Safe and Sound

by Lindy Zart

  “I’m sure she’s on her way.” The nurse paused, and then asked, “Do you need anything?”

  She shook her head and the nurse left.

  Dr. Jones soon took her place; her expression and tone no nonsense. “You need to rest, Lola.”

  “I can’t. Every time I close my eyes I see him. I can still feel him…smell him.” Lola shuddered, a bad taste in her mouth.

  “Okay. It’s okay.” Dr. Jones sat down beside her and rubbed her back. Lola rested her cheek on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I failed you, Lola.”

  Lola pulled away. “What?”

  Dr. Jones’s face was guilt-stricken. “I let you down. You didn’t feel you could come to me. For that, I’m sorry.”

  “I couldn’t go to anyone. He threatened me. He…he…” Lola’s strangled voice cut off. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Shh. Easy. Easy.” Dr. Jones made a circular motion between Lola’s shoulders, soothing her. “Don’t think about it.”

  “Where’s my mom, Dr. Jones? Why isn’t she here?” Lola heard the pain in her voice, the broken quality of it.

  “I don’t know, Lola. She’ll be here soon. And…I know it’s not the same, but…I’m here. And I’ll help you any way I can. Always.”

  Lola wiped her face and turned to her side so her back was to Dr. Jones. She just wanted to be alone. She was so tired and so heartbroken over everything.

  Dr. Jones sighed. “Sebastian and I have to get home, Lola. But I’ll be back in the morning. Sebastian doesn’t want to leave, but I’m making him.” She gave a little laugh. “Stubborn boy.”

  When Lola didn’t respond, Dr. Jones sighed once more and got up, the door clicking shut behind her.

  Hot, hated tears streamed from her eyes onto the bedding. Lola stared at the pale blue wall across the room. Her mother blamed her. That’s why she wasn’t there. She was going to believe Bob’s side of the story. Lana was picking him; a cruel, malicious, evil man, over her own flesh and blood.

  Lola bit her fist to keep a sob inside; her shoulders wracked from the effort it took to restrain it.

  Her mother didn’t want Lola. She didn’t love her. She couldn’t. How could her own mother sacrifice her? And for what? For him? It shouldn’t hurt anymore; she should be used to it.

  It still hurt Lola. It always would.

  11

  Startled by the gentle touch on her shoulder, Lola jerked to a sitting position.

  Jack was there. There were brackets around his mouth and eyes, like he was in physical pain. He didn’t say anything. He never had to say anything. Lola already knew.

  He moved closer, pressed his forehead to hers and inhaled slowly, deeply. Lola closed her eyes, savored the smell and touch of him; his presence.

  “Did he…?”

  Lola immediately knew what he meant. She averted her eyes and shook her head. He would have, though, given the chance. That knowledge filled her with repugnance, fear, and dread.

  “I want…to kill him,” he bit out, lips barely moving. His jaw was set, his nostrils flared with every shallow breath he took.

  “Jack—“

  He swung his head around to pierce Lola with eyes that flashed. “I shouldn’t have let you go back. I wish…” He turned his back to her, shoulders tense. “I wish I could take you away. This isn’t right, what’s happened to you.”

  Lola flinched at the dismal look on his face.

  “You never deserved this. You know that, right? Lola? Lola.” Strong hands gripped her shoulders. “This isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. Look at me. Look at me.” She finally did. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I know…I know that, in my head. I know this isn’t my fault. But it feels like it is too. Maybe I said something, maybe I did something. I mean, why would my mom…want someone like that over me? And what did I do to make him act like that toward me?” Her lips trembled and her eyes burned with unshed tears. “What’s wrong with me?”

  Jack sat down on the bed and pulled Lola half on his lap and into his arms. Lola inhaled his faint cologne, feeling safe. His body was ripcord hard and lean against her; strong and sturdy.

  “And my mom.” Lola’s voice broke. “Why didn’t she stop him? Why didn’t she take my side over his? Why didn’t she protect me?”

