CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After demanding that the police at least allow Tabby to put on some clothes before they questioned her, and for them to stop treating her as if she was the villain here, Stuart took her to her bedroom and closed the door.
“Get dressed,” he said to her. “You aren’t staying here tonight.”
Tabby looked at him. “But I can’t let them run me away from my own home. I can’t let them do that to me.”
Stuart considered her. It broke his heart that those idiots disturbed the only place she probably ever had any peace.
That they would desecrate her greatest accomplishment in this life.
It pissed him off. “I get how you feel, Tabitha. But it was just a burglary attempt to those cops since neither one of those boys harmed you.”
“They would have harmed me if you hadn’t come back.”
“But I came back. And they didn’t get a chance to .
. .” He was too afraid to even verbalize it.
“They didn’t get a chance,” he continued.
And that’s all the DA is going to see. Those boys could make bail and be right back next door to you before you know it.
And they’re going to be angry with you. Do you understand that? You are not staying here tonight.”
Tabby saw the determination on Stuart’s face. He seemed as invested in her well-being as she was in her own well-being. Which pleased her, but it baffled her too. Why would he even care?
But apparently he did. His actions, from the moment she met him, showed that he was a good, decent, caring human being who actually did care about her.
And that was why she didn’t argue with him.
If she were to be honest with herself, she knew she couldn’t bear to stay there tonight anyway.
And even as she began putting on a pair of panties with the towel still wrapped around her small body, and as he grabbed her overnight bag and began placing some clothes into it, she didn’t question that either.
She loved that he was taking charge. She needed somebody to take charge of her.
Because after what she’d just experienced, she knew she was in no condition to help herself.
Because the memories were still too raw and too vivid.
She could still remember how she felt when she opened that shower curtain and saw those boys in her bathroom.
And when she saw that Keith had a knife in his hands?
That fear she felt still consumed her. Because it could have gone so wrong if Stuart hadn’t come back.
What would they have done to her? Would they have killed her with that knife? ??
And that look in their eyes when they saw her nakedness. Would they have raped her first? Would those same dudes that always spoke to her and were so friendly to her do that to her? The thought of it was just awful. She could not imagine ever seeing a day when she would be able to get passed this.
“Where is your sleepwear?” Stuart asked as he rummaged through her panties drawer beside her bed. “What do you sleep in?”
Tabby walked over, opened the second drawer, and pulled out a pajama t-shirt that he was certain would barely cover her butt. But it was no big deal to him. He slept in the nude.
But when she handed him that t-shirt to pack and went back to putting on her panties, he could see the distress on her face as she struggled to do even that.
Her leg kept trying to get through the opening in her panties, but she kept missing that hole and would stumble.
When she did it a third time, he went to her, knelt down, and helped her put her first leg in and then her second leg in.
And then he pulled her panties up on her.
She was so embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she said with an anguished look on her face.
She hated feeling so clingy and needy. And then she held three of her fingers to her forehead.
“I’m just . . . I’m just . . .” Her face was moving from side to side as if she was attempting to shake away that memory with everything she had within her.
But Stuart knew there would be no shaking that away.
He placed his hand on her chin, stopping her nervous movements, and lifted her face up again.
“You went through a terrible ordeal, Tabitha. What you’re going through right now and all of the fear you feel, is normal.
Don’t beat yourself up because you aren’t able to cope right now. Nobody would be. That’s normal too.”
When he said those sympathetic words to her, tears reemerged in her large eyes and she nodded her head. She couldn’t speak in that moment, but he knew she heard him. And she completely understood.
“Now finish getting dressed,” he said, “so I can get you out of here.”
She wanted out too. His caring words had given her the permission structure she needed to stop holding onto a strength she did not have.
She still loved her home, and not even those boys were going to run her away from her house, but she couldn’t stay there that night.
She was scared. She hated admitting it, but she was terrified.
And this man, this stranger that had been helping her all day long, allowed her to let go and let somebody else take over for a change.
She didn’t reluctantly let go. She completely and unequivocally let go.