Page 40 of Redemption
My scrapes are scabbed. I’m not bleeding anymore.
Walking through my dark and quiet house, I snatch up my journal and sink to the floor in front of the sliding glass doors with the beautiful view of the bay outside. I cross my legs, adjust a sock, and open a blank page.
I should be dead. I don’t know when he’ll come. I don’t know how to take my next breath. I don’t know why I don’t leave.
I stare at the words. The letters jump around. I’m holding the pen wrong. I can’t seem to remember how to hold it right. Tears blur my sight and I can barely see what I’ve written. Three days haven’t made anything better. Three days with almost no sleep, no appetite and an aching vortex where my heart should be. I don’t want to die, but I have no idea how to live, how to move on.
I know I should leave, but I can’t think. I have no idea where to start.
The doorbell clangs and my heart leaps to my throat. I scramble to find the gun, then I run soundlessly to the front door.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Chloe, hon.”
“I can’t open the door.” I clutch the gun in my sweaty palm.
“You haven’t answered any of my calls. I’m worried to death. Let me in, or I’ll call your parents.”
My knees nearly fold at the thought. That’s out of the question. “Please don’t. Call again. I’ll answer.”
“Open the door, Kerry. What happened? Please.”
“I can’t.” My voice breaks. “Chloe, you don’t understand.”
“You’re not giving me a chance to understand. Did someone hurt you?”
A raw sob rises from my throat and I sink to the floor.
“My God! Kerry. I swear, I’m calling your mom now.”
I throw myself at the door, reach up, unhook the safety chain and unlock the bolt, still on the floor, trembling.
Chloe pushes open the door I lean against, making me slide over the polished wooden planks. She gasps as she shoves it closed, kneeling by my side. “My God! What happened?”
“I can’t talk about it.” My voice is nothing but a hoarse rasp. I haven’t talked to anyone in five days except for two times that first morning, when I called in sick, and with my neighbor when I borrowed the gun.
She carefully puts a finger under my chin and tilts my head, scanning my bruised, swollen face, her eyes darting to the gun that lies in my palm, my hand limp on the floor. Her lower lip trembles. “Who did this to you?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“Why? You need to go to the hospital! Have you seen a doctor?”
I grab her arm. “You can never talk to anyone about this, Chloe. They’ll kill you. They’ll kill me, and they’ll kill you.”
Her eyes widen. “Kerry, you’re scaring me.” She gently grabs my arm and helps me up. “Come.”
“Not the couch,” I choke out.
She gives me a confused glance. “Okay. Where?”
“Window.”
In front of my large floor-to-ceiling windows, I’ve nested. I have pillows, blankets, several glasses of water, a pile of used napkins. I haven’t been to the upper floor since that night. The sheets are still unchanged, soiled with his seed, and with the sweat from the long hours of what I thought was lovemaking. I can’t see them. I haven’t sat anywhere I sat with him. I live in a carefully made out Kerry-sized bubble.
She leads me there and sits with me on the floor.
“You gotta talk with me, darling. I’m not leaving here until you do. And if you don’t give me a really good reason why I shouldn’t call the cops, I swear I’ll do that.”