Chapter 13 Lila
LILA
“Uh, I think the formula should be in the cupboard above the fridge, if you need it,” I tell Martin as I stuff a few things into my bag. “I pumped before you came, so there should be plenty of that to get through the evening, but if not—”
“Lila.”
Martin stops me dead in my tracks as I rush to and fro, trying to make sure everything is taken care of before I leave the house. I look up to where he’s standing with Matty in his arms, Ross doing tummy time on the floor below.
“I work with kids every day,” he reminds me gently. “I know what I’m doing. Just go—you’ve got nothing to worry about, alright?”
I close my eyes and let out a long breath. I know he’s right, of course. But it’s the first time that the twins have been left alone with anyone who isn’t Sofia or me, and I’m still getting used to the thought of handing them over to someone else. Even their father.
“Right,” I reply, checking the time. “Sorry, I have to go, I need to catch my bus…”
“I could call you a—”
“I want to do this on my own,” I tell him, a little more sharply than I intend. Rubbing a hand over my face, I sigh. “I’m sorry,” I apologize. “Just…a lot on my mind lately.”
“No need to apologize,” he replies, nodding to the door. “I’ve got this. Go—get whatever you need to do done.”
I manage to smile at him before I make for the door, dropping a kiss on both of the baby’s heads before I leave. And as soon as my footsteps echo around the stairwell to announce that I am well and truly on my own, a weight settles back down on my shoulders.
It’s not just about leaving the twins alone with someone else, though that is part of it, of course.
No, it’s the reason that I know I have no choice but to get out of here and spend the next couple of hours at the police station, the reason that I was so upset when Sofia had to take a trip out of town to deal with an issue with her one-time foster family.
I came home to find another note pushed under the door. And I know I need to make a move to put things right before Thom does any more harm to me or my family.
I can still remember the moment I saw it, the sheer shock and horror that twisted through me when I came home to find another paper slipped beneath the doorway after that meet-up with Martin.
I had been so freaked out about the thought of someone following me that I almost allowed myself to forget that it was the same place he had struck the first time.
And when I unfolded the note, it was nothing more than a sketch of a pair of eyes, signed once again with his initials.
At first, I tried to ignore it. Tried to shove it down in my memory.
I asked Sofia, as casually as I could, if she had heard anything or anyone coming by the apartment while I’d been out, but she told me no.
The way she reacted, it was clear she imagined whoever I had been out with might have come by to leave me a grand bouquet of roses, and I didn’t have it in me to tell her the truth.
But I’ve been turning it over and over in my head since then, and I know I have to do something about it.
He’s only going to get more emboldened as time passes, and I refuse to put my babies through the same shit that I put up with for so long.
What I accepted for myself is a million miles removed from what I will accept for my children.
And that means I need to get the police involved.
I studied law for a while, so I know that getting these things on file is the most important move I can make.
I don’t know if they’ll grant me a restraining order or even a protective notice with the evidence that I have, but if I can put it all together, get it registered on the system, then I have a better chance of taking him down if he tries anything else anytime soon.
I wish I had some pictures of the bruises he left on me over the years, the marks from yanking me around the apartment in a rage when he felt I’d stayed out to late, the texts berating me for what I had or hadn’t done in his mind, but I had deleted them all, trying my best to pretend that none of it had ever happened in the first place.
I’m not sure I convinced even myself with that, but hey, I had to try.
The bus rumbles below me as I make my way across the city, and I stare out of the window blankly.
I wish Sofia was here. I don’t blame her for having her own problems, not a chance; she’s already done more than her fair share of childcare since the twins came along.
But having her here at my side would have been helpful.
She might have been able to speak to the police about what she saw from Thom over the years, or rather, the way he had cut me off from everyone around me.
Though that would have involved admitting to her that he’d been in touch with me again, and that’s the last thing I want. I’ve already asked for enough from her. She doesn’t deserve to be dragged further into the mess of my personal life.
Martin, thank God, didn’t ask me about what it is that’s keeping me busy tonight.
I don’t know if I could even explain it to him if I wanted to.
I feel like such an idiot for the way everything has gone down, and it’s hard to pretend that the weight of it doesn’t still feel like it’s dragging me to the bottom of the fucking ocean.
He saw me the night I fled Thom’s grasp.
He saw the bruises and how frightened I was.
Maybe he’s already strung the pieces together enough that he doesn’t need an explanation, but either way, I’m not in any hurry to give it to him.
I’m just glad he’s willing to step up and do the parenting thing when I ask him to.
The twins are young enough now that I hope they won’t remember much of this particular interaction, so I won’t have to explain why their father was around sometimes and absent the rest. But I can cross that bridge when I come to it.
Right now, I just want to try and get this case moving, and keep Thom as far away from my family as I possibly can.
I arrive at the police station and stare up at the imposing building for a moment.
Still time to turn around and pretend like none of this is happening…
but I screw up my courage and force myself to take the steep steps two at a time, reaching into my bag to close my hand around the note and remind myself why I’m seeing this through.
“Hi,” I greet the receptionist, putting on my warmest smile.
In the couple of years I managed at college, I learned what kind of victim law enforcement responds best to, and I can try and embody that in every way I can.
I have to be sweet, pleasant, seem like I might be in need of help, so a little needy too—not the easiest balancing act to pull off, but I’m going to do what I can.
“How can I help you?” she asks, slightly bored, as she raises her gaze from her phone to make eye contact with me.
“I was hoping I could speak to one of the officers on duty about a problem I’m having with an ex,” I explain, biting my lip. “I—I think he might be stalking me.”
“You think?”
“I have evidence,” I reply quickly. Can’t seem too needy—if I walked in looking like I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, they would turn me away on the spot. She nods, frowning, and reaches for her phone, muttering something down the line and then turning to me.
