The Night He Saved Me

by Sarah Stevens

  “What do I need to do to fix it? Tell me, I will do it,” I rush out when she seems like she is done talking.

  “Well, what I need you to do is to go on bedrest for the next four to six weeks. You can get up to shower and use the restroom and walk around the house but just to go from one room to the other. I want you to say put as much as possible. Catch up on any shows you have missed lately or read a few books. Right now, we need to keep you as low-key as possible. Can you do that?”

  Bren rushes to answer, “Yes, she will do that, I will make sure she does.”

  “I want you to follow up with your OBGYN you choose to go to from this point on in about two weeks. I hope that if we keep you low-key it will repair on its own. Other than that, the baby looks great. Per the ultrasound we have you at eleven weeks and three days so we were right with the due date. I am going to leave Mary with you, and she is going to take some measurements and pictures for you to take home. Please don’t worry. Everything will be okay as long as you follow directions.” She walks out the door and Mary goes about her measurements.

  “Well, I guess that job I got is now out of the question,” I say to Bren. “And the trip to Target.”

  Mary finishes up, wipes me off, and hands me a stack of photos. I thank her, and we head out the door to go back home to sit and wait for the next few weeks to pass by.

  As we are driving home, I sit and look at all the new pictures I have. Do I have a little girl or a little boy growing inside me? When we get back to our street, Bren drops me off right at the door to the building. She yells instructions of not to move and then goes to park her car. Before I know it, Bren is at my side grabbing my arm and treating me as if I can’t walk. I shrug loose of her grip and tell her I can walk on my own, and I do—up three flights of stairs.

  “You know, Bren, it would be a very good time to have a couch in here.” We both laugh

  Bren calls her mom to let her know what is going on with me and the baby. I realize at this point in time I have no one to call, and it makes me sad. I know I have Bren and her parents, but it isn’t the same. I wanted to do this with someone the right way. I wanted my mom to love and support me, but she doesn’t. If my life wasn’t hard enough, I have an apartment I need to furnish and I can’t go anywhere to get it done. I decide it is a good time to take a nap and lie down on my mattress. As I get as comfortable as I can on an air mattress, I hear Bren on the phone with her mom.

  “She has nowhere to relax and sit, we need a couch, a futon, we need something.” And then I hear nothing—her mom must be talking. “That sounds great, Mom. We are going to ask her mom on Sunday if they have anything we can use.” Another pause of silence. “See you then, love you.” Bren turns and looks at me then says, “We have that futon in the garage; my dad will bring it over after work today.”

  “Sounds good,” I say and let the exhaustion of the day overtake me.

  That night, Bren’s dad brings over the futon and also Jayce. Apparently, Bren called him to come help. I hate feeling helpless, but it is what it is at this point. Doctors’ orders. Before long, I have a small apartment full of people and four pizza boxes on the counter. We all sit around wherever we can—except me who has instructions to not leave the futon—eat our pizza, and ignore the fact that I am on bedrest until Jayce asks the question I was hoping he wouldn’t.

  “So, Kat, aren’t girls who are pregnant the ones that get put on bedrest? I heard Bren say something about bedrest.”

  There it is. “Yes, Jayce, girls who are pregnant get put on bedrest when there is a problem.”

  “So you are pregnant? Do I understand this coded conversation correctly?”

  “Yes, Jayce, you understand this just fine. I am pregnant, and I am on bedrest, and there is a small problem that should go away with the bedrest. Any other questions I can answer?”

  I look over to Bren with a stern look, and she shrugs her shoulders and says, “He was bound to find out eventually.”

  “No, Kat, I think I am out of questions for the moment.”

  After that, everyone leaves and it is just Bren and me for the rest of the night. We put in a movie and zone in on it like the night before.

  James

  I wake up late on Saturday afternoon and head to the shop to see how things are going and see if Jayce has heard anything from Kat or Bren. When I walk in, Jayce is behind the counter and has a look of shock on his face when he looks up.

