Bayward Street

by Addison Jane

  We sat in the car for a long time before I realized where we were going. She was taking me back to the Police Station where I was arrested. I raised an eyebrow as we pulled up and she smiled. “We’re going to talk to Lena. I figure she already knows your history, so she’s going to give us the best idea of how to go about this.”

  It actually made me feel a little better. I liked Lena. She’d made me feel safe. She protected me when my father had shown up to pick me up, and I was hoping she’d do the same now.

  We went inside to the front desk and asked for Lena. The officer told us to wait while they found out where she was.

  It was only a few minutes before she stepped out of the elevator and spotted us in the waiting room. “Hi, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

  I tried to smile, but even that was a struggle. Lena frowned and looked to Helen.

  “We need a restraining order, and to file assault and harassment charges.”

  Lena looked taken aback, her eyes flicking between the two of us. She opened her mouth but seemed to think better of it and shook her head. “Come on. I’ll grab another officer and we can file a report.” She gestured with her hand for us to follow. I held my arm against my stomach as we climbed in the elevator.

  Lena eyed me warily. “Guessing things didn’t get much better from when I saw you last week.”

  “Worse.”

  Her face saddened. “We’ll sort it out. Don’t worry.”

  Lena placed us in a room much like the one they had interviewed me in while I was here previously, returning with another officer.

  “Helen Carson and Fable Campbell, this is Officer Keller. He’s going to take your statements and anything else that we might need.”

  Officer Keller shook our hands. He was an older man, but his voice was gentle as he asked me to explain what had been going on. He took notes as once again I went over everything. He asked questions here and there, but for the most part, he just listened and that felt good. To have someone just hear me, like really hear me.

  “Do you mind if we take pictures of the bruising?” he asked, gesturing to my legs.

  “I guess. If it helps.”

  He nodded. “Bruises fade. It’s good for us to have some kind of evidence that they were there. I’ll try to be as quick as possible.”

  I nodded, and he reached into the case he’d brought in with him and pulled out a camera. I stood up and turned to face the wall. I was relieved when Lena stepped up beside me and gave my hand a squeeze, reassuring me.

  It was over pretty fast, he snapped a few pictures and we were done.

  “So what happens now?” Helen asked. I was sure she was only doing it for my benefit, as she would be well versed in any kind of process that pertained to the law.

  “We will issue Jay with the restraining order. It’s going to be difficult with the two of you attending school together, so I’m going to recommend for the rest of the week that you take a short absence and do your work from home, just until we can get a few things sorted,” Officer Keller explained. “I’m going to talk to the school, see if we can somehow get any kind of security footage to try and back things up.”

  Helen nodded and looked to me. “It’s a process.”

  “Yes, but we will do this as quickly and as painlessly as possible,” he confirmed.

  Lena walked him to the door before coming back and taking a seat at the table. “You did the right thing, Fable.”

  I didn’t say anything. Instead, I just sat slumped in my seat. It was like every ounce of energy and fight had drained from my body. I was done. “I just want to go home.”

  “I know, honey,” Helen said, placing her hand on my back. “Let’s go home.”

  Lena surprised me when we reached the front doors of the station by pulling me in for a hug. My ribs ached as I wrapped my arms around her slim waist, but the contact I needed. “You are brave, and you are strong. You’re a survivor and I hope that other people can learn from you in the future, and know that it’s okay to stand up and ask for help,” she whispered in my ear.

  Her words hit me in the heart. This had become more than just facing my fears. It was showing others that it was okay to stand up and speak when there’s something wrong.

  “Thank you,” I murmured back, my voice emotional and cracking.

  I was glad that when we got home both the boys were out training, and Flick was at a friend’s place working on a school project because I just wasn’t ready to face them yet. It had been a long day, and my mind was racing. I just wanted to sleep. I wanted to curl up and not move. I’d finally done it, I’d spoken up even with everything inside me screaming against it.

  Everyone around me seemed confident that I could make it through this and come out the other side unscathed, but I wasn’t really sure. When you’ve spent so long believing your word wasn’t worth shit, it was hard to believe that it wasn’t true.

  I knew this wasn’t the end. Jay wasn’t going to stand up and admit that she’d done something wrong. It wasn’t her style. She would deny everything, and I was scared that no matter the evidence that I had to prove them wrong, that she still had too much power.

  I had to remind myself, though, I couldn’t let someone like her grow up thinking they were above everything. If she wasn’t stopped now, and she got away with everything she’d done, it would only push her further, fuel her queen of the world attitude and things would only get worse.

  If it weren’t me, it would be someone else.

  I wondered how many people my father had stepped on before he finally found the confidence to inflict such pain on the people he was meant to love and care for the most. How many times had he brought someone to their knees?

  How many times had he gotten away with it?

  Was there someone that could have stopped it?

  Was there someone like me who could have stood up and said no, it’s not okay?

  They could have changed my life, my mother’s life. But they were too scared. Just like I was.

