Break My Fall (22 page)

“Are you hurt Lee?” she asked.

She put her arms around me and squeezed. I sobbed loudly, I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t catch my breath.

“Shh, Lee it’s okay, you’re safe. No one is going to hurt you. Breathe.”

I was too scared to breathe.

I panted and gasped.

Cam checked me over and blanched when she saw my wrist.

“Uh, you stupid fuck, look at what you did. Look at her fucking hand Kyle.”

I looked down at my hand, and sure enough there was purple Kyle shaped fingerprints on my wrist.

“Lee I’m sorry,” Kyle said in desperate voice.

He moved towards me as if to hold me.

I scrambled away and backed up closer to Cam.

She wrapped her arms around me protectively, rubbing my back in slow steady circles.

Kyle’s whole body shuddered, “Jesus, I’m so fucking sorry.”

I calmed slightly at the sight of his torn expression.

I nodded and covered my wrist with my other hand.

“Get him out of here,” Cam growled as she held me tighter.

When they didn’t move, she screamed; “Get him out of here Derek. NOW.”

Derek grabbed Kyle’s shoulders and walked him from the room.

“Shh just breathe Lee. Breathe,” Cam whispered, as the shudders rolled over me, and I finally caught my breath.

KYLE

“What the fuck was that?”

Derek was speaking to me but I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t breathe.

The sight of Lee huddled on the floor terrified of me. Her hand… I was the lowest of the low.

There were no words to describe the kind of bastard I was.

Derek pushed me down on the couch, and paced the room.

“Dude what the hell just happened? What was that?”

I looked at him blankly.

I was hoping he could tell me.

The door opened and Cam closed it quietly behind her.

I stood as she strode towards me.

She grabbed my shirt.

“Listen to me dipshit, if you ever lay so much as a finger on that girl again, I will rip your fucking heart out.”

“Cam, I didn’t…” I stopped.

I didn’t know what to say.

I had no excuses.

“I didn’t realize I had her gripped that hard, I’ve been drinking.”

Pitiful excuse but it was the truth.

I honest to god hadn’t realized her wrist was in my hand. I’d been so caught up in what she was saying.

Cam exhaled sharply, “She came here to get away from one abusive bastard, not to find another.”

My heart stopped.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Who had Lee come here to get away from?

Abusive bastard?

“Cam, you better start talking,” I warned.

“Don’t go there Carter. I keep enough of your secrets. This is not my story to tell,” she sighed.

“Maybe you should have asked Lee why she was here before you went and scared the life out of her. I mean are you that stupid Kyle? I told you she was fragile. I warned you to stay away from her. You better fucking pray that she doesn’t run again. Because if she goes back; she’s finished. Believe it or not Kyle, that girl has lived through more horror than you could dream up. What she has suffered would make you pray for death. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s not here tomorrow, god knows I’d be gone if I were her.”

Cam stormed out of the room.

Derek, who had been standing quietly behind me, sighed.

“Dude what the fuck was that?”

I had no idea.

But I was going to find out.

LEE

Cam lay on my bed facing me.

I didn’t remember climbing the stairs or getting into bed.

She looked sad.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

She sniffed, and wiped a tear from her eye.

“I love you Lee. You know that don’t you?”

I nodded.

I knew Cam loved me.

She was the only person in the world who did.

“So I’m going to ask you some questions, and if you can’t say the answers out loud, then just shake or nod your head okay?”

I nodded, smiling at the old game she was playing with me.

This was how Cam had talked to me, when I couldn’t talk.

“Did it stop? After I left, did he stop?”

I quivered, and shook my head.

Tears well from both our eyes as Cam wrapped her fingers around mine.

“Did it get worse? More violent?”

I nodded.

Cam blanched as sucked in a deep breath.

I did not attempt to lie.

Cam knew well what my father was capable of.

She had seen the bruises on my body for years.

“Is that why you don’t like to wear revealing clothes? Are you scarred?”

I nodded again.

Tears were pouring from my eyes, but I couldn’t make a sound.

I knew what her next question would be.

“Lee can I see?”

I nodded and shifted onto my stomach.

She pulled up my nightshirt and gasped.

She started to cry and pulled me into a hug.

“You’re not going back there. I don’t care what happens between you and Kyle. I’m gonna take of you. Promise me Lee. Promise me you’ll never go back there.”

I nodded, as I leaned against her.

“I promise.”

I was still awake when Cam slipped out of my room an hour later.

I expected her to leave.

She had Derek, and needed to be with him, but when she came back into my room a few minutes later with some ice for my hand, I felt a silent tear fall from my eyes.

Chapter Twenty 

LEE

I woke with another pounding headache.

This was becoming the norm, I thought drowsily, as sunlight beamed through my curtains.

I stretched in bed flexing my arms out and yelped in surprise as a sharp pain shot up my wrist.

I pulled my hand out from under the covers for closer inspection.

I groaned as last night’s debacle flooded my mind.