  “Hey, Jayce.”

  “Hey, boss man. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow or Monday. Is everything okay?”

  “I sure hope so. How are things around here? Everything been going smoothly with me gone?”

  “Yeah, seems like this place runs itself,” he says with a chuckle. “I put everything you wanted in the safe, and I didn’t have to make much change from it. If you have any questions about how I did it, just ask.”

  “Thanks, man, for everything. Hey, have Bren and Kat been in this week? I need to talk to Kat.”

  “Well, yeah, they have been in here, but looks like they are spending the night at Bren’s family’s house. Kat is on bedrest, and since they don’t have much furniture and a lot of steps to walk up, they decided to stay there until tomorrow.”

  “Did you say bedrest? Is everything okay?” I ask with a little panic in my voice.

  “Looks like Friday her doctor decided she needed it, but I don’t know everything. I just found out when I helped Bren’s dad move a futon up to their place Friday. You knew she was pregnant?”

  “I found out the night of the graduation party. Thanks, Jayce, I am going to head back to the office and see what kind of mess you left me in there.”

  “Okay, boss, I’ll be out here if you need anything.”

  I go to the office and don’t even worry about the safe and what a mess I need to clean up with being gone for a week. My first thought is that Kat needs me, and I need her, and I need to talk to her. So I send a text to her.

  James: Hey you I am back in town. We need to talk.

  Kat<3: It will have to wait until Monday. I am busy this weekend. Be back around on Sunday late.

  James: Not what I wanted to hear. I miss you.

  Kat<3: Miss you too but it has to wait.

  James: See you first thing Monday 

  I don’t like it, not one bit.

  I need to see that she is okay.

  I need to know that she is safe.

  I need to touch her.

  It seems I have to wait. Until then, I guess I will go crazy. I decide to try and distract myself and dig into the books for the week. Luckily, Jayce seems like he has done a good job and has kept everything really neat and organized. It only takes me about three hours to get through them all and Jayce came in once with a coffee for me and something to eat. I really wish I could hate the guy for the sole fact he has a thing for Kat, but I just can’t.

  I help him close up for the night and let him know that he can sleep in tomorrow and I will open up. I thank him again for everything he has done this week and decide that I should give the kid a raise the next time I do payroll.

  I walk up the stairs to my apartment and crash. Tomorrow is going to be a long day of making myself busy to ignore the thing that I want the most, what I need most.

  Kat.

  Sunday comes and goes, and I keep myself busy. When I close up shop Sunday night, I make my way to my apartment once again, and this time, I can’t sleep. This time, I prepare for the morning when I get to go see Kat. She doesn’t know this, but I know where she lives, and I know she will be home.

  I decide that I will be bringing the first present I had planned on giving to her on her birthday and saving the Tiffany’s bracelet for another time once I get a feel for her and if she wants me at all. I plan on opening up the shop on Monday, and once the morning workers show up and are settled for the day, I will go to Kat’s apartment with a coffee and her necklace and grovel for her to accept me. I want to tell her everything. Apologize for taking off esp
ecially when it seems like she needed me most.

  I will win her, and I won’t stop until I do.

  Katarina

  I wake up on Sunday morning to the smell of an amazing breakfast. When I walk into the kitchen, I am immediately met with a look of frustration.

  “Kat, sweetie, you have to stay off your feet as much as possible. You need to stay in bed. I was bringing breakfast to you,” Sandy says as I sit at the bar.

  “It was fifteen feet. I think it will be okay,” a smile crosses my face. It is nice to feel wanted and not alone. To have a mother figure who treats me like a daughter and with concern. This is the biggest breakfast I have had since joining Bren and her family. It feels like Bren is trying to make up for everything I have gone through and the night we are about to have with my mother. I have been trying to ignore the fact that today is the day I have to retell my story, and to my mother, no less.

