Chapter 25 Another Statistic
ANOTHER STATISTIC
“I’m famished. I didn’t think I even had the energy for our shower and then burned even more.”
She reached for a second slice of pizza at the small table off the side of his kitchen. More like a nook between the kitchen and family room with a pretty bay window looking into a fenced-in backyard.
This was the American dream home in her eyes.
Something she’d always wished for and knew she’d never have.
Home ownership wasn’t in the cards for her.
Just being able to afford an apartment on her own was a big enough step she’d yet to climb.
Which didn’t explain why she thought she was going to do this on her own in Canada.
She’d find a way if she had to.
She just hoped it didn’t come to executing her original plan.
This past month gave her a glimpse of a real life. One she always imagined and never thought she could have.
She’d work damn hard to keep it.
“Glad I could help,” he said. He reached for another piece too. “And this pizza never tasted so good.”
She laughed. He smiled when she did. “You should smile more. It makes you more handsome.”
“I think I’m a pretty happy guy,” he said. “Most times.”
“I haven’t seen otherwise. I understand your job is serious and you can’t go around laughing and joking the whole time, but people aren’t fearful of you.”
“Ouch,” he said, his hand going to his heart. “That’s my pride you just pierced.”
“Very cute.” This was the Ford from middle school. The one trying to be playful and work a laugh or smile out of her. “I meant I think they are fearful of crossing you, but not so afraid to approach you.”
“Okay, you redeemed yourself there. That’s been my goal.”
“You’ve achieved it. You can see how everyone views you. At least I can. I saw it today. You’re one of them in that setting, but they still know you’re the sheriff and you will not let infractions slide if they are serious enough.”
“No,” he said. “I can’t. I wouldn’t put my job in jeopardy.”
“Do you think you are by watching out for me?”
He sighed. “No. I’m trusting that you haven’t broken the law.”
“I haven’t. I’m not lying. The most I’m guilty of is trying to get Oliver held there while I had time to escape. He’s never gotten arrested for what he’s done to me.”
“Reenie, you could have pressed charges.”
He didn’t understand. “Ford. You don’t get it. I told you, he knew people. When I went into the hospital for my ribs, I lied and said I fell. I hadn’t been in before, they had no reason to doubt it.”
“What about your jaw?” he asked.
“Same thing. A few people gave me curious glances, and others asked me some serious questions. They suspected it, but I said I was fine.”
“And your arm?”
She dipped her head down, her voice lower. “That time, they questioned it. There was an officer there for another reason and a nurse must have gone to get him to check on me. Oliver was with me. He knew the guy and I got a once over as if I was invisible.”
“Nothing happened?”
“They were talking about getting together in a few days and a few other things I didn’t understand.
Things they were posting together online.
I knew anything I said would fall on deaf ears.
When the officer left, Oliver smirked at me, said that I’d get nowhere if I opened my mouth.
” It was a reminder to stay in her lane.
“I hate that.” His fingers curled into a fist on the table.
She reached over and put her much smaller hand on his until he relaxed, then threaded their fingers together.
“It’s in my past,” she said. “I want to keep it there. Remember, I grew up like that. There was nowhere to go. No one to talk to. You learn to accept it as part of life. ”
“Sometimes you need to talk about the past to move through it.”
He was relentless when he wanted answers.
“My mother was not a nice person. There was always a man in her life and one that shared her bad habits. She knew what she did to me was wrong. Why do you think we moved so much? But there was this evil in her that just liked to prey on people. Drugs and alcohol magnified it. Maybe she got abused as a child and was doing it to feel powerful? I don’t know.
It’s not as if we had heartfelt conversations like that. ”
“How did you get through that? Because you made it out. You’re here.”
“I internalized it. I sat in my room and thought of all the things I wanted to say to her but couldn’t because I knew the outcome.
It wasn’t worth the physical or mental pain, but it was building inside.
I moved out when I could. I went from men to roommates.
More roommates then men, but I just had this hope someone would take care of me. Stupid on my part.”
Ford made her believe even as a child that she could have someone in her life that would care for her. That would be there for her. It never happened.
Every man in her life had offered a sliver of hope only to slowly chip away at another piece of her. Cheating. Abuse, both physical and emotional. Being used, manipulated, discarded. She’d endured it all, clinging to the belief that someday, one man would finally show up and stay.
That would be the man in her corner to have her back.
Never once did she find it again. Other than at age twelve when Ford couldn’t really be the hero she needed.
Until now. Could that be why she had to come back there? Why she had to say goodbye and hope that she got some internal strength to move on.
But there he was, the boy that turned into a man giving her the hope she needed at the worst time in her life.
“Not stupid,” he said. “Because you learned to stop accepting those things in your life.”
“That’s right.” She lifted her chin. “I can’t do it anymore. I won’t. I was smart enough to know that it’d only get worse. All those internal conversations that I had, they were screaming at me to GO. To MOVE. I was going to listen this time.”
“I’m glad you could see that. There are way too many women who don’t and don’t make it.”
Reenie lifted her head to look into his eyes. “I didn’t want to be another statistic.”
“You won’t be.” He pushed back from the table and walked toward the stairs. She heard a door open and close and figured he’d gone into his office.
He returned with a small box in his hand and set it on the table.
“What’s that?”
“Open it,” he said.
She pulled the box closer. It was a jewelry box.
When she flipped the top, there was a gold necklace with a heart charm. There looked to be a tiny diamond in the center.
“This is so pretty.”
“It’s a locket,” he said. “Look inside.”
She used the corner of her thumbnail to pry it apart. “Oh my. Are those our class pictures?”
There was twelve-year-old cocky Ford smiling in the same blue background everyone had.
They took her picture like everyone else’s, but her mother never bought them. She didn’t have a yearbook either, but she knew that was the picture that was put in it.
“They are,” he said. “I bought two yearbooks and cut that picture out of the second one. I was going to give this to you at the end of the school year, but you were gone.”
She’d left right after the last exam.
Reenie never had a chance to say goodbye to Ford in person. She could have called him, but hadn’t.
Her mother would have known there was someone in her life when she’d gone to great lengths to hide that fact. It worked for her that her mother wasn’t around much, allowing her to be with Ford.
If her mother had thought she was getting close to anyone, they would have moved sooner.
“You’ve kept it all these years?”
“I have. I’m giving it to you now.”
She pulled it out of the box and put it on, the gold feeling warm in her palm as she pulled it forward to look again. She’d owned nothing of value before. No real jewelry.
“It’s beautiful. Thank you. I would have loved it back then. I would have treasured it.”
After she had hidden it from her mother.
It was probably best she wasn’t given it prior.
Though she would have cherished it for years. A stronger reminder of what she’d had once in her life.
What she was building again.
Reenie stood up and moved closer to him, then sat in his lap.
His arms came around her, held her close, her head on his shoulder.
She felt so loved in this moment but knew neither of them could say the words.
At least she couldn’t. It’d hurt too much to hear any rejection from him. Worse yet, silence.
“You’ve got it now,” he said. “A reminder I’m always here and always will be.”
She kissed his neck and sniffled some, his hand rubbing up and down her back.
She’d cried enough in front of him and didn’t want to now.
But not wanting something and being able to stop it were two different things.