Chapter 4 Aftermath
Four ~ Aftermath
Mara
IDidn’t Sleep. Not Really. I spent the night on the couch, coat still on, lights off, legs pulled to my chest. The radiator hissed and clanked like it always does, but it sounded louder, harsher, like the building itself was restless.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, even hours after I locked the door behind me. Every time I closed my eyes, it was there again. The path. The hand in my coat. The snap of my scarf tightening around my throat.
And then the impact, him crashing into the man who had me.
The sound of bodies hitting frozen ground.
Fists. Grunts. That roar. I must’ve made tea at least four times.
I’d push myself off the couch, legs unsteady, and go through the motions: fill the kettle, click it on, stare at the counter while the light flickered red.
Pick a mug. Grab a teabag. Wait for the boil. Pour.
And then something in my chest would seize, some memory, some echo dragging me back to the door, checking the lock again. And again. And again. By the time I remembered the tea, it was cold.
When the weak winter light finally pushed its way around the edges of the blinds, there were four untouched mugs lined up on the counter, like little ceramic witnesses to something I couldn’t explain. The apartment looked the same as it had yesterday, but everything felt wrong.
My shoes were still half-kicked off by the door where I’d stumbled out of them.
My bag lay on its side on the floor, contents spilled: keys, notebook, pens, and my library name badge.
One glove had landed under the coffee table.
My scarf was a crumpled heap on the rug, threads pulled and stretched, one end darker where his hand had been.
I watched a drip of melted snow slide off the hem of my coat and soak into the cushion, and for some reason, that made my throat burn. I pulled my knees tighter to my chest and pressed my forehead against them. I kept going over it again and again in my head.
The alley. The voice. The lie about dropping something.
The weight yanking me backward. The fear, a hot, suffocating thing that seemed to live behind my ribs now.
And then him. The man who saved me. No cape.
No sirens. Just fists and fury and the kind of silence that says more than a thousand words.
He didn’t even say a name. He just appeared, like the universe finally blinked and realized, oh, right, she might need help.
I don’t know how long I sat there, folded in on myself on the couch. Time felt slippery. My body ached in odd places, knees from hitting the ground, shoulder where my bag had slammed into me, throat sore, and tender where the scarf had pulled tight.
Eventually, the pale rectangle of light on the floor shifted enough to tell me the morning was getting away from me, whether I moved or not. I uncurled slowly, every joint complaining, and shuffled to the bathroom. The mirror wasn’t kind.
My eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, dark circles smudged underneath. My hair had dried in wild waves around my face, bits of leaves and snow still clinging to the ends. There was a faint red mark across the front of my neck where the scarf had dug in, a ghost of pressure that made my stomach turn.
I turned the tap on and splashed cold water onto my face until my skin stung. My reflection blurred and then sharpened again. It still looked like me. It didn’t feel like me. I wrapped my arms around myself and stepped back into the main room.
I needed to call the police. I knew that. Logic knew that. Every article I’d ever read about reporting, every flyer pinned to bulletin boards about community safety, every earnest poster in the library’s back hall.
Report.
Speak up. We can’t help if we don’t know.
Fear didn’t care about the posters. Fear whispered things like: What if he saw where you went?
What if he knows your building?
What if he comes back?
And the worst one: What if they don’t believe you?
I picked my phone up from where it had landed on the floor near my bag. The battery was still mostly full. I scrolled past missed notifications, two from Hannah asking if I got home OK, one from a spam number, and a weather alert about icy conditions.
My thumb hovered over the keypad for a full minute before I forced myself to dial. The ring seemed too loud in the quiet apartment.
“Emergency, which service do you require?”
The script came out of me in a shaky rush. “Police, please.”
A click, then another voice. Male this time. Calm. Slightly bored.
“Police. What’s the nature of your emergency?”
“It’s….” I swallowed. “It’s not an emergency now. It was last night. I… I was attacked. On the path behind the post office. A man grabbed me. Another man stopped him. I ran. I—I don’t know what happened after, but…”
The silence on the other end stretched just long enough for my cheeks to burn.