  Bren comes in a few minutes later and we all sit in silence and eat. We settle in for the day watching movies and waiting for my mom’s arrival back from her honeymoon. When she finally calls that evening, Bren, her mom, and I load up into the car and head toward her house. We grab a couple pizzas on the way and get there just as they are unloading the car.

  I get out of the car carefully and walk over to my mom to say hi. We all walk into the house and settle in the living room—my choice—and eat pizza while we make idle chitchat.

  “Mom, we need to talk; I have a lot I need to talk to you about.”

  “I know we do. Where do you want to start?”

  “I need to start at the beginning. I need to tell you some truths that I have kept from you. I need to tell you how I became pregnant and I need to tell you it was not my choice. I need to tell you that I was raped. I had done a lot of drugs and drank at a party one night and I tried to fight, but I just couldn’t. I had no strength, and I couldn’t.” I am sobbing at this point and when I look over at my mom, she is crying, and before I know it, she is on her knees in front of me, wrapping her arms around me.

  “I am so sorry, Kat, I am so sorry I treated you the way I did. Oh, my God, I kicked you out. I am a horrible mother. What have I done?” she asks no one in particular.

  “Mom, it’s okay. Bren and I have done a lot over the last week while you have been away. We have an apartment in the Old Port, small, but it will work out for us. We will be okay, I have Bren and her mom and dad have been great. I just hope now you understand I didn’t want this. I almost did the wrong thing. I want to do this, but I would love to do this with your support and love. I had a job lined up to start tomorrow, actually, but due to some circumstances, I am no longer able to work.”

  “Sweetie, what happened?”

  “Here is the other part I need to tell you about. After Bren’s party, I had gone to a friend’s house, and I stupidly decided I didn’t want to be there anymore so at one AM I decided to leave and was caught in an alley nearby by Trent, the guy who raped me. He told me to keep my mouth shut and hit me in the face and then when I was on the ground he kicked me in the stomach. I ended up in the ER later that night after James had found me and brought me back to his place.”

  My mother covers her mouth with her hand and gasps.

  “Does he know you’re pregnant?” she asks.

  “No, and I would like to keep it that way. At least, make him believe that it isn’t his. Moving on, though, I had a doctor’s appointment Friday and was put on bedrest; I have a small tear in my placenta and they want me to stay as calm as possible on bedrest for at least the next six weeks. So there goes the job I was due to start.”

  “We will help you, right, Kyle?” She turns and looks at my new step-dad who has a look of murder on his face and rage.

  “Yes, we will help you. We will help you through all this. Have you gone to the police yet?”

  Sandy pipes in at this point, “No, she hasn’t gone to the police. She doesn’t want to. We tried to get her to go.”

  “I want to move on, I want to make my life worth it, and I want to do right by my baby. That also leads me into my next question for you and Kyle, Mom. Do you think there is any furniture that Bren and I may have for our new place since you have to combine two houses anyway?”

  “I think we can find some pieces that would work. What do you have so far?”

  Bren and I reply in unison, “Air mattress and a futon.”

  All the adults in the room start laughing at us at the same time. This night is going better than I thought. Mom was so angry at me for being pregnant. Maybe they are right when they say that the truth will set you free.

  We stay a bit longer and make plans for the next afternoon to have Kyle load up his truck and bring my bed from home and a real couch and another chair of some sorts. I guess I will find out tomorrow what he brings. Bren and her mom decide that she can have one of the guest room’s beds that way she always has a bed at home and that her dad will bring it over tomorrow around the same time as Kyle. I hug my mom tight and tell her I love her and that I have missed her. She tells me to be safe and that she loves me too and again apologizes for her reaction. I hug Kyle too and say thank you and then we go home for the night.

  Bren and I make our way to our apartment slowly because she is being a mother hen to me and then get settled for the night—me on the futon and her on the air mattress. We decide to watch a movie and end up falling asleep.

