Page 30 of Natalie's Nighthawk

She sighed. Now was as good a time as any. She knew it was best that he learn that she was damaged before they went any further. If she wanted to seize whatever happiness she could with him, then she needed to tell him everything.

“Graham,” she said softly, removing her earbuds as she approached his side. She laid a hand on his arm, and he looked at her, an expression of pure anguish on his face. Was that sorrow for her or something else? In that moment, he appeared so tormented. Worry swept through her at the thought that he may have demons of his own.

“These … these are so dark. Is this … you? What happened? Oh, my little chickadee.” He traced one finger over a broken wing. “What did he do to you?” Leave it to Graham to guess the reason behind the painting.

She could only answer honestly as she gazed into eyes filled with sorrow and regret. She sighed deeply, still feeling a twinge of shame. “He almost killed me.”

His eyes widened, and his body tensed as if absorbing a blow. He carefully placed the canvas of the broken bird back on the pile and turned to her, hands clenched in fists at his side. “Can you … will you tell me?” he pleaded.

“Yes, but let’s go downstairs.” She led him out of her studio and down to the living room. After flipping the switch for the gas fireplace, they settled on the couch, Natalie staring into the flames as she gathered her thoughts.

She knew this was something she had to share with him if they were to progress in this relationship, but it wouldn’t be easy.

Knowing that though difficult, this was something she had to share with him if their relationship were to have a chance, she took a breath and launched into her story. “I met Erik Flanders five years ago. He was a lawyer, handsome and successful. It was good for a while and six months into our relationship, he proposed, and I accepted. Everything was perfect … until it wasn’t. Soon after our engagement, he lost a big court case which devastated him. What I didn’t know was that he’d turned to drugs to deal with it. He started small, but …” she trailed off, remembering the day she found the drugs in her house.

“Did he get violent? Many addicts do.”

“I didn’t notice at first. I know that sounds crazy, but at the time, it seemed they were small accidents. A little nudge into the wall as we passed in the hall. A twist of an arm when he needed me to do something for him. Small things that didn’t really hurt, you know what I mean?” She knew she’d been trying to justify his actions, but she hadn’t understood at the time what was happening. His harsh words had hurt more. Erik had been under an enormous amount of stress after that lost court battle, it made sense he’d lash out in anger sometimes.

“A few weeks after those seemingly innocent accidents started, I found his stash in my bedroom. I was furious!” Shocked, angry, confused. She’d felt it all in that moment. How dare he taint her home, herbedroomwith that crap! Then it clicked. They hadn’t been accidents but much more dangerous than that. They were the product of a drug-induced rage. And if he kept using, Natalie instinctively knew that it would get worse. She needed to get him help, get him into rehab or something. She ran to flush the drugs down the toilet before he could come home.

“I thought I could …shouldhelp him get clean. I researched rehab facilities. I searched the house from top to bottom for more drugs and I flushed it all.” She had been proud of herself for that, knowing that the first step in getting clean was to remove the temptation. “He was furious when I confronted him. I tried to reason with him, but that just made him angrier. When he learned I’d flushed it all …” She broke off. How could she have not seen it coming? Looking back, it seemed like it had happened in slow motion. She had watched his fist slowly come toward her and hadn’t done a thing to stop it. It had shocked her, never imagining in all her time with him that he would ever become so violent. Still feeling the shame of being so unaware, she stared at her hands clenched in her lap.

Graham put a finger under her chin and tilted her head up. “What did he do?” He dropped his hand to hers after she met his eyes and squeezed tightly, anchoring her in the here and now. His ice-blue eyes warming her, imploring her to continue.

“He punched me. Here,” indicating the left side of her face, she still felt the impact of the punch. Graham briefly closed his eyes, gripping her hands harder.

She’d had a black eye for a while. That had been hard to explain to her students. “That was all it took. One punch and I threw him out. It was over, I hurled his ring at him and forced him to leave.”

“Good for you!” he praised. She smiled sadly, a single tear escaping. Graham caught it with a gentle finger before asking, “That wasn’t it, was it? Something else happened.”

