Never Giving Up (Never #3)

by Anie Michaels

  “Trust me, Ella. If we weren’t in a hospital room right now, I’d be finding all kinds of alternative ways to use my mouth.”

  “Oh God. Please, don’t say things like that,” I said, pressing my forehead against his chest. I breathed his scent in, trying to come down from the high he’d given me. “How do you always smell so good? And always smell the same?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Like wood, soap, and sexy as hell.”

  He laughed, his chest rumbling beneath me. I loved the sound of his laughter, especially when I was the one who caused it. His laughter died down and we stood there in each other’s arms for a few minutes, both of us just watching Mattie sleep.

  “So,” I heard him say hesitantly. I leaned back and looked up at him.

  “So, what?”

  “I got a call from our lawyer this morning.”

  “And?”

  His hand came up and he ran the back of his fingers over my cheek, obviously trying to lessen the blow of whatever he was going to tell me.

  “They moved the trial up.”

  “Ok . . .”

  “It starts tomorrow.” My stomach dropped and my eyes widened. “If you still plan on testifying, you have to be there.”

  “But, Mattie . . .”

  “I know . . .”

  “I can’t leave her . . .” My head shook back and forth feverishly.

  “Shh . . .” he said, pulling me against him again.

  “Porter, I can’t leave her.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  I did though. If I wanted to make sure Jason Ramie was put in jail, if I wanted my chance to tell him and a jury exactly what he’d done to me, I would have to leave her.

  “What am I going to do?”

  “You’re going to do whatever you’re comfortable with and I’ll support you either way.”

  The door to the hospital room opened and Megan and my mother walked back in. Both of them stopped in their tracks when they saw us, clearly noticing something was wrong.

  “Oh, Ella. I didn’t mean to upset you,” my mother said walking to me, obviously thinking I was still upset over our argument. She placed her hand on my back and I turned to her, wrapping my arms around her, suddenly needing the comfort of my mother, regardless of how angry I had been with her just ten minutes ago. I cried into her shoulder as Porter explained the situation. All the while I felt my mother’s hands rubbing up and down my back, continually calming me, letting me know she was there for me.

  “Fella, whatever you need, just let us know.” Megan’s voice was soft from across the room and I gave her a weak smile over my mother’s shoulder.

  “Truly, Ella. If you want us to stay with her while you go to the trial, we’ll be here, no matter what. Or if you just want us to help you while you’re here, we’ll do that. And if you decide to take her home, like the doctors said, I’ll help you with that too. Anything, Ella.” My mother’s voice was filled with emotion and I knew she was apologizing for what had happened earlier.

  “Thank you, Mom.” I pulled away and wiped my eyes, feeling like the breakdown had passed for the moment. I looked to Porter and saw his eyes trying to gauge what I was thinking. My eyes drifted to Mattie next and I took in a deep breath and let it out loudly.

  I spent the next few hours just holding Mattie, rocking back and forth in the uncomfortable chair the hospital provided, nursing her, kissing her, feeling her satiny hair beneath my fingers. I listened to Porter interact with my family and I tried to add a word in every once in a while, but I was busy loving on my daughter. No one seemed to notice or mind. Eventually my mother and sister left, kissing us both and giving Porter hugs, telling him to let them know what I decided to do.

  Sometime that evening, as I held Mattie in my arms and spoke to her about little lambs and curds and whey, the door slowly creaked open and I was surprised to see Brittany poke her head into the room. Her face was painted with hesitation and worry, instantly setting off my internal alarm—something was wrong.

  “Hi, Brittany, come in,” I said quietly, not wanting to wake Mattie. Porter stood and opened the door all the way for her and she shyly made her way into the room. When she made it fully in I saw that she carried a bouquet of colorful wildflowers. She set them down on the counter and twisted the vase so that the most beautiful and colorful flowers faced us.

  “I wanted to come and see how Mattie was doing,” she said timidly. My eyes flitted downward and I noticed her hands were trembling. Something wasn’t right. Brittany took the few steps that brought her right next to me and she looked down upon Mattie and a smile grew wide across her face. “She’s so beautiful. Is she going to be ok?”

  I nodded and looked down at her as well. “The doctors say she’s through the worst of it and can go home soon.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Brittany said, but her voice didn’t match the sentiment. Tears welled and she trembled.

  “Why don’t you sit down,” I said, standing up and offering her my chair which she took quickly. “Porter can you go and get her some water?” He was up and heading towards the door instantly.

  “No, wait, he should be here for this too,” Brittany said, halting him.

  “You’re scaring me, Brittany. What’s going on?” She took a few deep breaths in and out, seemingly trying to calm herself down enough to speak. My eyes met Porter’s and I knew he was just as confused as I was.

  “I remember when I first started at Poppy,” she started, with a trembling voice. She looked down at her hands, wrung them together, still giving me no reason to calm down. “I remember thinking that I was so lucky. I got this amazing job working for this incredible woman who was everything I wanted to be.” She looked up at me then, tears falling down her cheeks. “A few weeks after I started this awesome job I met this awesome guy. He was so sweet and attentive, always calling and texting, I thought I’d hit some sort of jackpot. First the perfect job, then the perfect boyfriend.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her jacket, emotions leaving no room for politeness or manners. Her eyes locked on mine and she looked at me with so much hurt and found myself close to tears just to see her that way.