I thought maybe I had dreamt the whole thing up, but no Kyle’s fingerprints were bruised into my skin; skin that was now purple and swollen.

I tried to move it, but a much sharper pain jolted through me so I stopped.

Uh crap, how was I going to work with one hand, waitressing required the use of both hands.

I moaned loudly and dragged my tired body up.

I didn’t want to be in this room anymore; Rachel had tainted it with her poison.

I went downstairs to the kitchen to use the phone.

I didn’t have a cell phone, and I needed to contact Linda and let her know I wouldn’t be in work today.

She answered on the first ring and had already heard about my injured hand; Mr. Carter had signed me off work for the rest of the week.

When I hung up I headed straight over to turn on the percolator.

Coffee, I definitely needed to make some.

I was surprised to see it was already made for me.

I was usually the first up in the morning.

“Lee.”

Cam’s voice sounded from behind me and I jumped with surprise.

I hadn’t seen her there at all.

“God you scared me Cam.”

I walked over to the table and sat beside her.

She pushed a cup towards me.

“How are you feeling? You want to talk about things?”

I could hear the sympathy rolling from the question, I cringed.

I neither needed, nor wanted sympathy from anyone ever again.

I left that behind me.

“I’m fine Cam; last night just brought back some ugly memories for me.”

I lifted my cup with my sore wrist and whimpered, quickly changing hands.

“Hmm I figured that out Lee. But last night was about more than your father. Wasn’t it?”

I noticed the sadness laced in her tone of voice, it wasn’t hard to miss.

She looked at me when I didn’t answer and nodded.

“Fair enough, you’ll talk when you’re ready.”

I felt awful.

She had taken me in with no explanation, and the girl was a good friend to me; my only friend.

Cam deserved to know why I had ended up on her doorstep.

I took a deep breath

“Two months before I came here, I was attacked.”

There I had said it.

I heard Cam gasp.

“You were robbed?” she asked.

I wished it had been so uncomplicated. I would have happily handed over my purse if it meant my life stayed on course.

“Uh no, it was a different kind of attack.”

I ducked my head in shame.

“Oh fuck no,” she shouted.

I cringed from the tone of her voice.

I glanced at her face; she looked murderous.

“You don’t believe me.”

Of course she didn’t.

No one had believed me when I went to the police, not even my father.

“Believe you? Of course I believe you Lee.”

She grabbed me and pulled me towards her.

I tensed, but relaxed into her embrace.

“When you say you were attacked,” she paused, clearly struggling with how to sentence the next question.

“He didn’t,” I said, “I mean he nearly did, but I got away.”

Barely, I wanted to add but I didn’t think Cam needed to hear the gory details.

“Oh thank god,” she said relieved, “Who was he? Did you see his face? He was charged wasn’t he? Tell me you nailed the bastard to the cross Lee.”

I sucked in a shuddering breath, holding back the tears.

“Yes I knew him, his name is Perry Franklin; he was in my English class at school. It happened after prom. I wasn’t supposed to go, but when Perry asked me, Cam I really wanted to go. Daddy was gone out of town on work and I had just wanted to be normal for one night, to experience one normal teenage moment. Prom was a complete disaster anyway, but he didn’t touch me until he dropped me home.”

I cringed thinking back.

“Keep going,” was all Cam said.

“When I got out of the car, he walked me to my door, but he wouldn’t leave…”

I couldn’t say the words aloud.

“Tell me Lee,” Cam coaxed.

“He touched me,” I whispered.

“He tore my dress, held me down, and he tried to...”

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

I could remember the feel of his rough fingers ripping my panties away, as he tried to shove his hand inside me.

“Bruno attacked him before he could…he bit him on the ankle.”

I inhaled a shaky breath.

“I reported the attack but I wasn’t taken seriously and no charges were filed. My case was thrown out. I was so afraid it would happen again, that he would get me the next time, he had threatened he would. He called me a cock-tease.”

I burst into tears.

“He had said it was my fault Cam, that I led him on, everyone believed him.” I sniffed the tears back, “Well you know the way my father is, he was very upset with me.”

Cam frowned.

“Hold up, he was upset with you?” she sounded appalled.

“Well, daddy didn’t believe me, he said that I must have encouraged him, led him on. He said I was…and he…”

I stopped.

I couldn’t say it.

I couldn’t tell her about daddy’s belt, and the whooping he gave me for being ‘a dirty whore’ and ‘easy’.

“He had called me some names and punished me. I think that was why I lost with Kyle last night. He called me those names. Daddy refused to take me to the hospital afterwards; he said it was my punishment.”

I now carried the scars every day to teach me a lesson.

“What did he hit you with Lee?” Cam asked, “I’m guessing from the scars on your back that it wasn’t his fist?”

I shook my head and Cam hissed.

“I can’t believe this. You told me it stopped Lee. I would have never left you there with him if I knew.”

She was crying again.

“This is not your fault Cam. You couldn’t have stopped it any more than I could.”