by Caz May
“She’s not speaking at all Hunter,” I say sternly.
“So can she speak?” he asks, worry in his tone.
“We honestly don’t know, but she is communicating by writing things down.”
He glares at me, like he’s trying to break down my defence. He wants to know something about her and professionally I’m not supposed to tell him, but my heart wants him back and I need to play nice to win him over.
“Oh so what has she written then?” he asks.
“Her name is Savannah Galison,” I say shrugging.
He whispers her name under his breath, looking back at her in the bed.
A smile spreads across her face at the acknowledgement.
My stomach lurches. I shouldn’t have told him. He wants her. He doesn’t want me anymore.
I’d blown my chance with him, when I didn’t want to live life on the farm with him, when I didn’t accept his proposal a year ago.
I curse myself, Stupid Addison, stupid.
It doesn’t feel like a year ago though. It feels like yesterday, and even though I’ve had a few casual relationships since, gone on a few dates, not one had compared to Hunter.
He’s the total package in a man, amazingly handsome, genuine and an all round good guy, but stupid selfish me hadn’t thought about anyone but myself.
Being away from life in Ridgehope had made me realise how much I missed the place and how much I missed Hunter, more than anything.
I still love him desperately and I need to think about how to get him back.
My shift is nearly over and it honestly can’t come any sooner. I need to confess to Hunter. Confess something I should have said a year ago.
(9) Savannah
He’s been in, my gorgeous mystery man, sitting beside me, every day for over a week now. Seeing him walk through the door each day has my heart leaping in my chest. I don’t even know who he is, other than a brief mention from the doctor of his name. After recent experiences I want to keep my heart guarded though.
I always have had a knack of falling for people I shouldn’t. Falling for Dante had gotten me into this mess. Part of me always knew I’d end up in hospital because of him, but I’d loved him and it blinded me.
I should have never married him in hindsight.
He was always so sweet, waiting for me to be ready to take our relationship further. He never pressured me until he put the ring on my finger and I was legally bound to him.
It was as though a switch triggered and he took me for himself, the first bruises appearing mere hours after our first night together.
I should have known then that he wasn’t the man I’d spent the last four years with. The man who inflicted so much pain on me that first night together was not my Dante but some evil man, who hurt me over and over again for the next few years.
Why I’d wanted to start a family with him amidst all that pain is now beyond me. I honestly don’t know how I could have been so naive.
Yes, I thought that maybe starting a family would make things better, but the thought had often crossed my mind of what he might do to our child. He had shown his violent nature more than once and the bruises he left on me could have killed a child. It's certainly too painful to think about.
Escaping him had been the most difficult thing i’ve ever done. In some ways I feel safe in this new place, but part of me also feels I’m not far enough away from Adelaide; that I should have been more careful at getting away and tried to hide my identity more along the way.
In a way it’s comforting that these new people don’t know my real name. It’s scary to admit to myself that I want to tell my mystery man my identity though. He’s getting under my skin and I’m truly scared. Scared at what trusting new people will mean and scared that if I open up, staying in one place for too long that Dante will find me.
My eyes are tightly closed, but sleep won’t come. It’s partly because I know he’s just entered the room, as I heard the creak of the door hinges and partly because I’m so uncomfortable after being cooped up in the hospital for around two weeks.
At first the bed was a welcome relief to my tired aching body, after sleeping in the back of my car, but now it feels as hard a plank of wood and no better than sleeping in the back of the car.
I’ve barely gotten out of it, except to visit the bathroom.
And that had been stifling as well, as I was not allowed to go to the bathroom, even to just pee unaccompanied.
The doctors were afraid I was going to make a runner straight out the door. But it hadn’t even really crossed my mind if I was being completely honest.
Being in the hospital made me feel safe, especially when the mystery man was nearby.
If Dante found me, I don’t think he’d stand much of a chance of getting to me or hurting me.
He was of a similar build to Dante, but he had a presence that made him seem intimidating but also sweet and genuine.
Each day he’d been in I’d laughed, at his jokes and listened intently to his stories of his life on his farm. His past was traumatic too from the brief things he’d told me and my heart felt pained for him.
There is also something odd between him and the obstetrician. He hasn’t directly mentioned her, but has said something about an ex that fits her description.
Honestly I don’t like her at all. She has a sweet caring side when it comes to medicine and is dutiful changing my dressing, and inspecting my bruises, but whenever he’s in, she gives me cold stares, as if to say, ‘Don’t touch him, don’t think about him.’
What makes her think he is hers?
Opening my eyes I focus on him in the room again. He mentions not being able to stay long, as the farm is calling but he needed to see me. His words make butterflies flit in my stomach.
He wants to see me.
He wants to see me just as much as I want to see him.