  “When our relationship became physical, I spent many nights wondering what the catch was. The other shoe had to drop at some point, right? Things were too perfect.”

  Porter shuffled on his feet, obviously uncomfortable listening to Brittany talk about her sex life. “I’m going to take a walk,” he said gently.

  “No, I’m really sorry Porter, but it’s important that you stay.”

  He looked at me with wide eyes, silently begging for me to rescue him. I shook my head slightly and motioned for him to stay.

  “His name was Bobby and he was wonderful. We dated for over six months before we slept together. He travelled frequently for his job so when we could see each other it wasn’t usually for a long period of time and he was always coming and going. In all that time he never once pressured me. He was so patient and kind. And when we finally did sleep together, it was wonderful. I felt like he really loved me.”

  She began to fully cry and I handed her the small box of Kleenex from the end table.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve never told anyone this before.”

  “Brittany, it’s ok. Take your time. We’re not going anywhere.”

  She took a few steadying breaths and then trudged forward.

  “When he asked me to let him take pictures of me naked, it caught me off guard, but I didn’t say no right away.” She shrugged and then shook her head, obviously having an argument with herself in her mind. It seemed as though she’s had this discussion with herself a few times. “Lots of people let their boyfriends take pictures of them, right? My first instinct was to say no, because, well, it’s a naked picture. But I didn’t want him to be angry with me and I wanted to make him happy. I wanted him to want me.”

  At that point I stood and brought the baby to Porter and then returned to Brittany, placing my hand on her,
trying to convey that I wasn’t judging her. She was neither the first or last young woman to let her boyfriend take naked pictures of them.

  “I eventually let him take the photos and I won’t lie, part of me liked how much he seemed to enjoy them. After a few weeks I had grown accustomed to him taking the pictures of me, but when he then asked to take pictures of us during sex, I was surprised.”

  Porter was visibly uncomfortable with what he was hearing and he turned his back to us, trying to give her as much privacy as possible. I could feel the tension coming from him.

  “He was really persistent and had strong arguments. He kept asking what the difference was between naked pictures and sex pictures? If I trusted him with one I shouldn’t be bothered by the other.” She cried still, her words chopped up by sobs and sniffles. “I couldn’t answer him,” she said with a twinge of panic. “I’d already let him violate me, what was the difference?” She shook her head and I squeezed her hand, hurting for her, wanting to tell her that it was wrong of him to put her in that position.

  “When I finally relented, he seemed so pleased with me. The pictures, to me, were disgusting. I didn’t like looking at them, but he seemed to like taking them. I always asked him to erase them and sometimes he would, but I knew sometimes he kept them.”

  She was quiet for a few moments. Then she seemed to gain some strength and continued.

  “He became more demanding and even though I wasn’t happy anymore, I thought perhaps if I did everything he asked he would become the man I had originally fallen for. If I could just make him happy . . .” She trailed off and my heart broke for her. I started thinking back to the first year when she worked at Poppy with me and I couldn’t think of any time when I noticed she had been unhappy. Could she have been going through something this traumatizing without me having even noticed that something was wrong?

  “The first time he ever took a video of us having sex, he said it was an accident.”

  Her words were cold and removed and my heart broke in half for her.

  “He said he had been trying to take a picture, but it had been on video by mistake. Immediately, I panicked. I grabbed for his phone and tried to make him erase it and he backhanded me. In that moment I knew the first Bobby I met, the man who cared for me and was sweet and kind was never coming back. He said that the video wasn’t a big deal and that he already had pictures, so what was I so upset about?” She looked at me like I might have an answer for her, but I was in shock and couldn’t help but feel disgusted for her, terrified for her. “This went on for a few more weeks. He would make me have sex with him, lording the video over me, threatening to post it on the internet, email it to my parents, basically anything he could think of to hurt me, he used it against me.”

  Brittany raised her eyes to mine and a new sadness had taken over, remorse and regret filled her to the brim and I ached for her. “I’ll never forget the first time Bobby walked into Poppy. I panicked because he’d never come into my work before and I was afraid he was there to out me, to show my employer these disgusting videos and photos I’d let him take of me. And you can imagine my horror when you walked right up to him, kissed him on the cheek, and called him Kyle.”

  My brain started piecing things together, started connecting all the dots she’d so bravely laid out for me.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” she said, so nonchalantly, wiping tears from her eyes. “I had been sleeping with your boyfriend. Not just sleeping with him though, making sex videos with him. I was shattered. I was completely disgusted with myself.”

  I looked to Porter whose jaw was tense and clenching and I knew that if Kyle wasn’t already dead, he’d be on a rampage right now looking for him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I couldn’t! That day he came in to Poppy, he was taking you to lunch and when you went in the back to get your coat, he told me that if I said anything to anyone he would release everything.” She paused and took in a shuddering breath. “That’s also how he forced me to steal all that money from you.”