“Someone’ll be with you in five minutes,” she tells me, nodding to the plastic chairs adhered to the wall at the other side of the reception area. “Wait there.”
I do as I’m told, clutching my bag in my lap and staring at the floor.
I try not to make eye contact with anyone, fearful that it will seem like I’m trying to invite attention.
A brief burst of commotion explodes into the waiting room as a man is dragged through the doors in cuffs, yelling for his lawyer, but he’s quickly hustled down an adjacent corridor, gone as quickly as he arrived.
A few minutes later, an officer appears before me. A man—damn, I had been hoping for a woman. They are, statistically, a little more sympathetic when it comes to cases like this one. Still, when he nods to me, I rise to my feet and smile.
“Hello—”
“You said you’ve had trouble with an ex-boyfriend?” he asks, jerking his head toward one of the small rooms attached to the reception area.
I nod. I would much rather not have everyone sitting here know that too, but looks as though I’m not going to get a choice.
“Come on, follow me…”
He scribbles down my name and address on a form once we’re inside the room, and he turns to me, eyebrows raised expectantly, as he waits for me to fill him in on what’s been going on.
“So?”
“So, uh, my ex and I had a strained relationship,” I begin, doing my best to remember everything that I’d planned out in my head for this conversation before I got here.
“And I—when we split up, I thought he was done with me. But then, a few weeks ago, I found a note under my door at my new apartment—which I never gave him the address to—which was signed with his initial.”
“You have it?” he asks impatiently, holding his hand out.
I shake my head. “Not that one, but I have another note that I’m certain he left recently,” I reply, reaching into my bag. I push it across the table toward him, and he plucks it between thumb and forefinger, frowning as he stares at it.
“This is it?”
I nod.
“This is just a sketch.”
“With his initial on it,” I reply, tapping the paper where it’s signed with a T. “I don’t know anyone else who uses that initial, so—”
“Could just be a piece of paper that you got stuck to your shoe while you were out,” he replies bluntly. “Plenty of people do street art, doodling on napkins or whatever—”
“It was pushed under my door when I came home,” I tell him, doing everything in my power to keep my voice steady, even though all I want to do is tell him off for being such an asshole. It’s like he doesn’t even care—like he doesn’t believe me at all.
He cocks an eyebrow, and pushes it back toward me. “It’s not enough for us to do anything with,” he replies. “But I can make a note of it, if you want.”
“Please do,” I reply. “I want it on file that I came in here to talk about this, in case something happens in the future.”
“It—”
He stops himself in his tracks. I sense that he wants to tell me I’m just being paranoid and that I have nothing to worry about, but he thinks better of it before he comes out with the words explicitly.
“Fine.”
He takes the note and carries it to another room, where I hope to God he is actually doing something with it and not just tossing it to the back of the evidence locker to be entirely forgotten. When he returns, he holds open the door for me, and gestures for me to go.
“That’s all we need from you.”
I almost want to remind him that he’s not the one who gets to decide that—that I’m the one who’s going through something here, and he doesn’t have the right to brush me off or tell me when we’re done here.
But pissing him off is only going to make things worse, and I know it. I force a grateful smile onto my face and make my way out the door, praying that this is the end of it, praying that this is the last time I have to set foot in a place like this.
But I get the horrible feeling it won’t be.
I make it out onto the street before a rush of discomfort courses through me, forcing me to sink down on one of the steps next to the station.
I close my eyes, trying to keep the shadows from swirling around my vision, but I can’t help it.
Talking about him like that, even acknowledging any of what happened when we were together, it’s…
it’s still more than I can take. More than I ever wanted to.
God, how could I have been so stupid? That’s the question that keeps bothering me the most. Doesn’t matter how many times I remind myself that plenty of smart women get caught up in abusive relationships, that it’s nothing to do with your intellectual capacity and everything to do with the man carrying out that abuse, I still can’t get over how I let him snake his way into every corner of my existence.
I fell for his lies when he told me that I could move in and he would support me through college.
I had nowhere to go, fresh out of the foster care system, and he was a shining light in the middle of it.
I allowed him to convince me that he was just worried about me, and that was why he didn’t want me staying out late, or seeing my friends, or leaving the apartment at all, if I could avoid it.
I twisted myself into knots trying to please him, playing housewife on top of the demanding study schedule that I’d signed up for until there was no room for both.
It was easy for him to nudge me just a little further, to tell me that I didn’t belong at college at all if it was causing me all that stress, and that I would be better off just staying home and taking care of the apartment for him.
I let him do all of that. I let him take control of me, to close the walls in until whatever life I’d had outside of this was gone. And now, I have to contend with him believing that he still has that kind of power over me, except I have my kids to think about in the midst of it too.
I don’t know if I can live like this, with the weight of it hanging over my head, but I don’t see what other choice I have.
“Are you alright?”
A woman’s concerned voice cuts through the panic in my head, and I look up, face streaked with tears, to find an older woman with a gray bob watching me with obvious worry.
“I—I’m fine,” I reply as I straighten up, dusting off the crud that’s clinging to my jeans. “I just—I need to get to my bus, that’s all…”
“You want me to walk you there?” she offers kindly.
And all at once, I feel another surge of emotion course through me.
There’s something about someone going out of their way to be so kind to me in the midst of this that’s somehow harder for me to take than the rejection by the cops.
I expected that, to some extent—I’m used to being let down by people, ignored, brushed off.
But being treated like I’m worth something?
That’s not exactly easy for me to wrap my head around.
I smile, hoping I don’t look too crazy with the tears.
“Thank you,” I reply, as she offers me an arm. “I’d love that.”