  When I wake up the next morning, I wake to a banging on the door, and my nerves go haywire. Bren is slowly getting up too from her uncomfortable air mattress and tells me she will get the door. When she reaches the door, and opens it a crack, I can’t see who it is but I do hear her say, “Well, well, look who the cat dragged back home.”

  In that moment, I know who it is without even having to hear his voice. Instead of my heart being full of anxiety, it has apparently decided to do somersaults. Bren opens up the door after releasing the chain, and he walks in looking sexy as hell for being so damn early in the day. He is bearing coffee in each hand and hands one to Bren and then walks straight to me on the futon with that smoldering look on his face and bright ice-blue eyes and hands me the other one.

  “Hi,” is all he says as he looks down to me, and I can feel my cheeks start to hurt from the huge smile on my face. I don’t know how long we stayed like that looking at each other, but apparently long enough for Bren to put on some clothes and brush her teeth because she is walking toward the door calling over her shoulder

  “I’ll be at The Java if you need me.” Then she walks out the door.

  I am left all alone with James, and I’m not sad about it.

  James

  I can’t stand it anymore. I have to see her, and that is exactly what I go and do. I make a couple of coffees like the girls like and ask Jayce where the apartment is then walk out the door. I jog up the three flights of stairs and down the hallway to their door and knock.

  “Well, well, look what the cat dragged back to town,” Bren says to me as I hand her her coffee and walk straight over to where Kat is. Time seems to have stood still as I look at her into her eyes hoping that she can see what I feel for her. Before we know it, Bren has just closed the front door and left while saying she will be at my shop if needed. I finally hand over the coffee to Kat that I have been holding since I sat in front of her. I swear this girl turns me back into a teenage boy who doesn’t know how to talk to girls.

  “I brought you this, and I also brought you your birthday present I never got the chance to give to you that night.” I hand her the wrapped package and wait for her to open it. She carefully unwraps the box, and when she opens the box, her eyes go wide and she covers her mouth as she gasps.

  “Oh, my God, you didn’t have to get me something so nice.”

  “I wanted to, Kat, I really don’t think you know how I feel about you. Kat, you consume my mind all the time. It killed me being away from you this past week, and it killed me even more knowing that you needed me this week. I feel the need to protect you, to t
ake care of you. Hell, I want to be your Knight in shining armor. “

  I am looking at her in her eyes when as I speak and notice a lone tear fall from her eye. I don’t even have time to react and wipe the tear from her eyes.

  She has her arms wrapped around my neck as she says, “Those words are so sweet, James. I wish I could allow you to be my knight, but I can’t allow it. I have too many demons following me, and I need to tell you something. I care about you so much, and I don’t want you to look at me differently, but I need to tell you how I came to be pregnant.” As my heart sinks to my stomach with her words telling me I can’t be her knight, I let her continue. “James, Trent is the father, and one night Bren and I were at a party I got really messed up on coke, pot, and alcohol. I didn’t know what was happening and when I realized it I didn’t have the strength to push him off or even tell him no. He raped me, James. He took my virginity that night, and he left me pregnant. “

  “I’m going to kill that bastard.” I stand up and start pacing her small space. I would kill my father if I could. This is my fault, and I need to do something. I need to tell Kat the truth even if she will hate me for it. I stop pacing and look at her with tears streaming down her face. “Kat, this is in no way your fault, but I will make him pay.”

  “James, don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want to do anything about it, I want to move on from this. I just can’t let him know that this is his baby. But I also can’t be with you the way you want me to be. James, I’m pregnant, and on top of that I have been told to stay away from you. I don’t know who it was, but I had a note handed to me here at my place by a guy in a black suit. He said nothing, handed me the note, and walked away. James, I need everything to stop and calm down and that means I need to take care of me and the baby for a while. I need to do this without you around as much as it kills me because I have missed you so much this past week. I need to keep all of us safe and I’m scared. I am stuck on my ass for the next few weeks, and I just need to keep everyone safe. You, me, and the baby. I’m sorry, but that is the way I want it. I’m so sorry.”