  Her body convulsed and Jack’s arms tightened around her. “She’s not here, Jack. She didn’t even come.” Lola wept, wetting his shirt with her sorrow. “How could my own mother not come see me after what happened? Am I unlovable? Am I a horrible person? Is that’s what’s wrong with me?”

  He pressed his jaw to her forehead. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t ever think that way, Lola. It’s him. It’s all him. And your mother. She’s wrong, Lola, wrong for letting this happen, wrong for not being here. No parent should forsake their child. No parent should let this happen to their child.

  “Don’t ever think you did anything to deserve what happened to you. And you can’t make your mom what you need and want. She should be ashamed; not you. Never you.”

  “What about you, Jack?” Lola wiped her eyes with her fingers.

  He went still. “What about me?”

  Lola moved back far enough to see his face. Jack’s face was grim as he waited. “Do you realize that about you and your sister too?” His face closed. “It’s not your fault, Jack.”

  “We’re not talking about me,” was his clipped answer.

  She put her hands on his face and forced him to look in her eyes. “It’s not your fault either. You’re a good person, Jack.”

  Jack’s lips went into a thin line and he looked down. “That’s me. Good Samaritan through and through.”

  “You are. You’ve helped me so much, Jack. I…I wanted to die at times. I thought it would be better. It would be easier.” He gave her a sharp look. Lola felt ashamed to admit such a thing, but she had to say it. Jack had to know.

  Lola grabbed his hands and held them between them. “I felt like I died the moment the abuse started. I lost myself. I lost everyone. And then you called me Goody Two Shoes and brought some fire back into me, some life back into me.”

  She smiled sadly. “I didn’t start living again until you showed up, Jack. It was like…I was…reborn. In your eyes, in the way you looked at me, the things you said to me, the things you didn’t say.”

  “But I didn’t do anything good, Lola!” Jack tugged his hands away and stood. He paced the length of the bed.

  He was agitated; he repeatedly ran a hand through his shaggy hair, tousling it. “How can you not remember me? I wasn’t nice to you, Lola. I was cruel. I was wrong.”

  Lola fell back against the pillow. “I don’t understand.” Her heartbeat picked up. She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear anything that might change her feelings for Jack. He was the one constant; the one person she knew would be there.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Don’t tell me. Tell me it doesn’t matter. Tell me to forget about it. Don’t tell me.

  He stared at her, frustrated. Jack shook his head, looked away. “Last summer. You came to the rock.” Jack sighed and faced her. “You really don’t remember?”

  “No. I wouldn’t say I didn’t remember if I did. What happened, Jack?” Why was I there, of all places? No wonder the place seemed familiar. And why did I block it out of my mind?

  He hesitated. “It’s not a good time. Not now. Maybe I should go. You’ve been through a lot. You need to rest.”

  Lola fought down panic. “I don’t want to be alone, Jack,” she said in an unsteady voice.

  Jack had obligations at home, someone who needed and depended on him. “Your sister? Will she be okay?”

  “Yeah. She knows I’m here. Isabelle is fine. My dad will go straight to bed when he gets home from work. He always does.”

  “So…stay. Please?”

  He grimaced. “You may not want me to after I tell you, Lola.”

  “It can’t be that bad.” Can it? Lola strai
ghtened her spine and gave him a level look. “I’ve had a horrible day. It can’t get much worse. Just tell me and get it over with.”

  Jack laughed gruffly and ran a hand over his face. “I was at the rock. You showed up.” Lola motioned for him to get on with it. He was hedging. “You were crying.” Jack’s voice softened, took on a bleak quality.

  He expelled a noisy breath. “My dad, he…my dad knocked me around good that day. Needless to say, I wasn’t in the finest mood.”

  Lola waited with baited breath, captivated by the inflections in his voice; the altering expressions on his finely chiseled face.

  “You didn’t see me at first.” Jack had a faraway look on his face. “I watched you for a while. You were so sad, so beautiful and tragic.”

  Lola’s breath caught. Jack thought her beautiful?

  He closed his eyes, inhaled slowly. “I didn’t like how you made me feel. I know it was immature. I was feeling sorry for myself, you showed up crying. I felt…I don’t know what I felt.”