  My heart stopped and my breath was stuck in my throat. In the corner of my eye I saw Porter place Mattie in her crib and start pacing the room, back and forth.

  “I’m so sorry, Ella. I never meant to do any of this and if I could go back and change everything I would. I just didn’t know what to do. For so long, years, he had a thumb over me, taunting me with the videos, telling me he’d post them all over the internet and my future would be ruined. A few times I almost refused, almost let him follow through with his threats. There were other times I also thought about ending it all. I just wanted to be that carefree, fun, happy girl I use to be, ya know?”

  “Oh my God, Brittany, I can’t believe he did that to you,” I whispered. Even after everything I’d been through with Kyle, learning the depths and lengths his evilness spanned was always still surprising. I wouldn’t put any of this past him, but still found it hard to believe that someone I’d wasted so much of my time on could even think of pulling something like this off.

  “When I heard that you’d killed him, that you had shot him dead, that was the most wonderful moment of my life, and that alone made me so sad. The idea that the death of someone gave me some sort of freedom, well, that really messed with my mind. But I couldn’t get over the happiness. Finally, I thought, finally it’s over.” She sniffed again, wiping her nose on a kleenex.

  “But then the private investigator came into the store and I knew I either had to tell someone, or I was going to be found out.” A new wave of panic moved over her and I watched as she simply fell apart.

  “I’m so sorry, Ella. Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I would never have stolen from you—not in a million years. I know what you must think of me and . . .”

  “Brittany, don’t say another word.” Porter’s voice was loud and firm from across the room. He walked over and knelt in front of her. “If this is the true story, if he really did this to you, and I don’t have one tiny sliver of doubt that he did, you need to talk to the police. Ella and I, of all people, understand that Kyle was by far the worst person that ever walked this earth, and I am so sorry that he did that to you. It wasn’t your fault and we could never place blame with you. But you have to tell this to a detective.”

  She nodded, sniffling at the same time. “I know. I just wanted Ella to hear my side of the story before I turned myself in.”

  “What do you mean turn yourself in?” I asked, finding my voice suddenly concerned with what she was planning to do.

  “I’m going to the police station to tell them what I’ve done.”

  “You mean what you were coerced and blackmailed into doing?” All of a sudden I was filled with rage that Kyle had tried to ruin someone else’s life. However mad I was, I was even sadder knowing he had probably succeeded a little with Brittany. Even from the grave he was still causing pain. “Brittany, there is no active investigation right now about the missing money. We hired a P.I. because we were curious as to how he did it. But no one is looking to press charges against you. You did nothing wrong.” Brittany looked at the ground and nodded her head, but she still looked defeated. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking, or the bravery it took for her to come here and tell her story. “You’ll go to the police station, Brittany, but not to turn yourself in, to give a statement, to aid them, perhaps, but that is all.”

  Porter reinstated his purposeful march across the room, angry steps leaving angry thumps in their wake. Mattie slept peacefully as years of drama unfolded around her. I watched Brittany and she looked down to her lap and cried, softly mumbling how she never meant to hurt anyone.

  We were all better off now that he was dead.

  It was a harsh statement. It was also a true statement. He hurt more people than he helped. If I hadn’t defended myself last year, if I hadn’t killed him, not only would I be dead, but he’d still be hurting other people. Brittany might still be under his thumb. For the first time in maybe ever, the
guilt over killing another person wasn’t weighing so heavily down on me.

  Once she’d quieted down and pulled herself together a little bit more, Brittany stood and made to leave. I hugged her and tried to remind her that none of this was her fault, that what he had done was wrong. She nodded at my words, but I knew she wasn’t agreeing with me. It would probably take her a very long time to accept that fact, but I hoped that someday she would. She told me she would go to the police station straight from the hospital and I gave her Dillard’s name, telling her to only talk to him. I hugged her again and then watched her walk out of the room.

  My eyes found Porter and they were wide, my mouth hanging open a little, completely and totally shocked at what the last hour of our lives had left us with.

  “Can you believe any of that?” I asked him, hoping he was just as shocked as I was.

  “I know I’ve said this before, but he’s lucky he’s dead already, because otherwise I’d find him and finish him off myself. What a worthless waste of a human being.”

  “He seemed so normal . . .”

  “Yeah, well, if all the crazy douchebags of the world would wear neon flashing signs around their necks warning us all, the world would be a better place.”

  I had to laugh at the image of Kyle with a sign hanging from his neck flashing the words “Deranged Psychopath.” I let out a sigh, finding that all the day’s events were finally catching up and finding me exhausted.

  “Have you thought about what you’re going to do tomorrow?” His voice was light and concerned all at the same time. I could feel his need to protect me as a physical force, his need to keep me safe wafting over me. I nodded and met his eyes.

  “I’m going to go to the trial.”

  He nodded, silently, then ventured another question.

  “And you trust your mom enough to leave Mattie here with her?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know if I trust my mom, or sister, or Kalli, or anyone enough to be here with Mattie without me. But it doesn’t matter, because the only other person on the planet I’d leave her with is going to be here with her—you.”