  My heart drummed in my chest and for a second, I even felt myself smile. No matter what happens, if coming forward changes the track of someone’s life for the better, and stops Jay from destroying them, then all this crap, everything I’d been through, every day I’d spent in hell that led me to this moment, was worth it.

  It was starting to go dark outside when I decided to finally make my way back downstairs and face the music. Heath would be home soon and Braydon too, and Helen had made it clear that they had to know what was going on. She said it would help to share the load, to feel like everything wasn’t on my shoulders. And after sharing it with her, Lena and Officer Keller, I already felt like she was right.

  Other people knew now. It wasn’t for me to deal with alone. They could help, take some of the problem and work together to come to a solution. I was still scared of what Heath would say. Tomorrow the people from the Olympic team were coming to watch him swim. I knew this would affect him, but at this point I wasn’t sure how much, but thinking that I could possibly destroy his future prospects because I chose to hide my problems, churned my already aching stomach.

  As I got closer, I could hear raised voices. They echoed up to the landing. I couldn’t make out what they were saying as I stood at the top of the stairs, but I could pick out the low tone of Heath’s voice and the much higher of Helen’s.

  There was another voice too. One much deeper, softer.

  It took me a minute to figure out who it was.

  Arthur was home.

  Suddenly the door slammed open and heavy footsteps on the hard wooden floors. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up at me, his eyes flared as he gripped the banister tightly in his hand. The depths of blue that I loved were much darker.

  “Go and put a swimsuit on,” he ordered, his eyes never straying from mine.

  “Heath…”

  “Now, Fable. Meet me by the pool.” He turned to walk away.

  “Why?” I asked softly, knowing h
e could still hear me in the open space.

  He froze but didn’t turn around. “Because you’re about to have your first swimming lesson.” And he was gone.

  My throat tightened, and I wondered whether I should just go back to my room and crawl under the covers of my bed. But either way, he would find me. We’d have to talk and avoiding the issue would only make things worse. I hated seeing Heath so upset, so disappointed and knowing that I’d brought that out in him.

  Sighing, I returned to my room and found the swimsuit that Helen had given me the first day we’d come here after Eazy’s funeral. I put it on and wrapped a towel around my waist, making my way downstairs.

  The house was quiet, but I could see Helen standing at the large windows that looked out onto the pool, coffee cup cradled in her hands. Arthur stepped up behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist and dropping a soft kiss on her cheek.

  “He’s angry,” I murmured, drawing their attention.

  “He’s frustrated,” she said, and she turned in her husband’s arms. She smiled at me. “He swims when he’s—”

  “Stressed.” I finished. “I know.”

  “How are you feeling?” Arthur asked. He reached out and touched my arm with a gentle stroke.

  “Okay, I guess. A little sore. I didn’t think you would be back for a while.”

  His smile shone through beneath his beard. “The rest of the world can wait when one of my children is in trouble.”

  I fought against the lump in my throat. His words meaning more to me than he could imagine. It had taken seventeen years, but I finally had two people—two parents who were willing to put me first and fight for me. It didn’t matter if they were rich, that was never something I’d dreamed of. All I ever wanted was for someone to care. And now I didn’t just have someone, I had family.

  I cleared my throat and stepped around them, pulling open the sliding door and stepping out into the cool evening air. The lights around the pool glistened off the water as I watched Heath move beneath the surface.

  I walked slowly to the pool’s edge, dropping my towel on a chair as I went. Letting my feet hang over the edge, the water was chilly but refreshing after a long day of drama and self-discovery. The past week here had been a rollercoaster ride of emotions and lessons about life that I never expected. I’d found pain, and friendship, and even a part of myself that I didn’t know existed.

  But it was finding Heath that had saved me.

  My feet swished back and forth, the water pushing back against them. As he made his tumble turn at the end of the pool, his feet pushed off the wall, and he swam to where I was sitting. He popped up next to my feet, pulling his goggles off and wiping at his face with his hand. The water came to just below his chest, which was rising and falling quickly as his lungs gathered the air they had been starved of.

  “Get in,” he said, his voice now calmer.

  I turned my body and slipped off the edge, holding on tightly as I lowered myself into the water until my feet touched the bottom. A peek over my shoulder at his face told me that he’d seen Jay’s destruction, and his face was quick to harden again. But when he lowered his body further into the water, the tension in him seemed to release.

  I knew now why he’d asked me out here. It was his place, and when he was in the water, he found peace.

  He stepped up to my back and placed his hands on my hips, pulling me away from the safety of the edge of the pool. I could touch the bottom, but I still didn’t like it, knowing that if I went under it would suffocate me.

  “I’m right here,” he said quietly, reading my trepidation. I bounced gently, the water lifted my body to the top for a few brief moments before sinking again. “Lesson one, floating.”

  A light laugh escaped me. “Well, it seems I’m already failing that one.” No matter how hard I pushed off, my body still sunk back to the bottom.

  “Lay back,” he ordered. One of his hands moved up to cup the back of my neck, and I felt myself leaning back into it. The comfort of his touch returning. The other hand pushed at my lower back, forcing my feet to rise and my body to fall backward.

