Page 6 of Safer Alone
After powering down my iPad, I finish the glass of orange juice with two unladylike gulps. I tell myself to forget about Elliot Sands tonight, and with that I deposit my dirty glass in the sink. I will wash it later after I cook dinner, and then wander into the bathroom to take a shower. All the while the photo of Elliot in a suit, staring right at me, occupied my mind.
~ Chapter Three ~
I’m standing in the kitchen washing a pile of dishes, surrounded by the mouth-watering aroma of the Thai green curry I’ve cooked myself for dinner wafting through the apartment. That spicy scent mingling with the sweet aroma of freshly-baked chocolate chip muffins, made especially for tomorrow’s viewing, creates an interesting combination. It brings back wonderful memories of the many months that I lived with Liam, reminding me what it smelled like at his house at any given moment in time.
Liam has this uncanny ability to find ingredients in the fridge and pantry that you would never think would work together, and yet he can whip up something that, nine times out of ten, ends up being incredibly delicious.
I often wish that I was even half as good a cook as he is. He really is a catch: handsome, kind-hearted, full-time employment, and to top it all off, he is creative in the kitchen, always trying new things. Most men traditionally leave the cooking to the woman in the household, preferring to be waited on hand and foot. That isn’t how Liam operates.
I make the same ten or so dishes all of the time. These easy meals consist of spaghetti bolognese; chicken stir fry; macaroni, cheese, and vegetables; beef stroganoff; curried sausages; and the green curry I have made tonight. All of these items freeze well, so I generally make a big batch of these recipes, enough for four people to eat. It helps to keep my freezer fully stocked, which comes in handy for those off-pay weeks.
It isn’t the first time I have considered asking my best friend for some cooking lessons. I mean at my age I should at least be able to cook a roast, shouldn’t I? Even if I could, though, what would be the point? I would only be feeding myself. I don’t ever have a reason to cook for two. Maybe instead, I could ask for a few easy recipes, some things that even I could follow. I make a mental note to send him an email asking him for both.
After I hand-wash all the dishes and put them away, I pack the muffins into the carry case in preparation for tomorrow’s meeting. Something sweet can generally help a tense situation. Not that I am expecting it to get tense; awkward, though, is definitely a possibility. Maybe one of my death-by-chocolate muffins might help to sell the property? I doubt it, but a gal can dream, can’t she?
I switch off all the lights in the main living area and take myself to bed, picking up the latest edition of “Sotheby’s Auction Guide” from my bedside table. Once I’m comfortable, I flick through it absentmindedly. I’m not really reading anything in particular, just looking at the photographs. There are so many products listed in here that I have often dreamed of owning. But tonight my mind is elsewhere, thinking about tomorrow, thinking about the viewing, thinking about that gorgeous human I will be meeting tomorrow, wondering if he will wear that suit.
I will really need to wear something a bit nicer than usual, then again, why bother? It’s not like he will be looking at me. The house, yes, but not me. I’m not uncomfortable being around high society. I’ve done it before. My father is a well-known, highly sought-after architect back in New York, and my grandfather, Ernest, was a real estate property developer. I say “was” since he passed away just short of four years ago now. He is the reason I pursued my passion and entered the world of real estate. He and Grandma pooled their assets and purchased their first property back when he was twenty-one; by the time they were both retired they owned a total of twelve properties.
I’m not greedy. I don’t feel the need to own more than one property, but I do. Several of them, in fact, not that I had to work hard for most of them. The one I live in, here in Nashville, still has a decent chunk of mortgage owed on it, the others were passed down to me from Grandfather’s inheritance. I considered selling them at one point, it would certainly make things easier. That was until I looked at my bank account one day and saw that a new account had been opened with a gigantic amount of money deposited. I’m not exaggerating, either. When I say gigantic, I mean it. It was to the tune of several million dollars.
You see, I don’t consider myself wealthy, but I am. I come from a wealthy family and even though I have plenty of money myself now, I don’t flaunt it. To look at me you wouldn’t have the foggiest idea that I am possibly one of the wealthier residents of Nashville, Tennessee. Except for the likes of Tim McGraw or Carrie Underwood; they definitely have more money than me.
I replace the auction guide back down on the nightstand where I had retrieved it no more than five minutes ago. Hopping up out of bed, I make my way to the bathroom to brush and floss my teeth before returning to seek comfort between the covers, clicking my bedside light off for good measure. Lying down, I allow myself to relax, and try to push all thoughts from my ever-active mind and drift off to sleep.
It has started to rain, heavily. I can hear the raindrops hitting the tin roof above me. I walk into the bedroom to close the window. I don’t want the rain to get inside; the floorboards don’t do well with water on them. They become incredibly slippery. It is almost time to head home for the day and away from this open house. Not one person had turned up to look through the property today, which wasn’t really unusual. When bad weather was threatening to appear, people tended to choose to stay indoors.