Seeing him is the only thing making the days in hospital bearable. He stands up to leave, putting his hat back on his head. It makes him look incredibly handsome.
I let out a muffled giggle at the thought of seeing him with just that hat on and I curse myself for the naughty thoughts flashing through my mind.
Stop it Savannah, you don’t know the guy.
It feels strange to be using my alias in my head, but I’ve been making a conscious effort to become Savannah. All part of leaving my old life behind.
As he leaves the snotty obstetrician enters, bumping straight into him. Their conversation is muted, and I never was good at lip reading. The only thing that makes any sense, as he turns towards me for a moment is that she’d told him my name. He looks straight at me, whispering it but I hear it loud and clear as though he’s whispering into my ear.
A smile spreads across my face and my insides are doing flip flops.
If him just saying my name is effecting me so much I have to be even more careful or things are not going to end well.
He’s different to Dante for sure. I know that in my heart, but scars from what I’ve endured run deep.
Much to my disappointment as soon as the obstetrician comes in and their awkward conversation ends he leaves and I’m in the room with her again. She checks my dressing, deciding not to put a new one on as the wound is almost healed and the stitches are nearly ready to come out.
The whole time she gives me the cold stares and it makes me feel sick.
It seems as though she’s jealous of the time he’s spending with me.
She barely says a word to me, except for a warning as she finishes filling in my chart. Her warning comes out more as a threat, that has me worried considering she’s my doctor. Her warning seems very vindictive and downright scary, sending a chill through me,’Stay away from him, or you’ll be back in this hospital bed again.’
The tone makes me shiver, like she’s walked over my grave, or actually is sending me to my grave.
I hope it’s not some kind of curse she’s trying to put me under, that is the last thing I need.
&
nbsp; But who is she to tell me to stay away from him?
I’m not going to do nothing of the sort.
I want to find out more about him and she’s not going to stop me.
~~
Dozing was the only sleep I was really getting. Every noise in the hospital tumbled in my head. No end date seemed to be in sight, of when I would get out of the place.
I had nowhere to go anyway so it shouldn’t have really mattered, but it does.
I need to keep running. Running is freedom from my horrible reality.
I need to keep running from Dante, as even being on the other side of the country won’t truly be far enough away from him.
Startling me from my thoughts is a loud tap on the door.
Of course I don’t say anything to let them know to come in, but the handle turns and a police officer enters. He’s a burly, older man, his badge showing his rank of Sergeant.
This alerts my mind that they are taking my appearance into town as something criminal and it makes me feel a little worried.
Is Dante here? Do they know who I really am?
Stopping by the bed, the Sergeant begins asking me questions. My head can’t come up with any coherent thoughts. I haven’t spoken to anyone else yet and I’m not planning on starting to talk now.
The less anyone knows about me the better and especially the police, as I can only think of how my appearance in an outback town might appear on the news and Dante would find out where I am.
It was all too much to think about.
I shake my head in response to the Sergeants questions before bursting into tears.
He reaches out to touch my arm in comfort but instead his touch causes me to shrink back into the bed and pull the covers up over my body.
I feel completely exposed and vulnerable.
He is about to leave, when my not so friendly obstetrician and so called doctor pops her head around the door jam.
“How’s it going in here?” she speaks casually, not directly to the Sergeant or me.
“Not good Addison. She’s not saying anything.”
She beckons for him to follow her outside the room and she doesn’t close the door, behind her, which I’m sure is deliberate, as she doesn’t try to hide her conversation with the Sergeant.
I hear her tell him my name, which she doesn’t know isn’t my real name, but no one in this town is going to know my real name.
It would only make getting away again harder.
She also mentions the details of my accident, mentioning my miscarriage in a clinical manner, like it doesn’t even matter.
I hear her mention the farmer’s name and for the first time the details emerge that I was found at his house.
Some of the connection between us now makes sense.
I really want to keep running, but a part of me is beginning to want to stay for him, the mysterious farmer whose house I stumbled into when my body told me to stop running.
Maybe it really is time to stop running and find some new hope.
(10) Hunter
Driving back to the farm feels endless, with my head spinning with a thousand thoughts.
Not knowing anything about Savannah is really getting to me.
I don’t even know her, but an overwhelming want is beginning to consume me.
I want to know her and help her escape from whatever she is running from.
It reminds me of when I was younger at school and my childhood best friend Jett Yorke rolled back into town for the second time after his parents whisked him and Addison to the city for a while.
Being a little shy country boy, the crazy whirlwind of a city boy he’d become he didn’t really notice me at first, but I desperately wanted to befriend him, as I’d always thought he seemed like a great guy growing up.
I’ve always curious about people, wondering often about what happens behind the closed doors of peoples houses.
He lived in town, as his family came back to take over the general store and honestly we never would have crossed paths again, if we hadn’t had to team up for a stupid diorama project in Year eight history.
