Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
He sighs. "Yeah, I'll give her a letter." He plops down into the chair, folding his hands on the table in front of him. "Now, what the hell are we gonna do about you, and this trail of blood you left across half of the southeast?"
Victoria
I've been here in Lizzy’s house for two days, but it still feels completely strange to me. I haven't left this room, have barely left this bed. She brings me food, which I eat despite my constant nausea. I eat because Jude asked me to look after the baby, and I will.
Lizzy tries to make conversation with me when she visits, but I can't. I know she wants to ask my questions, but won’t like the answers. She'll think the same as those cops, and the shrink. That I'm delusional, abused... Every time I think of Jude, all I can hear is him shouting that I had Stockholm Syndrome. Was he just saying that or did he mean it?
I shove the comforter off me and go into the bathroom, starting the shower. I slip off my tank top and underwear, and stare at my reflection in the mirror. My body is marred with scars, all injuries inflicted during my time with Jude or Tom. There was a time when I hated them, when I couldn't see them without loathing him and everything he had brought upon me, but now every one reminds me of a time when he would kiss them better, or look at them and tell me I was beautiful regardless.
My eyes trail over the long scar running between my breasts and over my stomach, widening as the skin stretches slightly over the bump. My body is thinner. The last few months and my experience with Joe have taken their toll, except for my rounded stomach which seems to be getting bigger by the day. I want to wallow in this pit of despair, but the more I think about the baby inside me, the more I feel this indescribable urge to fight. Jude may be locked up, but I'm still here, and I'm all she will have.
I get in the shower, washing away the depression of the last few days.
After I've dressed, I step into the kitchen and take a seat at the breakfast bar, watching my sister as she bustles around the cabinets, dancing to the radio. I smile because she seems happy. She spins around and spots me. Lizzy's eyes go wide, and she quickly turns off the music.
"Um... Can... Can I get you anything?" Lizzy always did like to fuss. She's the oldest, the mother if you like.
"I can get it," I tell her. Her treating me like an invalid is not helping. I go to the cupboard and take out a coffee mug, knowing my way around her kitchen almost as well as I did my own. When I turn around, her gaze is fixed on my lifted shirt. On the tiny bump.
"Is... do you know who the father is?" she asks carefully, as though it might upset me.
I place the mug in the coffee maker. "Yeah, it's Jude."
"Oh, God." She presses her hand to her lips, a choked sob leaving her.
"And I will tell you what I told them," I snap. "I love him. He didn't rape me, or manipulate me." I don't know how to make myself any clearer "We were two people thrown into a situation against our will, and... It wasn't planned." It's true. I never in a million years thought I would love Jude, but sometimes, life throws the unexpected at you.
Lizzy fiddles with her watch, something she does when she's nervous. "Ria...”
I wince. "I said, don't call me that.”
"Victoria." She hesitates. "I know you say you were thrown into the situation, but he held you hostage. He should never have done that." She says it as though I can't see this.
"You wouldn't understand."
Her eyes flick to my throat again, the ugly scar my most visible, but certainly not the most awful, because that one I did to myself.
"I think." She flashes me a small smile. "I think maybe you should talk to someone."
I turn away from her as I leave the room. "I'm not crazy, and I'm not talking to someone."
She will never understand this.
***
I'm sitting in the window seat of Lizzy's snug with a book on my lap though I can't register what's written on the pages. Lowe said I had a week, but apparently they didn’t have the necessary evidence, so a week has become a month. A long month without Jude, or Marney, or anyone. Just waiting.
I've tried to call the prison where he's being held, but they won't allow me to speak to him or see him, given the situation.
The silence in the house is peaceful, and I find myself hoping she’ll stay at the store just a little longer. Lizzy was once my best friend, but she now feels like a stranger. Anytime I try to talk to her, she looks at me with pitiful gazes. She doesn’t listen. I have told her over and over again that Jude didn’t force himself on me, that I love him. And the more I say it, the more upset she becomes; the more she treats me like some broken doll. So I’ve stopped talking.