Fight or Flight

by Jamie Canosa

  “No!” Jay’s voice was stern, almost angry. “You were afraid. There’s a difference. And you had every right to be. No one who did what you did could ever be called a coward, Em. You left everything you knew to find a better life for yourself. You left. You saved yourself. Most people couldn’t do that. So don’t you ever call yourself a coward again. Don’t even think it.”

  That would be difficult, since that was all she ever saw when she looked in the mirror, but Jay’s words—the resolve with which he spoke them—brought fresh tears to her eyes. Once the floodgates were open, there was no holding back.

  “I’m still afraid, Jay. He said if I ever told anyone . . . if I ever tried to leave . . . he’d find me an—and he’d kill me. I believed him . . . I still believe him.”

  Jay took a harsh breath and released it slowly, pulling her close again. Tucking her head onto his shoulder, he rested his chin in her hair. “No one’s going to hurt you. Not ever again. Not as long as I’m around. I’ll keep you safe, Em. I promise.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Jay

  He’d forgotten how cruel the world could be. He’d known she was hiding something. Deep down, he’d even known it was something like this. But he’d hoped. With every last fiber of his being, he’d hoped like hell that he was wrong. That hope was gone now.

  Em hadn’t gone into details and he was glad she didn’t. Just the thoughts running through his imagination were enough to make him want to commit murder and puke all at the same time. He wanted nothing more than to march right back inside that hospital. The only thing stopping him was the frail girl lying in his arms. If he ever got his hands on that bastard, there would be no stopping him and she needed him, now.

  The way she’d spoken about herself—the self-hatred and loathing behind her words—Jay had seen that before. Monsters who made their victims feel responsible. It was almost as awful as the act itself. Knowing Em blamed herself, at least partially, bothered him on a basic human level.

  He’d tried to say the right thing—to make her understand—but words didn’t exist that could take away a pain like that. Words weren’t what she needed. She needed someone. Someone to listen. Someone to care. And even if he’d never done anything else right in his entire miserable life, God help him, he was going to do this right.

  After her confession, Em had cried quietly on his shoulder until she’d fallen asleep. She was still in his arms now, almost an hour later. His back was starting to ache from sitting in one position for so long and he knew they should probably move, but he couldn’t bring himself to let her go. All he wanted was to hold this sweet girl close, and keep her safe from everything.

  She shouldn’t have had to live through what she’d lived through. No one should. He brushed her dark hair off her forehead and looked down into her soft face, still pressed into his shoulder. She’d always been beautiful, but now . . . now it almost hurt to look at her.

  She stirred at his touch and he cursed himself for waking her. She needed her rest. An instant later, she jolted completely awake.

  “We’re still here? At the hospital?”

  “You fell asleep. I didn’t want to—”

  “We have to go.” She struggled to free herself from his embrace, but Jay latched his arms tightly around her, holding her in place before she could hurt herself. “I can’t let him find me. I can’t let them send me back.”

  “No one is sending you anywhere near him. Trust me.”

  “Jay. Please . . .”

  He wished she would trust him, but he knew it was pure panic compelling her to get as far away from that place and that man as she could. Resigning himself to the fact that she wasn’t going to be able to relax until they got the hell out of there, he helped Em back to her feet.

  A quiet gasp was the only warning he got before her legs gave out again. Jay caught her in his arms and watched as whatever color remaining in her face drained from it. This wasn’t going to work. In one smooth move, he swung her body into his arms, cradling her to his chest like a baby.

  “Jay, you can’t—” Even her voice was weak.

  “Hush. I’m taking you home.”

  She didn’t put up any more of a fight and that bothered him more than if she had. During the walk back to the squat—made longer by the fact that Jay tried to stick to alleys and side streets—Em wavered in and out of consciousness. When they got back to their room, she was sleeping soundly again, her head resting against his heaving chest. Whether she was a lightweight or not, the stairs had still been a bitch.

  Not ready to let her go just yet, Jay sank against the wall, resting Em in his lap. That had been close. Too close. Everything about the day had been too close for comfort, and he needed a moment to just hold her and know that she was safe. That she was there with him, and that she was all right. But, she wasn’t.

  Even in her sleep she squirmed and moaned. The medication they’d given her at the hospital was wearing off. When she woke, she was going to be in a world of pain. He couldn’t stomach the thought of watching her suffer through that. How was it fair that the best he could do for her was to take her away from the hospital with the doctors and medicines she needed? There had to be something else he could do.

  There was. Something crazy, and stupid, and . . . necessary. He had to at least try. Jay shifted Em gently into her bed and reluctantly let her go, tucking the blanket around her shoulders. With a quick stop in Ace and Skunk’s room to ask them to keep an eye on her while he was gone, Jay headed out.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Em

  When Em woke, the weak light of early morning was filtering in between the boards on the window. She rolled to her side and couldn’t contain the painful cry that escaped her lips. It felt like she’d been used as a punching bag by an entire troop of boxers.

  Moving as little as humanly possible, she looked over at Jay’s bed, afraid she’d woken him. But he wasn’t there. His nest of papers was vacant, his blanket dumped in a heap beside it.

