picks me up and carries me toward the bedroom.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, smiling a little.

  “We’re both so depressed about me leaving tomorrow. I’m going to take both our minds off the dreaded event.”

  Being careful of my walking cast, Ryan places me on the bed. I sit up to watch him. He steps to the windows to pull close the drapes. Then he lights some candles and turns on music. He comes back to the bed and sits down next to me, locking eyes with me.

  “I love you so much, Olivia.” He kisses me gently, like I’ll break. Actually, I feel like I’m going to shatter into a million pieces but not from him being too rough with me. Just the opposite. If he doesn’t touch me I might explode. He’s been extremely cautious and gentle since the hospital.

  “I love you, too, Ryan. But please don’t treat me as if I’m breakable,” I beg. “Not tonight. I’m better except for my leg. Make love to me that will last for the all weeks that you’ll be gone.”

  He groans. I bring his mouth back to mine, bite his lip gently and dragging him into a kiss. Ryan grabs me and gently pushes me back on the bed, still being cautious of my ribs.

  Yes. Halleluiah! About damn time.

  His hands travel all over my body. Every spot he touches
seems to light up and come alive. He grabs the bottom of my t-shirt, pulls it over my head, tossing it aside. His searing touch feel as though he’s leaving marks as he traces his fingers around the bra on my chest.

  I try to peel off his shirt, but Ryan has to help and throws it on the floor also. I run my hands all over his well defined pectorals. He found a gym close by and has been working out every day while I’m at work. He needs to keep in shape for the movie and I’m ecstatic to be able to reap the benefits of his hard work.

  Ryan’s hands are all over me, stopping first at my beasts, toying, massaging and teasingly pinching through my bra. Then his hands move down to my shorts. He unzips and gently starts pulling them down my leg, gets them over my cast and completely off me.

  He kisses his way back up my body, my knee, my outer and inner thigh, my underwear right between my legs, my stomach. When he gets back to my bra, Ryan unhooks it and gets rid of it. His kisses continue on my breasts. My nipples become so hard and stand erect for him. He takes one in his mouth and sucks.

  “Oh God. Ryan!” I call out.

  He kisses his way to the other breast and does the same thing. Sucking and biting, hurting a little, but seducing me even more. Eventually, he comes back to kiss my mouth. His hand moves down and covers me and gently caresses. Pleasure shoots through me as I move into his palm.

  “Sweetheart, you’re so wet for me,” Ryan whispers in my ear. He grabs my right hand and moves it down to his erection. “Feel how hard you make me.”

  “I want you inside me Ryan,” I moan, grabbing the band of his boxer-briefs and push them down. Ryan quickly takes them off and smoothly removes my underwear.

  “Shit!” he curses under his breath. “I don’t have a condom. I really didn’t think about it since you were hurt.”

  “Shh. It’s ok. I’m anal about taking my birth control.”

  Ryan lets out a sigh of relief and kisses me. “Oh, thank God.”

  He shifts his weight on top of me and pauses just before he enters, my desire growing. His eyes capture mine and I can’t turn away from him - as if I would ever want to.

  “Olivia, I love you. You are mine now,” he says as he pushes inside of me.