“Are you safe right now?” he asked, finally, like he’d flipped to page one of a manual.
“Yes. I’m at home.”
“Is the suspect with you? Anyone else there?”
“No. I’m alone. I… it happened hours ago. I just… I wanted to report it.”
He took my details in a flat tone: name, address, phone number.
Date of birth. He asked what I was wearing last night, what he’d been wearing, and what the man who helped looked like.
I closed my eyes and pictured the stranger over the attacker, fist clenched, shoulders heaving, snow catching in his hair.
“Leather jacket,” I said. “Dark. Black, maybe. Dark jeans. Tall. Strong. He had a scar on his face, I think. Here.” I brushed my fingers over my own cheek, as if that helped. “He… he didn’t say anything. He just—he just acted.”
“What about the suspect?” the officer asked. “The man who grabbed you.”
I tried to remember details beyond the fear. Height. Build. The color of his hoodie. The stink of his breath. I gave them everything I could. When I finished, there was a rustling on the other end. Typing. Papers moving.
“Okay,” he said eventually, voice still neutral. “We have a report of an incident matching that description. A male was found unconscious near the path around that time, with significant injuries. Another male was detained at the scene.”
My stomach dropped. Detained.
“Is he—” I swallowed. “Is the man who attacked me… is he…”
“In hospital,” the officer said. “Conscious. Stable.”
I exhaled slowly. I didn’t know whether it was relief or disappointment. Relief that he wasn’t dead, that I wasn’t linked to a death. Disappointment that he still existed, somewhere out there, breathing.
“What about the other man?” I asked. “The one who helped me. Is he okay?”
There was a pause. A subtle shift in tone, like he’d turned a page in his script.
“What other man?”
“The one who pulled him off me,” I said, pulse picking up again. “He came out of the trees. They fought. He stopped him. I ran while they were fighting. I…. he… did he come forward? Did he say anything?”
Another pause. More typing.
“There was one male at the scene when officers arrived,” he said. “He was arrested for aggravated assault. The injured party was transported to hospital. No one else was present.”
My heart lurched.
“Arrested?” I repeated. “For… for helping me?”
“As I said, ma’am, he was at the scene and appears to have inflicted the majority of the injuries. We have to go by what we see when we arrive.”
“No.” My voice sharpened. “What you saw was the aftermath. You didn’t see him pull that man off me. You didn’t see what he stopped.”
“Ma’am.”
“Did he give his name?” I pressed. “The man you arrested. Did he give a name?”
There was a quiet exhale, like the officer realized he wasn’t getting off this call quickly.
“Yes,” he said. “Jaxon Ward.”
I said the name out loud as soon as he did. “Jaxon Ward.”
It felt strange in my mouth. Heavy. He repeated it, spelling the surname, like he was checking I’d heard right. Charged with aggravated assault, he added, almost as an afterthought. Charged. No mention of the man he stopped. No mention of me. Just a charge. A file. A box ticked on someone’s form.
“Does he… does he have a lawyer?” I asked, grasping at something, anything.
“Ma’am, I can’t discuss his case details with you,” the officer said, that thin patience stretched thin. “What I can do is add your statement to the file and pass it on to the investigating officer.”
“Then do that,” I said. “Please. I want it on record that he saved me. That I was there.”
“We’ll note it,” he replied. “And just so you’re aware, there are existing records on Mr. Ward. Priors.”
“Priors?” The word sat like ice on my tongue. “What does that have to do with last night?”
“Context,” he said, a little too quickly. “Look, I understand this is distressing, but there was a serious injury involved. He went overboard. It’s complicated.” Isn’t it always?
“Overboard?” I repeated softly, more to myself than him.
He’d gone “overboard,” stopping a man from dragging me into the trees?
Maybe he had hit him too many times.
Maybe he saw something in that man that reminded him of someone else.
Maybe once you start fighting, it’s hard to stop.
But I knew what would’ve happened if he hadn’t appeared.
My body knew.
My instincts knew.
That prickling, crawling terror under my skin knew.
“You don’t understand,” I told the officer, voice trembling now for a completely different reason. “He saved me.”