  I panicked. Splashing against him and the water until my feet were firmly back on the ground. My breaths became quicker, harsher.

  “Fable…” His body came against mine, his mouth at my ear and his arms moving around me to secure me to him. “Are you scared?”

  Those words. The same ones he’d used when we were in here for the first time. When he had held me up, using his own strength to keep us both afloat.

  I answered the same way I had then.

  “Not really.” I pressed myself against him, turning my head and tucking into his jaw.

  “Why not?”

  The answer was still the same.

  “Because I trust you.”

  He allowed me a few moments before he pulled away, his hands returning to the places they were before. He guided my hips once again, pushing them to the surface while he braced my neck.

  “When you stand in the water, you sink because your body is straight up and down like a rod,” he explained as I slowly started to lift to the top, my head back, looking up to the sky. “When you lay back flat, the surface of your body is more spread out, so you float to the surface instead of being pulled to the bottom.”

  Water splashed gently at my cheeks, and my feet finally broke the surface. Heath’s hands slowly drifted from my body, and soon he wasn’t touching me at all. He stood beside me though, and as he smiled, I smiled too.

  I was floating.

  It may not be much, but it was something.

  His lesson hit home, and after a minute or so he helped lower my feet back down to the pool floor. He used his hand to brush away the wet strands that stuck to my face. “This wasn’t all about a swimming lesson was it?”

  His hand cupped my cheek. “You have to be able to spread out if you don’t want the water to drag you beneath. When you’re on your own, it’s hard not to sink. It’s your friends and your family that you rely on to help you to cover more surface and keep you afloat.”

  “I don’t know if that’s incredibly cheesy, or seriously amazing.”

  He came in closer, dipping his head so his lips touched mine. He kissed me. It was soft and slow and exactly what I needed right now. My mind had been everywhere today. I was beginning to wonder how I’d managed to keep myself together for this long.

  I guess I hadn’t really.

  I’d cried, a lot.

  But with Heath, it seemed like none of that mattered right now.

  He was here.

  He moved us around the pool, swaying gently against the water, our foreheads dipped together.

  “I wish you’d told me. I wish I’d stopped it before it got this bad,” he admitted. I could hear the strain in his voice. Like it hurt him to think of me going through so much alone.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  I think he knew that he didn’t need to say anything more. What happened had happened, and now that people knew and I was sharing the load, I just hoped that nothing could pull me down.

  It was when Braydon stepped out the doors of the house moments later that I knew Heath wasn’t the only one I owed an apology to. Braydon liked to laugh. He was like a ball of energy that sometimes seemed like it would be impossible to stop bouncing. So you knew that when his face didn’t have a smile, shit was serious.

  “Hey Bray,” I uttered softly, turning in Heath’s arms so he was at my back.

  “I don’t know whether to be angry or relieved,” he commented, stepping up to the edge.

  Heath snorted. “Join the party.”

  “You’re all right?” he asked seriously.

  I nodded. “I am now.”

  “Good, because I have a tray of eggs in the fridge that I was going to use to make omelets. But instead, I say we egg her house.” He grinned, and suddenly the Braydon I knew was back.

  He cared. They all cared. And that meant not being upset that I lied, but instead being
happy that I was all right.

  Heath had his session with the Olympic coaches the next afternoon. He killed it, and I was so relieved. Arthur had stayed home and went with him. They all discussed his potential and said they would be in contact very soon. He had to leave the next day to go back to work, but I appreciated what he’d done to come back and support me, and Heath.

  Heath tried to play it all off like it was nothing, but this was everything to him—his future. One he had made on his own through hard work and persistence.

  I was proud of him.

  Heath and Bray said Jay hadn’t been at school. There were whispers around about what was going on. I guess people weren’t as oblivious to mine and her tension as I thought. And with both of us absent, the rumor mill was running rampant, but so far there were no facts.

  Despite her being AWOL, I took the entire week off, doing my school work through emails from teachers and with Braydon’s basically illegible notes.

  Come Friday night I was excited. Braydon had promised to go and pick up Layla on Saturday and bring her here for the weekend. I felt horrible that I hadn’t seen her, but with everything that was going on with Jay, Helen said it was best if she came to us, rather than risk going down there and possibly giving Jay’s defense any kind of substance.

  I knew Layla would understand, and that if anything were wrong she’d find me.

  My phone, that the boys and Helen had demanded I had on me, buzzed underneath my pillow. I swatted at it, wishing it would shut the hell up. Heath’s warm body felt good against my bare back, the comforting feeling lulling me back to sleep.

  When the phone began to buzz again, I pulled it out, ready to toss it against the wall to shut the damn thing up. But when I saw Flick’s picture lighting up the screen, I quickly hit answer.

  “Hold on,” I whispered, slowly untangling myself from Heath’s arms and creeping off the bed. I turned and checked he was still sleeping before I tiptoed into the bathroom and shut the door.