I turn away from the closed window when I hear the sound of footsteps. Maybe someone had braved the weather after all, “I won’t be a moment, I’m just making my way to the front door now,” I call out to the interested party. I turn the corner coming into the open space from the hallway.
I lock eyes with the man and I feel dread starting to appear in the pit of my stomach, I know those angry green eyes, I would know them anywhere. They belong to someone who I had left in my past. Those eyes are the emerald colored slits of Dylan.
I break our eye contact by lowering my eyes. Slightly, slowly, I drop my eyes, looking at his nose, then his mouth. Bad mistake, as I notice that he is wearing a small smirk on his face. His arms are held behind his back, which is unusual. He doesn’t tend to hide anything. He brings them both forward, and that’s when I notice the baseball bat in his right hand.
I instinctively hold my hands up in front of me, “Dylan, you don’t really want to do this, please don’t,” is all I am able to say, my voice barely audible, barely above a whisper. I feel a single tear escape my eye and fall down my left cheek. He found me. How did he find me? Never mind the how right now, he has me cornered. This can only end one way. This is going to be bad, really bad.
“You left me, Angie.” He was twirling the bat around in his hands, all the while never breaking eye contact with me. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t hurt you? You deserve to be punished for what you did to me. You broke my heart, Angie.”
I was backing away, slowly trying to get closer to my folder sitting on the dining table. If I could just get to it, I could grab my cell phone and possibly with the speed dial feature call the office. They would at least hear me scream and send someone, wouldn’t they?
“Don’t even think about taking another step, Angie.” He was crossing the room towards me, one slow, meaningful step at a time. “You’re going to pay for leaving me, Angie. You’re going to feel what I felt when you left.”
With those words spoken, he was now right in front of me. He lifts his arms and with one swing of the bat he connects with my chest. The force of the blow forces me to hunch over, holding my arms across my chest and screaming out in pain. I’m sure I just felt several of my ribs break. The next blow is almost instantaneous, this time, landing over my lower back. I arch back up and scream again, the pain is so intense, more intense than the last attack. This one has surely done quite a lot of damage to my kidneys.
I struggle to speak, needing to say something to try and even momentarily halt the assault. “I’m sorry Dylan…I was wrong…please forgive me…I know now that I should have never left you…Please stop hurting me…” He laughs, throwing his head back. He laughs at me, his laughter so incredibly loud in such a quiet space. I knew deep down that it wouldn’t work. He doesn’t want an apology, he wants to hurt me badly.
Gaining his composure again, he returns to the matter at hand. He lowers the bat and sets up his next target. It looks as though he is about to connect with a pitched ball. One more blow, but he doesn’t connect with a ball. Instead, this time he connects with my legs. They buckle underneath me as soon as the bat connects with them. I collapse to the floor. He positions himself so he is standing directly over me, he raises his foot above me and then brings it down squarely on my face. And then, everything goes dark.
I wake up screaming, flailing around in my bed, throwing off the covers. When I finally sit up, I feel the beads of sweat that have appeared on my forehead. I’m breathing so hard, struggling for air, the same way a diver does when they break the surface after a dive without oxygen, trying to pull as much air into their lungs as they possibly can.
All the while, I am looking frantically around the room, scanning for any sign of him, trying to see through the darkness. Is he hiding in the shadows? I listen very closely to any sound that might betray his location. After a few minutes, when my eyes have adjusted to the lack of light in the room and my breathing has started to calm, I realize that he isn’t here. He had never been here. It was just another one of those bad dreams.
I slip out of bed and fetch a cold glass of water from the refrigerator, sipping the tasteless liquid while making my way back to the bedroom. It takes me quite a long time to slow my breathing back to a normal rhythm, even longer to calm myself enough to lie back down, and even more so to relax enough to fall asleep. I glanced at the clock sitting beside the bed. It shows 3:42 am.
These nightmares are happening way more frequently now. They are always so cruel and violent, bringing back all the memories that I have tried so desperately to bury and forget all about. After all these years it still affects me the exact same way as it did when it was fresh. When I experienced it the very first time.
You see, these dreams of mine have truth to them. They aren’t just figments of my imagination. The abuse I suffered at the hands of Dylan was frequent and incredibly horrible; bone-shattering, soul-crushingly so.
I’m thankful when my eyelids begin to get heavy. I place the now-empty glass safely beside the lamp and resettle myself in bed, pulling the covers up nice and high around me. As the drowsiness begins to pull me under, I pray to God that no more nightmares would rear their ugly heads again tonight and that I would sleep soundly, not waking up again until morning comes.
