Twenty
Cole
Whatever I’d been thinking was wrong with Trina came to a crashing halt the moment those words left her mouth and hovered in the space between us like a weighted bomb.
She thought she was nothing? Truly, completely believed she had nothing to offer this world?
I must have been naive, thinking she’d be grateful for us getting her away from Jonathan. Maybe I’d been too hopeful she’d be excited to be free of him. I’d worked with enough victims, heard their stories and how they consistently returned to their abusers that I should have applied that to Trina.
But man…I hadn’t expected this level of self-hatred and worthlessness to come from her.
Knowing nothing I said would make a difference in her current state of mind, I made a left that would take us away from the lake, toward the highway. If she’d been awed by the changes in town she’d already seen, nothing would surprise her like the businesses along that strip of road.
“You’ve always been everything to a lot of people,”
I said, because I still had to try. Still had to speak the truth against the lies she believed. “You still are, especially your parents.”
I caught a quick flinch, and then she turned back to face the window. I turned and took us toward a new shopping strip that was packed. Who knew so many locals would go ballistic over a Home Goods and TJ Maxx, but the parking lot was always packed with cars.
“Tell me about your girls,”
she said so quietly I almost missed it over the rumble of my truck and traffic.
“June and Ella. They’re four and five.”
She didn’t want to know about my girls. That was obvious with the way her lips scrunched up like she tasted something sour. This was a distraction to get the focus off her. I’d give her that, but if what Valerie said was true and she still hated herself for her choices when we were kids, I wasn’t sure it’d help.
“Their mom?”
“Marie. She lives in town. We split custody.”
“How’d you meet?”
Her questions came by rote, with no joy, but considering she was talking instead of staring out the window with an empty expression, I told her.
“Through friends at the academy. She was the sister of another candidate’s girlfriend.”
Her fingers twisted together in her lap as she considered that. She was no longer looking at the window but down at her hands. “You said she’s your ex.”
“Yup.”
“Why?”
Of course. Of course that was the next question, but how could I explain it to Trina in a way that wouldn’t make her want to jump out of my truck going fifty miles per hour?
Screw it.
She had to know someone cared about her. That she wasn’t nothing.
I pulled off into the parking lot of the new strip. She tensed in the seat next to me, but I parked near the back where there was less traffic.
Truck in park, I turned to face her, willed her to lift her head and meet my gaze.
Slowly, like she could feel the weight of my words bubbling in my throat, she looked at me.
“In the end, Marie realized she wasn’t you and never would be.”
She blinked. Did it again and then her lips parted in surprise. As they did, color flushed her cheeks enough that she finally looked alive and not knocking on death’s door, and her blue eyes brightened like the sun.
“That’s stupid,”
she finally said and looked away. “I was never anything special.”
“Trina—”
“Katrina,”
she quietly snapped, but her point was made. She’d had enough of a walk down memory lane. “And I’d like to go back now.”
My nostrils flared, and a rebuttal burned the tip of my tongue. How could I help her see the truth when she was so focused on believing made-up lies?
I jumped up the final stairs to the home I used to live in where Marie was waiting for me behind the storm door. Dressed in wide-leg jeans and a mint green crewneck sweater Marie looked as relaxed and calm as she always did.
I was still in my uniform, coming over as soon as I got off work which had been delayed due to a tourist who decided drunk driving down the mountain was a great idea. He was drying out in our holding cell, pissed as a smacked hornet’s nest, but he should be grateful we stopped him before he tumbled his car down the side of the mountain.
As I got closer to the door, she pushed it open. “Hey. Thanks for being willing to stop by tonight.”
“Glad to do it.”
I glanced up the stairway. “Girls asleep?”
“Yeah. Thought that’d be less chaotic.”
It was a good idea, but it also still sucked to be so close to them and not be able to see them.
When Marie decided she wanted a divorce, I moved out almost immediately and let her have the home in our divorce because I wanted her to stay in it with our girls. It wasn’t like the small and cozy split-level I lived in, but a larger two-story home in one of the newly built neighborhoods out by the new high school I’d mentioned to Trina three days ago.
We’d bought a small, fixer-upper three-bedroom ranch when we were first married and then moved into this home when she was pregnant with Ella.