  Jack sat down in the lone recliner in the room, partly in shadows. “I felt something when I saw you looking like that, something I had never felt before, something that scared me.”

  Lola’s pulse was in chaos. She listened intently to each word, not wanting to miss something or hear anything wrong.

  “Then I told myself you were probably upset because you broke a nail or some equally trivial reason. You didn’t know what real pain and suffering was; what it felt like to be knocked around.” Jack made a sound of self-deprecation. “God, I was an idiot.”

  “You didn’t know.”

  He looked up. “You’re right. I didn’t know. I didn’t know a single thing about you, other than what was common knowledge at school. I should have known better than to jump to conclusions.”

  She was as guilty of that as Jack was. Lola felt chagrined of her assumptions of Jack and his character before she’d gotten to know him. She’d been so wrong, so very wrong.

  A memory tickled her mind and faded away. “You said something to me, something that wasn’t nice.”

  “You could say that.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Lola meant it. She one hundred percent knew it didn’t.

  But to Jack it did. He obviously needed to expunge his shame. Lola was quiet; waiting for him to continue.

  “I implied you were easy, something about your newest boy standing you up, and not to cry because I was sure you had lots more guys lined up. It wasn’t good. Even as I said the words, I wanted to stop them, but they just kept coming.”

  Jack got to his feet and moved to the end of the bed. He stared at her, regret radiating from him. “The look on your face…it hurt me so much it was like I was hurting myself, or my sister. It was horrible. I’d never felt so little, so small. I felt like my dad. I hated it. I don’t ever want to be him. To get off on other’s pain. To hurt people. I’m so sorry, Lola.”

  Lola picked at the blanket, her eyes on her hands. “The reason that day is so terrible for me, the reason I blocked it out, wasn’t because of you, Jack. I barely remember that exchange. I was too upset by what happened before that.”

  Jack didn’t say anything, so Lola continued, “Bob threatened my friends that day. He told me if I told anyone about the abuse, he’d kill them. He said he’d kill Sebastian. And Rachel. And anyone else I talked to.” Fear reared up inside Lola. Would it ever really go away? Was she ever really going to be safe?

  He pulled her into his arms before she’d realized he’d moved and kissed her on the lips, his mouth moving to her jaw, her cheek, her neck; little flutters of warmth against her skin.

  “I…” Jack began; stopped.

  “What?” she whispered against the ebony silk of his hair.

  He crushed her to him. Lola felt the pounding of his heart against her own. “You’re safe, Lola, I promise. I’ll keep you safe. No matter what. I vow it.”

  “I know.” And she did.

  “Do you still want me to stay?”

  Forever. “Yes.”

  Another nurse came in to take her vitals. Jack sat in the chair waiting. As soon as she left, he got into the bed and pulled Lola to him, tucking her head under his chin. She fell asleep like that; more peaceful than she had been in months.

  ***

  She never came.

  That was Lola’s first thought when she opened her eyes.

  The second was, Jack’s gone.

  Lola sat in the hospital bed, blinking sleep from her eyes. Streaks of sunlight came through the window and formed shapes on the bedspread covering her legs. An overbearing amount of sorrow repeatedly lapped over her like waves of heartache, unending and paralyzing.

  She vaguely remembered waking up throughout the night, terrified and shaking, sure Bob was coming after her. Each time Jack murmured comforting words and held her close. But he was gone and the alarm began to trickle back into her veins.

  What if Bob had been let out of jail? What if he was waiting to hurt her more? Or worse, someone she cared about? Lola shoved the troubling thoughts away, telling herself it would be okay; she would be okay.

  The doctor came in to check her over. Everything looked good and he told her the release papers would be signed later that morning.

  Where will I go?

  Her mother had abandoned her. That hurt more than anything Bob had done to her. Tears, ever present lately, flowed from her eyes.

  Lola was wiping her eyes when the door opened. Two women walked inside; one short and plump with straight brown hair. She had a no-nonsense look to her that was slightly alarming.