  “Jay?” She tried only moving her eyes around the room. Everything else just hurt too badly, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. “Jay?”

  No answer. Maybe he’d gone to use the bathroom, or to get some breakfast. She hadn’t eaten anything at all yesterday. But with the amount of pain she was in, the idea of food just made her gag.

  She laid there waiting for him to come back. Twenty minutes turned into thirty and then an hour. After two hours with no sign of him, she knew something was wrong. He wouldn’t just leave her. Not like that.

  Getting to her feet was almost unbearable. Every bone in her body ached—some she didn’t even know she had. Every muscle screamed in protest. Pain shot straight up her leg the moment she put weight on her ankle as she stumbled to the door and across the hall to Ace and Skunk’s room.

  She knocked twice, not really expecting an answer, so when the door swung inward, Em practically collapsed into Skunk’s arms.

  “Whoa there. Where’re you goin’?”

  “Do you know where Jay is? He wasn’t in the room this morning when I woke up.”

  “That’s cuz he got pinched.”

  “What?” Em’s heart stuttered.

  “He got picked up last night for breaking into the pharmacy a couple blocks over. Idiot, if ya ask me. Everyone knows breaking into a pharmacy isn’t worth the risk. There were easier ways for him to get shit if you guys were looking for a good time last night. Hell, I could’ve hooked ya up.”

  Clearly, Skunk was blind, or oblivious, or both. Jay wasn’t breaking into that pharmacy looking for ‘a good time’. He’d done it for her. What would happen to him now? Em didn’t know much about the legal system, but she figured Jay—being who he was, living the way he did—wouldn’t be high up on their priority list. How long would they leave him locked up before they got around to him? What if they contacted his father? Told him where Jay was? She couldn’t let that happen.

  ***

  The entire walk to Cathy’s Cakes was p
ure torture. The frigid wind served to numb away some of the pain, but it was still barely tolerable. Only the thought of Jay sitting in some cell somewhere propelled her feet forward.

  “Em.” Sam’s smile quickly slipped to a look of concern as she staggered through the front door. “What happened?”

  He was around the counter and supporting her weight in no time. Without waiting for a response, he led her into the back where there was a small office and eased her into a comfortable chair behind a scuffed desk, littered with papers. “Now, tell me what happened.”

  “It’s Jay. He got arrested last night.” A sob she’d been fighting back since she set out from the squat seized her.

  “What for?”

  “He was just trying to help me.” She was just too tired from her long, painful trek to hold back the tears any longer. Everything was just so unfair.

  “What happened?”

  “He—he tried to break into the pharmacy. He was just trying to make me feel better. To m—make the pain go away. But they caught him. They a—arrested him for trying to help me. He was just trying to help me. Please, I need your help. We have to do something! We have to help him!”

  “Hold on. Hold on, go back. What happened to you?”

  “I got hit by a car, but that doesn’t matter—”

  “The hell it doesn’t. Why aren’t you in damn hospital bed? You look like you’re about to keel over.”

  “I can’t.” She hadn’t even considered what he’d say about her and suddenly coming here didn’t feel like such a great idea anymore. “Sam, please . . .”

  “Okay. All right, Sweetheart. Hold on just a second. I’ll be right back.” Sam hustled out of the room.

  Em sat back and took deep breaths, trying to compose herself. She’d mostly succeeded by the time Sam reappeared wielding a set of crutches.

  “These are for you. They should help. As should these.” He dumped a couple bottles of aspirin and what looked like old prescription pain relievers on the desk and placed a glass of water beside them.

  “Sam, I—”

  “Don’t argue. It’s bad enough knowing you’re not in the hospital where you probably should be. Now, talk to me about Jay. What happened? Where did they take him?”

  “I don’t know. One of the other guys we squat with just told me he got arrested. I don’t know where he is.”

  “All right. Let me make a phone call. I have a friend who’s a lawyer. Every year he has to take on a certain number of pro bono cases, so I give him a call whenever something like this happens.”

  Sam disappeared out of the office again, leaving Em alone with the medicine. The way she felt, she wasn’t sure an entire bottle would make a dent, but she limited it to just a few of the prescription pills. When Sam returned, he was smiling and Em felt like she could breathe for the first time since she’d woken up.

  He handed her a croissant and she practically inhaled the warm flaky deliciousness while he talked.

  “Gregory—that’s my friend—said he’d take the case. He’s headed down to lockup to talk to Jay and the arresting officers this afternoon.” Anxiety eased it’s vice like grip on her chest. “He’s very good at what he does, Em. Don’t worry about Jay. He’ll be all right.”

  “Thank you so much, Sam. I don’t—” Tears welled in her eyes again, but this time they were tears of gratitude.

  “Not another word. You just get yourself back home. You look exhausted and those pills are going to knock you for a loop when they kick in. I’d take you myself, but I don’t have anyone else to watch the shop.”

  “No. No, you’ve done too much already. I can never thank you enough.”

  “Oh stop. You’re going to make me blush,” he teased, but Em knew he deserved every ounce of gratitude she had for him and more.