“Sorry I couldn’t make it earlier. Work’s been busy.”
“So has your personal life.”
It wasn’t a deep dig, but it cut nonetheless.
“Marie…”
“Sorry.”
She had turned her back and was headed toward the kitchen. I hadn’t been in the house much after I moved out. I usually met the girls at the front door. Occasionally, I’d carry a sleeping June upstairs and to her room. Which meant I hadn’t seen the differences she’d made to the downstairs, certainly not to all the picture frames she had covering the walls.
The pictures were only of the girls. Some of her with them. Mostly the girls. Their entire lives, from the newborn stage to now, were framed all over the house that had also been repainted from a light gray to a cream color.
Like she had tried to sweep every single living, breathing memory of me out of the space. Not that I could blame her for it.
“I didn’t mean that,”
she said when we reached the kitchen. She went straight to the fridge and pulled out a beer, sliding it across the island to me, and then grabbed a bottle of white wine from the fridge.
“You keep my beer in the fridge?” I asked.
“Yes,”
she deadpanned. “On the off chance you show up to hang out with me, I make sure your favorite refreshment is available.”
She rolled her eyes. “I bought it today. Figured you’d want one after work.”
That was thoughtful of her. It also shouldn’t have been a surprise because that was simply the kind of woman Marie had always been.
She poured herself a glass of wine, and since she’d called me to meet with her and talk, I let her take this conversation at her pace. Her time.
It came after one sip of wine.
“You told me when you called me that first night that you’d tell me more details about what’s going on when you could. I decided to stop wondering and worrying and simply ask you.”
She was on one side of the island. I was on the other. We were facing off against each other like enemies, but it wasn’t lost on me there’d been a lot of good times with us on this very surface.
And since Marie wasn’t only my ex-wife, but the mother of my kids, and the one who’d been pulling double duty and single parenting a lot more than usual lately, what she was asking for wasn’t wrong.
It’d been three days since Trina and I went for the brief car ride and nothing had changed. Trina was alone at my place. Since she preferred to stare into the void in the bedroom even though most of her physical wounds were healing enough for her to move around and get what she needed, there was no point in Mom being there with nothing to do but twiddle her thumbs.
I was still anxious to get back and check on her, make sure she was okay even if I doubted she’d tell me the truth.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure she knew what the truth was anymore.
“Remember that police conference I had to go to back in October?”
“I do.”
“I ran into Trina.”
Her brows rose in surprise, and before she could wonder, I continued. “Walked right out of a coffee shop and ran straight into her, or rather, she ran into me, but whatever. That part doesn’t matter nearly as much as what happened after.”
Marie’s jaw worked back and forth, and I could practically see questions gathering in her brain like a tiny cartoon bubble above her head.
“She had bruises then, Marie. Her cheek. Her wrists. Covered in a way it was obvious she’d been doing it for a while and had a lot of practice.”
Marie frowned and her eyes slowly closed as she tilted her chin downward. “That’s horrible. Truly, it is.”
“I gave her my card. Told her to call if she ever needed help. She had a friend with her. That friend called me the night she ended up in the hospital. Apparently, and I don’t know how yet because Trina won’t talk about it, but she kept my card, and her husband found it.”
“That’s not your fault.”
Of course she’d move to protect me. “I know, and yet I still blame myself for it. I’ve worked with enough women to know how risky that was. But, regardless, Trina’s friend called me, asked me if I really was the kind of guy who’d help her.”
A soft, well-known teasing smile stretched her mouth. “So of course you had to be the hero.”
I grinned back and then took a drink. “I know this hurts you, and this is gonna hurt to hear, but it’s Trina. Of course I would.”
“I know. And yeah, it hurts, but not so much anymore, it’s more of a bee sting compared to a copperhead bite.”
“Comforting,”
I muttered. “Thank you for that.”
“How’s she doing? Healing wise?”
Marie nipped at her bottom lip, a show she was worried. She also did that when she was uncertain. This was one of the reasons it was so easy to care for her, to even think I truly was in love with her. Despite her own fears, she was worried about someone else. If I were a better man, I’d work to set her free from more of that pain.