  “Hello, Lola, I’m Veronica Smalls and I work for Social Services.” The alarm grew, turned to panic.

  The other woman caught and held Lola’s attention. She hesitantly walked over to the bed, eyes trained on Lola. She looked nervous and sad. Lola frowned. She looked familiar.

  “This is Blair Murphy.” Murphy? Her heartbeat picked up.

  The lady was petite, slender, and had wavy auburn hair; much like Lola’s, but kept shorter. Rectangular eggplant toned glasses fit over a pert nose. She was pretty in a quiet way. The woman was dressed in jeans and a green top and smelled faintly of cinnamon. She had to be in her thirties or forties.

  “Hello, Lola,” she said softly, coming to a stop near the window. The sunlight played with her hair, highlighting red and gold tones.

  “Lola, your aunt Blair is going to take care of you for a while,” Veronica informed her, stepping up to the bed.

  The woman continued to talk, but none of it registered with Lola. She stared at the woman she had just been told was her aunt. Her father’s sister.

  Lola unconsciously touched her nose and chin, seeing the same features on the woman standing before her. She winced as the tender flesh newly stitched reacted negatively to her touch.

  “Wait a minute,” Lola interrupted. “Where’s my mom?”

  Veronica pursed her lips. “Your mother is signing over guardianship to your aunt, at least temporarily. She can’t take care of you right now.”

  The room faded and flared back in blinding white. Lola’s ear buzzed. “What? I don’t understand.”

  The brusque woman turned to Blair. “I’ll let you two get acquainted. Someone from Social Services will be in touch.”

  Her aunt nodded, waited until the older woman had left, then turned to Lola. “This must be…odd for you. I know a lot has happened to you. I thought, um, maybe we could talk for a bit?” Blair tilted her head, studying Lola.

  Lola didn’t say anything.

  Blair cleared her throat and seemed to shake herself. “I guess I’ll go first. I live here in Morgan Creek. I have for the past eleven years.”

  Two years after Lola moved there. She’d been so close this whole time.

  “I write a column for a women’s magazine. I’ve never been married. I have two cats. I like funny movies and Chinese food. Let’s see…” Blair seemed to search her brain. “My favorite color is green.”

  “What
are their names?”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Your cats. What are their names?”

  “Oh!” Blair smiled a true smile and a dimple appeared in her left cheek. “Piper and Larry. Both males.”

  “Why did you name them Piper and Larry?”

  “Well, Larry is after an ex-boyfriend. He had a shoe fetish. Particularly my shoes, I should add. I caught him trying on a pair once. He was a little…strange. We broke up shortly after that.” Blair giggled and Lola felt a small smile stretch her lips. It fell from her lips at the realization. It didn’t seem right to smile after the events of the past night.

  “Larry, the cat, that is, likes to sleep with my shoes. He wraps his paws around them like a teddy bear and sleeps that way.” She shrugged. “It just fit. I honestly don’t know how I came up with the name Piper. I think I heard it on a movie or something.”

  Lola looked at the blank television screen as the quiet dragged on. She had so many questions. She didn’t know where to begin.

  Blair stood and pulled her shirt down. “I imagine you’re wondering why you haven’t met me before now, living in the same town and all.”

  “Yes. Why didn’t you contact me sooner? You’ve been here this whole time…” Her voice trailed off. Lola frowned, resentment and confusion battling inside her.

  Her aunt crossed the floor and stopped beside Lola. There were such varying glimpses of pain on Blair’s face Lola felt a tightening in her chest.

  “I’ll explain everything, Lola, in time. But first, I want to make sure it’s okay with you that you’ll be staying with me. I realize we don’t know each other, but I would love to be able to change that.”

  Blair lifted a hand, made a fist, and let it drop to her side. “You look so much like your father,” she whispered, brown eyes shimmering with tears.

  “What about my mother? Why doesn’t she want me?”

  Her eyes shifted away. “It’s not that she doesn’t want you, Lola; she’s just incapable of giving you proper care right now.”

  It felt like someone had punched a hole in her chest, ripped out her heart, and left her like that; wounded, bleeding, and beyond repair.