I still remember how lame our diorama was, although the teacher thought it was a pretty great effort for two boys who seemed to not do any work in class.
From that day we were pretty much inseparable. Hunter and Jett through thick and thin, except when it came to his younger sister.
Despite his disdain towards my feelings for her, he brought out a mischievous side to me, and we definitely got up a lot of no good growing up.
Our favourite pastime was throwing batty old Martha’s precious gnomes in the river.
No sooner would a new one appear, that to would be it be smashed and thrown in as well.
It always surprised me that we never got caught, but it was probably partly due to the fact that Martha was practically blind and never saw us.
Jett turned out to be a country boy at heart, managing a farm a few towns over after we finished school.
I’d never really gone to his house much, as it was attached to the general store and he was a little wary of me meeting his family.
I found out part of the reason for his wariness in our second last year of school when I found myself getting reacquainted with his younger sister Addison at a party.
I was almost immediately smitten with her, even though years had gone by since I’d first met her but as she was a number of years younger than us and extremely headstrong, winning her affection was a challenge.
Jett never approved of our relationship, not even really speaking to me when he moved away.
I’d fallen so quickly for Addison, that I was truly heartbroken when she up and left to study and completely disregarded my feelings.
I’d never told anyone that we had as so much as broken up for the three years she’d been away.
She came back, desperate to get me back, whilst completing her studies at the local General practice. And me because I’d not gotten over her I stupidly took her back like nothing had changed, but it had.
She didn’t know anything about my father’s illness or my mothers breakdown.
Partly because I hadn’t told her, but partly because she didn’t seem to care about life back home.
Staying around for a while she completely took over my heart again, even more so than before and I really thought she loved me as much as I loved her.
But after she’d been home for a year I proposed to her, only to be shot down by her saying she didn’t want to live on the farm.
Fuck Hunter, you pansy, be a man.
I wipe my eyes from the tears stinging them from thinking about life gone wrong.
I want to know more about Savannah, and know that getting close to Addison again is the ticket to that, but if I’m crying like a pansy thinking about how Addison broke my heart, how am I ever going to pretend I want to be with her again?
I’d been slowly driving home, only causing myself misery.
As though a mirage I noticed that the mystery car was still there by the road, about two kilometres from the farm.
It had to be Savannah’s car.
It made sense.
I pull up behind it, and take a picture of the registration with my phone, before jumping out of my ute to inspect it to see if there is ID or other information about her.
But there is nothing on the seats except a blanket and some clothes when I peer in the window.
I don’t dare touch the door handles or any other part of the car, just in case there are any fingerprint details.
It’s best to leave the investigating details to the professionals.
I jump back in the ute, making a mental note to call Quentin when I get back home.
~~
As usual when I arrive home lately, Blitz is even more eager to see me then ever. He paws at my clothes, as though he’s sensing I’ve been at the hospital with Savannah. He'd shown really odd behaviour when it came to her.
He’d never liked Addison and always growled a
t her, but he showed a genuine love and concern for Savannah and I honestly didn’t know what to think.
I hang my hat on the coat stand and strip off my shirt.
It’s a perk of living alone.
No sooner had I taken it off Blitz grabs it in his mouth and retreats into the kitchen, dropping it on his bed and nuzzling it.
He really is acting peculiar.
Shrugging I proceed to grab a beer from the fridge, flicking the cap off and pulling back a chair.
Slinking back against the kitchen chair I grab my phone from my pocket and dial Quentin’s number.
It’s five pm, so I guess he would be finishing up at the station and wouldn't answer, so I’m a little dumbfounded when he answers on the second ring.
“Hey bro.”
“Hi Quent. Can I ask a favour?”
“Yeah sure, whats up?”
“Have you heard about the car thats down the road from the farm?”
“Nah, no one’s reported it. Whats the favour?”
“I think it might the woman’s that’s in the hospital. You know that I found in the farmhouse.”
“Oh yeah? Sarge tried to speak to her yesterday. She didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah I’ve been in to see her everyday. She hasn’t said a word to me.”
There’s silence on the line. Quentin isn’t one to be at a loss for words.
I speak again, “Quent, you still there?”
“Yeah Hunter. I was just thinking.”
“That’s never good.”
“I’m guessing you've seen Addison then?”
“Yeah,” I sigh, “I don’t want to talk about her. So Quent, my favour?”
“Yeah?” he asks, almost sarcastically.
“Could you run a search on the rego of the car?”
“Yeah, no worries bro. I’ll send someone out in the next few days to search it as well ok?”
“Thanks Quent. I’ll text you a picture of the rego in a bit.”
“Ok bro. I’ll catch ya on Friday at the pub yeah?”
“Yeah, see ya then.”