“Maybe so,” the voice on the line said, flat and tired, the kind of tired that sounded like it had seen every horrible thing the world could toss at it and was just… done. “But that’s not what it looks like in the report. We have to work with the evidence we’ve got.”
The evidence. Blood on Jaxon’s hands. The other man on the ground. No, me in sight. No context. Just two men and a lot of damage.
“Will anyone… will anyone contact me?” I asked. “For a statement in person? Or—”
“They might,” he said. “I’ll flag your report. If the investigating officer needs more detail, they’ll be in touch.”
If. Might.
“It doesn’t feel like enough,” I whispered.
“I know,” he said, and maybe, for a second, he meant it. Then his tone shifted back. “Is there anything else you’d like to add?”
I thought of the way Jaxon had looked up once, just once, checking if I was okay. The way he’d stepped between the attacker and the path, making himself the barrier. The way he’d raised his hands for the officers before they even told him to.
“No,” I said finally. “That’s all.”
“Thank you for calling, Ms… Whitaker.” Paper rustled as he glanced at my file again. “If you feel unsafe or notice any suspicious activity near your home, call us back immediately. Okay?”
I hung up before I could say something unforgivable. Before I could tell him that the only thing that made me feel unsafe right now was the idea that the one person who’d helped me was sitting in a cell somewhere, alone.
The silence after the call felt thicker. Heavier. By afternoon, I was sitting on the floor of my apartment, back against the wall, staring at the tin star ornament in my hand.
I bought it at the Christmas market just last week. A little handmade thing from a stall run by an old woman with a knitted hat in the shape of a Christmas pudding. The tin was slightly dented, the silver paint flaking at the edges, but when the light caught it just right, it shimmered.
I was going to hang it by my window, like I always do. My little tradition. One star every year. A line of them now, dangling on thin ribbons, gently spinning whenever the radiator air stuttered to life. This one was supposed to be this year’s star. But now it just felt… empty.
I turned it over in my fingers, the edge biting lightly into my skin. The tiny, stamped pattern of snowflakes along one point caught on the pad of my thumb. Someone did something for me. Something brave. Something violent, yes, but necessary. He stopped that man. He gave me a chance to run.
He gave me the chance to be sitting here, on this floor, in my slightly shabby apartment with its rattling windows and secondhand cushions and half-dead plants, holding a stupid tin star and thinking about what might have happened if I’d chosen the other route home.
And now he’s in jail because no one saw it the way I did.
Because I didn’t stay. I ran. I left him there. I know, logically, that I did what I had to do. Every instinct said get away, and I listened. That’s what all the advice says: if you can escape, escape. Don’t go back. Don’t put yourself in more danger.
But logic doesn’t make the guilt any softer. The guilt is sharp. Sharper than anything I’ve felt in years. Sharper even than the grief that settled into me after my mom died, because at least with that I knew there was nothing I could’ve done. Here?
Here, there’s a man with blood on his hands and my safety on his conscience, and I climbed over that gift and ran home to lock my door. I press the star to my chest, feel the cold metal through the fabric of my jumper.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, though he’s not here to hear it.
I don’t know who Jaxon Ward is. Not really. To the officer, he’s a list of priors. A file. A problem. To the man he hit, he’s the enemy. To anyone reading tomorrow’s paper, he’ll be a headline.
To me?
He’s the man who stepped out of the trees when no one else did. The man who roared. The man who bled for me. Fought for me. Took the hit so I could run. The least I can do is find a way to say thank you. Even if no one else does.
I set the star down gently on the coffee table and reach for my notebook. The one I take to the writing group. The one full of half-finished stories and abandoned lines and characters who always seem to find their way home, no matter how lost they get. My hand hovers over a blank page.
I don’t know his favorite food, his middle name, or the color of his eyes.
I don’t know where he grew up, what he’s done, or who hurt him enough that his first instinct is to throw himself between a stranger and danger.
But I know this: He deserves to be more than a line on a report.
He deserves to hear the words no one else is going to say.
Thank you. My fingers close around the pen.
I don’t start writing yet. Not quite. But I know, at that moment, that I will.