Chapter 11 #2
“He kept coming back to see me, visits where he’d ask me about school and my friends, innocent stuff like that.
When he brought me a gift on my sixteenth birthday, I almost cried because I couldn’t believe anyone even remembered.
I mean…the foster parents who ran the home remembered, but they were paid to, and I got the same birthday cake and gift card everyone did.
Briggs had bought me the softest, prettiest blue sweater I’d ever seen.
He said it reminded him of my eyes. After that, I was under his spell, so flattered to have caught the attention of an attractive police officer.
I guzzled down his compliments and praise like a drunk falling off the wagon after years of sobriety. ”
Theo growled. It was a low, guttural sound, and he hadn’t even meant to do it. It captured Gretchen’s attention, and for the first time since she’d started talking, she looked at him.
“Why were the foster parents letting this grown man in to see you?” He couldn’t fucking understand. He really couldn’t.
“I told you, Briggs was a police officer. He spent a lot of time at the home, serving as a mentor to the kids, sometimes returning them after they’d been arrested for doing stupid shit like vandalism or shoplifting.
He was a regular face there, and the foster parents liked him.
Everyone liked him. And I think they thought it was nice that someone held in such high regard in the community had taken an interest in me.
He took me under his wing like a big brother, bringing me small gifts and offering advice as I maneuvered my way through high school.
I was…what’s the word you keep using? A wallflower.
Quiet, withdrawn. Briggs was one of the few people I talked to after Shaw left, so why wouldn’t they allow the visits?
All we were doing was talking, and always in the common rooms. We were never alone together. ”
That wasn’t all Briggs was doing, but he didn’t say it. Didn’t need to. Gretchen had already used the word. She’d figured out he’d been grooming her.
“When did that change?” he asked.
“The day I turned eighteen, he showed up with another gift—a suitcase. I thought it was the perfect present, because I was only a week away from graduation and when I left my mom’s, I’d been forced to pack my things in a trash bag.
I told him that, and he remembered me saying how much it embarrassed me to show up at the group home like that.
It highlighted to me that from that moment on, I was homeless.
The suitcase felt like a new beginning.”
“Did you use it? Did you move out?”
Gretchen hesitated, and he could tell this was where the story got harder for her to tell.
“He came to my high school graduation. He was the only one in the crowd who was there just for me. He took pictures and looked at me with so much pride. Then he told me he loved me, that he’d always loved me.
He said he knew I didn’t have any plans for the future…
so he invited me to come live with him.”
Theo closed his eyes, swallowing hard against the bile rising in his throat.
“I didn’t have anywhere to go. And here was this handsome older man, the one who remembered my birthday, who made me feel special, saying he wanted to be with me. It didn’t feel like a hard decision at the time.”
“You were eighteen.” It was the only thing Theo could focus on without completely losing it. If he considered all the other ways the asshole had preyed on her…
“It was okay at the beginning. I was happy with him. It was a little bit like playing house, you know? I cleaned and cooked and he went to work. We watched TV at night, and sometimes we’d go out with some of his cop buddies and their girlfriends.
He was always…” She blew out a slow breath, searching for a word.
“Strict. He liked things done a certain way, like the laundry and the way I dressed, styled my hair, the things we ate. He didn’t like when I danced or talked to other men.
I tried really hard to do what he asked, because I wanted to make him happy.
” She lowered her head to her knees again, her words muffled when she spoke.
“I don’t think I… I don’t want to relive all of this again. ”
Theo understood that. She’d been systematically taking him from point A to point B, probably in hopes that he would understand why she went with Briggs and why she stayed. He didn’t need to hear anything more than he already had.
“He started hitting you.” Theo didn’t form it as a question because it wasn’t one.
She nodded without looking up.
“How long were you with him?”
“A little over six years.”
Theo did the easy math. She’d made her break from the man right before arriving in Gracemont. That was when he recalled her showing up that first day in a turtleneck, completely inappropriate for the temperature. What had she been hiding?
“Is this the first time you left him?”
She shook her head, which was still buried against her knees. “No. I tried three times before.”
Jesus.