“Physically she’s getting better. Emotionally…mentally…”
I paused and shook my head. There were stories that weren’t mine to share. Things that weren’t mine to give, but this was Marie, and out of everyone I knew, she’d be a tightly sealed vault. “She’s saying some scaring things, and it worries me.”
Her self-hatred topped the list. The fact she was so sure Jonathan would come and get her. I shook my head. There was only so much Marie needed to know.
“And you plan on helping her through all of that.”
“Marie…”
She held up a hand and swallowed. “I get it, Cole. I do. I wouldn’t have married you or fallen in love with you if you weren’t exactly how you are, it’s just…she can’t stay at your place forever. And the girls…”
“She wouldn’t even let me drive past her parents’ home earlier this week, Marie. Her own childhood home. She’s not ready.”
“Maybe not for them, but she has friends in town, right? Like Ashley and Heather? Someone who can help her.”
Heather worked at Max’s Tavern for the fun of it but made her living being a social media creator and influencer. Ashley was married to her high school boyfriend. Robbie was an electrician and owned his own business. Ashley taught Honors English at the high school. All three would jump in with both feet to help.
And the fact Marie knew they were her best friends, and she’d spent years spending time with them…
“You must think I’m an asshole,”
I told her. “All those years you had to be around us. Hearing her name.”
Because she always came up. There wasn’t a way to prevent it when you had the same friends you’d had since you were practically born.
Marie’s sad smile told me I was right. “I knew what I was signing up for when we moved here, Cole. It hurt sometimes, but you were always honest.”
Not always. And certainly not enough. Either with her or myself.
“I can try to talk with her. Something needs to change, so yeah, you’re right, maybe I need to take a pushier approach, at least in getting her to talk.”
I finished my beer as I considered my options. Ashley would be the kindest. Heather would probably force her to a stool at Max’s and shove drinks down her throat until she puked. “I’d like her to stay at my place though. She’s downstairs. Girls can just think she’s a friend. And she is, Marie. She’s just a friend I’m helping.”
She rolled her eyes. “Stop lying to me, and yourself. It’s a sad, overly replayed song.”
Crap. She was absolutely right. I tried a different, and completely honest one. “It’s safer at my house than anywhere else.”
“If the girls aren’t safe…”
“Don’t,”
I warned. “You know I wouldn’t put them in danger. At least let me try it. I’ll keep an eye on the girls. The way Trina is now, I doubt she’ll even come out of her room when they’re there. Hell, she doesn’t do that now, Marie. She just stares at a wall all day. But you’re right. It’s not fair to you to have this all thrown in your lap. Try it my way, and if it makes the girls uncomfortable, we’ll change it.”
I saw her point, I did. Truly. But the thought of giving Trina up when I didn’t even have her was hard enough.
Marie’s jaw worked back and forth. “Fine,”
she said, which really wasn’t fine at all, and we both knew it. “But be smart. With everything you’re saying, she might need more help than you can give her, as much as you want to save her.”
“I’ll be careful.”
She snorted. “Please. You have never been that, and we both know it. Current predicament proves it.”
Well, sure.
She had a point there.
Marie had a point. Trina needed time to heal, but she also needed company. She needed to start talking about what happened. Or at a minimum, start talking about how to heal from all of it. Being alone with her thoughts could only be detrimental to her.
I paused at the landing in my front door only long enough to ensure the house was quiet, that things were good.
The deadness in her eyes and the lack of any kind of hope or life in her tone every time we spoke worried me.
But that was why I was doing this.
She needed help. Someone to talk to, and if it wasn’t me, I’d get her someone. I kicked off my boots and hurried down the stairs. Like usual, it was dark, only the soft light coming from the downstairs bath to light her a path if she got up.
It wasn’t that late, just hitting nine-thirty. I expected to open the door and find her staring at that wall. Maybe at her lap.
A quick knock and silence followed. Sleeping. She was probably sleeping.
We could wait until the morning if she was. That wouldn’t be the worst thing.
I turned the knob and opened the door. It squeaked softly, and I braced to see the pale, lifeless expression on her face she wore like armor.
My heart sank to my feet. A made bed, slightly rumpled covers. A glass of water on the nightstand.
Nobody in it. No Trina anywhere.