Forsaken (11 page)

“
Is Alex here?” I asked as
I looked around.

“
No, I haven’t seen him,”
Sal said without looking up from her book for even a
moment.

I checked around the house just in
case. It wouldn’t surprise me if Alex had come to help Sal with
something and Sal forgot he was here. But after only a few minutes,
I ruled that Alex wasn’t anywhere at Sal’s.

“
Do you need anything
Sal?” I asked, feeling distracted and only asking out of
habit.

Sal didn’t say anything, or if she did
I didn’t hear or notice. I let myself out the door and walked back
home. I had just gotten back into my apartment and grabbed the
phone to call Rod when I heard the doorbell ring.

I dashed up the stairs to answer it,
expecting anyone else in the world to be there than the person who
was.

“
Amber?” I said in
disbelief as I took her in, standing so unpredictably there in my
doorway.

I nearly didn’t recognize my now
eighteen-year-old sister. Not only had she been thirteen the last
time I had seen her, but her face was slightly distorted looking,
with a massive black eye, a split lip, and another dark shadow on
one of her cheeks.

“
Hi Jess,” she said with a
sad half smile. The action caused her lip to split again, a thin
line of blood forming on it.

“
Oh my gosh!” I gasped.
“Are you okay? Come in here!”

I grabbed her arm and pulled her
inside, closing the door behind us.

“
Amber, what happened?” I
asked as I looked closer at her, my brow furrowed.

She wouldn’t look at me for a moment.
She simply stared at where the stone fireplace rose up into the
rafted ceiling. When she finally did look at me there were tears
swimming in her eyes.

“
I couldn’t go home. I
couldn’t let them see this and I couldn’t cover it up this time,”
she said, the last few words coming out as a sob. She unexpectedly
threw her arms around me, nearly knocking me over. I realized then
she was a good two inches taller than me now.

“
Hey, it’s okay,” I said
softly as I patted her hair, horrified to see the bruised imprint
of fingers on her arm, just below her shoulder. “Who did this to
you?”

“
Todd,” she said with
disgust as she stepped away and wiped tears from her cheeks. I led
her to the couch and we both sat on the aging leather. “I feel so
stupid. He promised he wouldn’t do it again. He said he was sorry
and that he loved me. He knocked me out last night, Jessica, he hit
me that hard.”

“
Amber, I’m so sorry,” I
breathed as I wrapped my arms briefly around her shoulders again.
The anger and hatred that was stirring under my skin surprised me.
I had never had violent feelings toward anyone other than Cole but
the emotions and the actions I wanted to take toward this guy Todd
would surely earn me my own brand one day.

“
I couldn’t go home last
night after I woke up. Mom and Dad tried to warn me. They told me
constantly that Todd was no good for me, that he scared them,” she
took another sniffling sob. “They had no idea how right they were.
But I… I was so sure Todd loved me, and I loved him. I didn’t want
to believe he meant what he was doing to me. And I couldn’t tell
mom and dad, I couldn’t let them be right after all the fights we
had.”

Amber’s sobs were coming closer
together by this point. I took hold of her trembling hand and
rubbed circles into it, trying to calm and comfort her, sensing
there was still more to come and that it wasn’t going to get any
better.

“
When I woke up, Todd was
gone and I just knew that I had to get out of there. I’m not sure
I’d survive the next time he comes after me,” she said, taking deep
breaths.

Chills ran down my back as I listened
to my sister. My thoughts drifted to Sal, who was the way she was
because of an abusive husband. He had nearly killed her one night
and she’d been lucky to have survived. She wasn’t whole afterward,
but at least she was alive.

“
I couldn’t stay in Ucon;
Todd would always be able to find me. And I couldn’t go home only
to be told ‘I told you so’. I didn’t know where else to go so I
came here. I’m sorry to barge in on you like this but I didn’t know
where else to go,” she said with another sob as she collapsed into
my arms, burying her face in my chest.

“
Hey,” I said firmly.
“You’re not barging in at all. Of course you’re welcome, you’re my
sister.”

She was quiet for a minute as her
shaking and sobbing calmed. “Good thing I went digging through
dad’s desk that day. If I hadn’t found your address written on that
paper I don’t know where else I would have gone.”

I chuckled slightly. “I was wondering
how you found out where I was. I worked pretty hard to make sure
they couldn’t find me. Dad managed to get to me though.”

Amber was quiet for a while longer,
her body becoming relaxed and limp against mine. “I’ve missed you
Jessica,” she said quietly and sat up to look at me.

I noticed the bags under her eyes now,
the way they were blood shot. I then realized that to have gotten
here at the time she did, considering she was in Ucon last night,
she’d have had to drive through the night.

I gave her a small smile. “Why don’t
you go lay down?” I said quietly. “You look like you could use some
sleep.”

She gave a little chuckle. “I probably
look how you always used to look.”

I gave an uncomfortable laugh at this,
unsure how to react to what she said. I would have rather pretended
like my horrible past involving the nightmares and my family’s
reactions didn’t exist.

Amber stood and followed me to the
master bedroom on the main floor that was never used. She was
asleep just moments after her head hit the pillow.