“Look at me, kitten,” he said gently.
She lifted her head.
“Why did you go back?”
Theo had never seen tears flow so quickly. One second, her eyes were dry, the next, they were flooding over.
Every particle of his being wanted to reach out for her, to hold her. “Can I come closer?”
She nodded instantly, her lack of hesitation loosening some of the pressure on his chest.
Theo slid across the floor, keeping a few inches between them. He wasn’t touching her anywhere, but at least from here, if she reached out to him, he could.
Gretchen sniffled, wiping her eyes. Theo reached up to the desk, feeling around until he found the box of tissues there. He handed it to her, and she accepted it gratefully, wiping her nose and eyes. “I’m an ugly crier,” she said, her first attempt at humor.
Theo couldn’t laugh. “There’s not a single ugly thing about you.”
Her eyes had been darting around, from his chest to his cheeks to his forehead. For the first time, her gaze met his and held. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
“I would never lie to you.”
More of that pressure on his chest lifted, because for the first time ever, Gretchen wasn’t looking at him with doubt, or suspicion, or even hope. This time, he saw belief.
She believed him.
“Why did you go back?” he repeated, aware that if she started crying again, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from reaching out to hold her. Her tears killed him.
“It wasn’t my choice. I ran out of fear, and I wasn’t smart about it. I trusted the wrong people.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The first time he choked me…” She paused as her hands rose to her throat.
Gretchen had said she didn’t want to relive it. He understood that now, because he wasn’t sure he could handle hearing it.
“I was afraid he was going to kill me. When he finally let go, I slumped to the floor, and he stormed off to bed. I waited until I was sure he was asleep, and I ran. Ran to the house of a woman I thought was a friend. Destiny dated Briggs’s partner, Darryl, on the force, so we hung out with them a lot, did couples things.
They lived a few miles away, and I don’t drive, and I didn’t have any money, so I ran there. ”
In the middle of the night, Theo thought, the image of it stabbing him like daggers.
“I told Destiny what happened, showed her the marks on my neck. She hugged me, told me to calm down, then said I could sleep on the couch. It was the first time in a long time I fell asleep feeling safe. I shouldn’t have.”
“What did she do?”
“She called Briggs, told him I was there.”
“Why the fuck would she do that?” he snapped.
“You have to understand, the face Briggs shows the world is very different from the one I saw at home. He showed up there first thing in the morning with a huge bouquet of roses and a big apologetic show that was all for Darryl and Destiny’s benefit, not mine.
He lied and told them I’d had a psychotic episode, that the bruises were the result of him trying to restrain me.
And they believed him. They always believed him.
Then, he drove me home, ripped the flowers out of my hands, swung them at me like a whip until they were nothing but stems. The thorns cut into my skin.
I have a few scars on my shoulder from…” She shook her head.
“That doesn’t really matter. He told me if I ever left him again, he’d fucking kill me. ”
“Jesus Christ.” Theo grasped Gretchen’s trembling hands, holding them firmly in his. He recalled the panic in her eyes when he’d given her the yellow roses. He was never giving her roses again. Any other flower. But not roses.
“I didn’t try to leave again for a year.
I was too afraid. The second time, I was even more stupid and desperate.
I ran to my mother. She blamed me for the failing relationship, and Ivan forced me into their car.
He drove me back to Briggs and offered some suggestions on ways to punish me. Briggs listened.”
Theo lifted her hands, kissing her palms softly, every word she spoke more painful than the next.
“My next attempt was a few weeks later. I stole money from Briggs’s wallet and managed to get all the way to the bus station before he came roaring up in his squad car, siren blaring and lights flashing.
He said I was under arrest. Handcuffed me, read me my rights, and drove me back home, even as I begged the people at the bus station for help.
I didn’t try again after that. Not for a couple of years. Not until September.”
He wanted to ask why she stopped trying, but he was afraid she might close down again.
Then she answered the unspoken question. “He cracked three of my ribs that last time. I was too afraid after that to…” She lifted one shoulder.
They fell silent for a few minutes, her hands still clasped tightly in his. He was never going to be able to let them go. Never.