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Chapter Twenty – Addy – December 16

I didn’t fall back asleep the entire night. Every time that I remotely drifted off, his face came back into my mind. I curled up in a tight ball feeling nauseous, sweaty, and dirty. Always dirty.

Even as the sun rose, I stayed in the same position. I had nowhere to go.

When I had woken in the hospital, I had no idea how I had gotten there. A trauma psychologist had come to visit me when I was finally able to talk, not that it did much good. I constantly felt the cold metal barrel of the gun on my temple. I wasn’t going to talk.

I found out that I was at Lexington Memorial, not the University of Kentucky Hospital. I soon began to despise the walls, the nurses, everything. My face was battered to a pulp. The doctor and yet another psychologist tried to convince me to go to the police. I just tuned them out.

The only place I had wanted to go was home. I waited until my bruising and swelling had gone down before I called my dad.

I had told him that I had bought a car and that I had gotten into a car accident. The doctors could do nothing to correct the lie; I had patient confidentiality on my side.

I will never forget the look on my dad’s face when he walked into the room. He had never looked so pale; the sparkle was gone out of his eyes.

“Oh honey,” he had said, taking my hand. He was the only man I ever wanted to see again; the only one I could trust.

“Daddy,” I had croaked out, my voice still raw. “I want to go home.”

And so we had. That had been ten years ago.

It still seemed like yesterday.

I felt the first rays of a bright winter sun filtering through the curtains. Prisms of light danced around the room. A soft knock sounded on the door; I didn’t answer. After a few moments, the door swung open slowly. Kevin walked in with a breakfast tray.

“I made omelets,” he said quietly. I didn’t sit up. He stood there awkwardly, not knowing where to put the tray; he finally opted for the nightstand.

I had assumed he would leave; instead he stood in the middle of the room. He looked thoughtful, like he was mediating. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully.

“Before your dad gets back in town,” Kevin said. “I want to talk to you about Toby Davidson.”

The omelet smelled delicious; still I didn’t move.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

Kevin looked behind him and pulled a well worn reading chair from the wall. He pulled it over to the bed, keeping a safe distance away. I saw him unfold some printed pages. He held them out to me.

“Read this.”

Reading required me to sit up; it was something I didn’t want to do. Still, he persisted, shaking the papers slightly to keep my attention. With a sigh I took them and sat up on the bed. Since I had gotten that far, I took the glass of orange juice of the tray. There was no use wasting good orange juice.

As I read the papers, the first thought that came to my mind was that Kevin Richardson certainly wasn’t easy to fool. He had obviously spent quite a bit of the evening putting together what amounted to background research on…on…him.

I had no idea that Toby was a gynecologist; the thought made my stomach turn. The acid in the orange juice felt like a boulder sliding down my throat.

I let out a little gasp as I read the entry on his recent suspension. My palms grew sweaty as I read that suspected incidents dating as far back as ten years ago when he attending the University of Kentucky were being followed.

There was no doubt in my mind why Toby had tracked me down. He wanted to make sure that I kept quiet.

“So, now that I’ve shared what I know,” Kevin said, breaking through my thoughts. “Can you share what you know?”

I looked over at him. He was calmly cutting his omelet in little perfect bits and eating as if everything was right in the world. I glanced back down at the papers.

“What’s there to tell?” I said quietly.

“Why’d you drop out of school?”

“I was in a car accident.”

“Really?”

I stared down into my glass.

“He’s hurt a lot of women, Addy,” Kevin said softly. I felt a tear roll down my face; I quickly brushed it away. I was mortified as more kept coming. A minute later I was sobbing.

I was in fight or flight mode. I knew if Kevin tried to come over to comfort me that I would freak out. I saw him get up and I braced myself. I was surprised when he set a box of Kleenex at my feet and then sat back down. I grabbed some tissues and buried my face.

Except for the sound of my cries, all was quiet. When I had finally calmed down, I looked over at him. It seemed to be taking the last bit of energy for him to remain a bystander.

“Addy,” he said, trying again. “I promise you that if you tell me what’s going on I won’t tell your dad. This guy’s bad news and he’s in town looking for you. You need to let someone know what’s going on. My life’s far from perfect, but I think I can help you. If I can't, I'd like to help you find someone that will.”

“Trust me.”

His last two words summed up my problem. I didn’t know how to trust. I felt like I was between a rock and a hard place. Under no circumstance was I going to tell my dad what happened, but the whole rest of the town was happily oblivious. They probably figured Toby just wanted to look up his ex-girlfriend and reminisce.

It was the type of reminiscing that made my flesh crawl.

Then there was the added threat of police coming to talk to me. Even though they couldn’t possibly know why I was in the hospital, I’m sure they knew I dropped out of school after a hospitalization.

After all these years I thought I was finally coming into my own. I was a broken person, but I was self reliant.

Now…

I glanced at Kevin and took a deep breath.

I needed help.