Natalie drew in a shaky breath. She still felt the shame, even knowing it wasn’t her shame to carry. That was the problem with memories; they could be a dangerous thing. You watch them play over and over again in your head. Study them. Examine them. Imagine them turning out differently. And those are the edges that will cut you. The second-guessing. The what-ifs. Rewinding the movie in your brain incessantly until finally pressing stop and learning to live with them, but the sharp edges will always be there, ready to gut you, as they were doing now.

He squeezed her hands again, bringing her back to her story. “A few weeks later, Erik sweet-talked my neighbor into letting him in my house. I’d changed the locks after kicking him out. He knew I gave our neighbor, Mrs. Johnson, a spare key. She knew we had broken up, but he’d given her some sob story about leaving an important document at my house. She let him in but stayed with him, wouldn’t give him the key. She kept an eye on him.”

“Smart of her!”

“Somehow, without her noticing, he had managed to unlock the sliding door to the back deck. After she’d gone back to her place, he snuck around the back and let himself in. He was waiting for me when I got home from work.” She shuddered. It’d been so long since she’d talked about it, so long since she’d had to. The last time she’d ever had to tell the whole story was at Erik’s trial. She wasn’t sure if she could go on.

“Chickadee, look at me.” He tipped her chin up until her eyes met his. Those fathomless blue eyes that could promise her security. “You’re safe with me. Whatever happened is in the past. You are safe now. Finish it,” he urged.

She knew in her heart that she was safe, yet a small part of her was never going to feel completely safe again. “He took me by surprise and knocked me around a bit before I’d completely grasped what was happening.”

Natalie choked back a sob. “He blamed me for everything. It was my fault he’d lost that big case, my fault he was so far in debt. I’d flushed thousands of dollars of product and caused all his problems.

“He pinned me to the floor over there.” She pointed to the space between the kitchen, living room, and stairs. She still had trouble passing by the spot, never pausing, intent on passing it as quickly as possible. “I fought him at first, I tried everything I knew to get him off me. He wasn’t as big or muscular as you, but he was still much larger, much stronger than me. I fought, screamed, bit, kicked, anything to get away. Until … until he wrapped his hands around my neck.”

The fear she’d felt in that moment was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. She’d known he was determined to kill her, she had to do something, but it had become hard to breathe. His thumbs had pressed unmercifully into her windpipe quickly bringing in darkness. She lost the battle.

“The last thing I felt was his hands squeezing my throat.” She broke off as another sob consumed her. She’d tried to put it all behind her, but after one retelling of the story, it had all come rushing back as if it had just happened. Graham wrapped her in his arms, and all she could do was hold on for dear life as she wept.

Graham managed to contain his anger at her ex as he held her tightly. He’d had no idea what she’d gone through, and his heart ached that she’d suffered so much. He’d never have imagined, when she’d said, “it didn’t end well,” that she’d meant the man had tried to kill her. He’d never understood men like that, and it sickened him; he vowed to find this Erik; he needed to hurt him as he’d hurt Natalie. It was a cliché, but he felt murderous towards Erik. For Natalie … and he would do anything to protect her. She’d been alone then but she wasn’t now. Squeezing her tighter in his embrace, he knew he would always do everything he could to protect her.

As her tears subsided, she sat back and looked up at him in agony, her beautiful eyes swimming. He cupped her face with both hands and gently wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “Did he rape you, Chickadee?” He held his breath, waiting for the answer.

Shaking her head, she smiled briefly. “He never got the chance.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “Maddie. She heard me scream and called the police right away then came to help me. She found me on the floor and saw him trying to choke me. She “charged at him”, as she put it, and swung her cane at him. I came to as he was about to attack Maddie. I grabbed his arm, but I was so weak he managed to get me in a chokehold. He’d moved so fast; I don’t know how it happened. That’s when I felt the knife against my throat. I felt it cut into my skin. Felt the trickle of blood. That’s how the police found us. I felt so much relief seeing the police burst through the front door, but his arm was tightening around my throat and I was fading fast.”

“He used me as a shield, his hold around my neck getting stronger as the police tried to talk him into letting me go. He’d moved the knife down to my side just before I passed out again. Maddie told me later that I just dropped. One moment I was standing there, the next, I was on the floor bleeding. I didn’t feel the blade enter. He’d stabbed me as I lost consciousness, the knife slicing into me from my kidneys and up my back, as I fell.”

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