  The trip back was about a million times easier. Whether it was the pills, or the crutches, or the fact that she wasn’t having a nervous breakdown the whole way, she wasn’t sure, but she was still completely wiped out by the time she arrived. Sam hadn’t been kidding. The pills were kicking in and really taking it out of her quickly. She fumbled her way up the stairs awkwardly with the crutches and into her room.

  More exhausted than she’d ever been in her life, Em crawled carefully into her bed and collapsed. There was nothing more to do now than wait, anyway. Within minutes, her eyes drifted shut and she was asleep.

  ***

  When she woke, it was dark—middle of the night dark—and Jay still wasn’t back, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. The bakery wouldn’t open for a few more hours, at least.

  Em snatched a few more pills from one of the bottles and swallowed them dry. Then, she curled up under her blanket and waited for them to take her away from the pain.

  ***

  The next time she woke daylight was pouring into the room. She knew she hadn’t given Sam’s friend much time, but she needed to know what was happening. Scrambling out of the bed, she snagged her crutches and hobbled over to the door. Opening it while balancing them proved to be more of a challenge than it should have been. She leaned all of her weight onto one crutch while reaching for the doorknob with her other hand and trying not to drop the second crutch at the same time. Sort of like a juggling act. On one foot.

  When she grabbed the knob and the door swung open before she’d pulled it, Em lost her balance entirely and stumbled forward, landing squarely in Jay’s arms.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Jay

  She looked awful, and adorable, and a complete disaster. But he was just glad to have her in his arms again, no matter how she’d ended up there.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find out about you.” She looked stunned to see him.

  “Well, I’m right here, so sit down. You’re going to hurt yourself worse. Come here.” Without hesitating, he gently scooped her into his arms and she wrapped hers around his neck—discarding the crutches she’d gotten from Sam, he presumed—as he carried her back over to her bed.

  “What happened?” Em asked when he’d settled in beside her. “What were you thinking breaking into a pharmacy? Are you crazy?”

  She smacked his chest almost hard enough for him to actually feel it, and Jay couldn’t hide his grin. She was obviously feeling better.

  “Maybe. The cops picked me up and I’m sitting there thinking ‘how the hell am I going to get out of here’ and wouldn’t ya know it, some fancy looking lawyer comes in and tells me he’s taking my case pro bono. Apparently, his friend Sam called after some girl asked him for his help,” he accused playfully, but the ‘playful’ part was clearly lost on Em. Her face sank.

  “I’m sorry, Jay. I just . . . I didn’t know what else to do, and you said—”

  Jay couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing. She was just too damn cute.

  “Are you seriously apologizing about this? Em, you save my ass back there. I’d definitely still be sitting in that cell for who knows how much longer if you hadn’t gone to Sam. I know that wasn’t easy for you to do.”

  This was the girl who had taken her uncle’s abuse for years because she was too afraid to ask for help, yet she had done it . . . for him.

  “So, what happens now?” Em sucked her lower lip into her mouth and worried it with her teeth. Something he’d noticed she did when she was nervous. Something that was highly distracting.

  “Greg got me released on my own recognizance. I’ve got a court date sometime next month, but he said since it was my first offense and considering the extenuating circumstances he thinks I’ll get off with a slap on the wrist. No big deal.”

  “I was worried.”

  He knew she must have been to have gone to Sam, but hearing her say it out loud warmed something in his heart.

  “Well, no more worrying. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. Now, we just need to work on getting you better.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Em

  Three days later, things were
finally starting to feel more normal. Em’s ankle definitely wasn’t broken, and she was even able to put some weight on it. With the help of the crutches she was getting around half decent. Breathing wasn’t quite as painful anymore, and consciousness was becoming easier to maintain as she started weaning herself off the pain killers.

  “How are you feeling today?” Jay handed her a cheese Danish. He’d gone back to providing for the both of them while she stayed holed up at the squat. It was driving her crazy, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it. The way she was moving, she’d only slow him down.

  “Better.” This time she meant it when she said it.

  “Good, because I’d hate for you to waste a beautiful day like today.”

  “What did you have in mind?” She found herself excited at the mere prospect of getting out of the house for even a little while.

  “Are you up for a little walk? We’ll take it nice and slow.”

  “Yes!” She didn’t even care where they were going.

  When the park came into view she could hardly contain herself. It was picture perfect. Dogs ran around the open fields. Kids laughed and played on the playgrounds. Small stands lined the walkways. It looked like a grassy mirage set in a city of stone.

  Jay’s hand covered hers on the crutch handle as she maneuvered it over the cobblestones, and together they strolled along enjoying the Indian Summer temperatures until they heard someone shouting Jay’s name. He glanced over her shoulder and laughed. A group of guys were waving him over. They didn’t look like his other friends—if that’s what you’d call them. Their jeans were torn and t-shirts faded, but it looked like they’d paid for them to look that way.

  Em’s self-esteem took a sudden nose dive. “You know those guys?”

  “Yeah. They have a band that plays the downtown clubs. I help move their equipment sometimes. They’re nice enough, and they pay well. I’d better go say hi. You want to come?”