Chapter 12 #2
I don’t say it out loud because my son respects authority.
After the head job Dylan did on him, I already know Noah isn’t going to accept words.
Reading it will be easier for him to understand and less emotional than hearing me talk about how his father beat me up and put me in the hospital.
I don’t want to sound like a victim. Noah already has a history of reading about wars.
But I think that reading about military strategy and equipment is a far cry from learning about someone you love being harmed.
Sabre and I sit there while he turns page after page until he lands on the certified copy of the convictions. State of Montana versus Dylan Everett, assault with a weapons enhancement and possession with intent to distribute narcotics.
“What’s a weapons enhancement?” Noah asks without looking up.
I answer, trying to keep my emotions from coming through in my tone of voice. “It means he had charges before, and part of his sentencing was that he could no longer possess a weapon. They found one in his car when they arrested him.”
“So, was he some kind of lifelong criminal lowlife or what?”
Sabre answers before I can. “Yes.”
I speak up to soften the blow. “He was young and made some really poor decisions and suffered the consequences. I refused to marry him and left because it wasn’t safe to stay with him. Knowing him the way I do, I didn’t think you’d be safe around him either.”
Noah keeps turning pages until he comes to four witness statements.
They were all from strangers at a gas station who saw what he did to me in that parking lot and told the police.
Noah reads each statement carefully, while I wish he would just skip over them.
In retrospect, I wish I’d gone through the file and pulled out what I wanted him to see, but knowing my son, he’d think that was sketchy.
He goes back to look at the injury map the nurse filled out when I was in the ER. It’s a line-art human with all the injuries marked by Xs and a short explanation for each at the bottom.
He studies it and then freezes in place. His finger traces over the mark for the injury on my left arm. Glancing at my arm, he says, “You told me that was a kitchen burn, that a pan burned you.”
“I know I did, bug. I just didn’t want you to have to think about things like that until you were mature enough to understand.”
And my son starts crying again. This time, when I reach for him, he doesn’t move away. He collapses into my arms. “What’s wrong with him? Why did he hurt you and then lie to me about it?”
Sabre and I talk him through it, reassuring him that he didn’t do anything wrong and answering yet more questions. My son has so many questions. But they all make sense and are designed to help him cope.
Finally, he tells us, “I argued with him for hours. Every answer I gave him, he turned into more arguments. After a while, I couldn’t tell what was real anymore. It made my head feel sick.”
“That’s how being manipulated feels,” Sabre explains. “But you outsmarted him by having enough courage to march down those stairs and confront the people you thought might’ve done you dirty, right to our faces.”
Noah thinks about that for a few minutes and then nods. “Now that I know what manipulation feels like, I’ll recognize it next time.”
Now’s not the time to explain all the different ways people can manipulate him, so I just nod.
He reaches over to the coffee table, where he put his phone at some point in the conversation, and shoves it towards us.
“I don’t want it anymore,” he says. “I don’t ever want to talk to him again. He lied to me on purpose.”
“You should take it,” I tell Sabre. “There might be evidence on it, or he might have accidentally given us information you could use to track him. Is that okay with you, bug?”
My son nods. When Sabre picks up the phone and pockets it, Noah’s expression brightens a bit, especially when Sabre praises him. “You did exactly right by bringin’ this downstairs. Don’t worry. We’ll do everythin’ in our power to make sure he can’t contact you again.”
***
Zen comes to us because Sabre won’t leave the three of us home alone for extended periods of time.
By nine we have a ring of laptops spread in a semicircle around our dining room table.
Zen has two cables running from Noah’s phone to one of the laptops so he can make copies of the chats and the fake verification Dylan sent.
“All the verification this asshole provided is fake. That’s why he sent screenshots instead of links,” Zen explains.
“Screenshots let Dylan pick and choose. Noah wasn’t seein’ the world’s opinion, because he has it locked down.
Only friends can see what he’s posting and comment.
He was seein’ carefully curated comments from his family’s church friends. ”
I pick up on what Zen’s saying right away. “So, in other words, Dylan doesn’t actually want the world looking for Noah. If he did, his social media would be public.”
Zen nods. “Why risk his nine-year-old makin’ a decision with fair and balanced information when you can just show him what you want him to see.”
Sabre speaks up, “I need a burner phone for Noah set up. Do you have one in your bag?”
“Yeah, I’m normally packing half a dozen at any given time, in case things go bad in the field. I’ll get it sorted and leave it on the counter,” Zen says.
“We should probably get rid of this phone,” I say. “Noah’s made it pretty clear that he never wants to hear from him again. Other than Sabre, the only other numbers he has saved are his school friends. We can program them into his new phone.”
“We could do that but hear me out.” Sabre leans forward and explains. “I say we leave the phone on and the communication open. Who knows, maybe we can lure Dylan into a meetup or something.”
“I don’t want Noah having any more contact with him,” I protest.
“Noah won’t,” Sabre explains. “I’ll have the phone.”
“Okay. Do it,” I say.
Sabre holds my eyes a second longer, making sure I don’t change my mind, and then gets started.