I closed the door to the bedroom and
leaned against it. It was only after a few moments that I realized
my hands were shaking violently. I came up with two reasons why.
One, I was unbelievably furious with the man who thought it was
okay to use my little sister as a punching bag and two, I hadn’t
been prepared to see a member of my family today, the ones I had
run away from. Especially the one who looked like a cloned, younger
version of my mom.

I needed someone to talk to and with
this desperate thought I remembered how Alex was unexplainably
missing.

A call to Rod’s cell phone yielded no
answer as did Emily’s. Just two cheerful sounding recordings of
each of them, instructing me to leave a message.

A part of me was saying that I was
over-reacting and being a clingy, possessive, and needy girlfriend
but another part of me knew something was off. This wasn’t normal
behavior for Alex. When you lived nearly every waking moment with
someone, you learn their behaviors pretty well.

I couldn’t go out and look for him. I
couldn’t leave Amber here by herself and besides, I had no idea
where to start considering every means of transportation Alex owned
were all still here.

I didn’t know what else to do and
trying to convince myself that I was just overreacting and that
Alex was just fine, I set about doing laundry. Laundry had a way of
clearing my head when I was upset or stressed. I needed something
to take my mind off the worry that was eating away at me and
laundry did the job of numbing it. Or at least I pretended it
did.

The hours ticked away, every passing
one driving me nearly crazy. There was no sign of Alex, still no
answer from either Rod’s or Emily’s cell phones. I checked on Amber
nearly once an hour just to make sure she was still breathing. I
debated if I needed to take her to the hospital but decided she
probably needed her rest as much as anything else.

I was making a sandwich when some form
of relief came. The door to the master bedroom opened and a groggy,
yet slightly more refreshed looking Amber came stumbling
out.

“
Would you make me one of
those?” she said, her eyes brightening slightly.

“
Sure, you can have this
one,” I said as I handed her the grilled cheese sandwich I had just
pulled off the pan. “I’ll make another.”

Amber took the sandwich with a pained
looking smile and sat at the bar.

“
How are you feeling?” I
asked as I sliced some more cheese.

She swallowed her bite before she
spoke. “My head hurts worse but it feels a little clearer. You know
I don’t do well without enough sleep.”

I chucked at this. It was strange
remembering all these little details from when I had still lived at
home. It felt like another lifetime ago. Things had changed so much
since then, for the better.

“
So what do you do to be
able to afford such a nice house?” she asked, wiping crumbs from
her hands onto the plate.

“
Oh, um…” I stuttered as I
flipped the sandwich over. “It’s actually not mine. It’s
Alex’s.”

“
Who’s Alex?”

My brow furrowed as I looked over my
shoulder at her. “Did dad never tell you about Alex?”

“
Dad didn’t say anything
about anyone, including you. I’m just now realizing he must have
gone to see you those times when he suddenly ran off. He said there
was some kind of emergency but wouldn’t say a word. He must have
eventually told mom though cause your name started popping up again
in hushed conversations.”

It suddenly felt as if there was a
rock in the pit of my stomach. My dad had told me my mother wanted
to talk to me on my birthday. What had they been saying about me?
Was he going to tell her how to find me?

“
Alex is… uh, my
boyfriend,” I said, pushing that thought out of my mind. The word
boyfriend didn’t seem adequate enough to describe what Alex was.
When someone gives their life for you, boyfriend just doesn’t quite
cut it.

“
I never would have pegged
you as the girl to live with your boyfriend,” she said with a
slight smirk.

“
It’s kind of
complicated,” I said with a smile, remembering the first night Alex
and I had met. I had nearly attacked him with a baseball bat in the
stairwell.

“
Spill it, sister,” Amber
said with a smile creeping into the corner of her lips.

I couldn’t help but smile as well as I
launched into the story of how I care took the house, how Alex’s
grandparents had died, leaving everything to Alex. It was slightly
more difficult telling how Alex and I had come to be in a more
intimate relationship without saying anything about Cole and the
entire nightmare situation.

“
So where is he then?”
Amber asked, her face alight with excitement. “When can I meet
him?”

“
Um…” I hesitated, feeling
a hard, cold knot forming in my stomach. “I’m not sure where he is
right now, actually. It’s kind of weird, we’re kind of inseparable
pretty much twenty-four-seven.”

Amber was about to say something when
there was two knocks on the door. Before I could even take a step
towards it to answer, it swung open.

“
Alex, you’d better have a
good reason…” Rod stopped short in the doorway as he closed it
behind him. “Oh, hey, Jessica. Sorry, but I don’t appreciate you
holding my man hostage, causing him to leave me waiting at the
court by myself for over an hour.”

“
Hi, Rod,” I said with a
smile. I might not have caught the teasing in Rod’s voice if his
personality wasn’t so similar to Alex’s. “Actually I’ve been hoping
Alex was with you. I tried calling your cell a couple of times. I
don’t know where he is.”

Rod got a puzzled expression on his
face before reaching into his basketball shorts and pulling his
cell phone out. “Stupid piece of junk,” he said as he shoved it
back in his pocket. “Sorry, it keeps shutting off
randomly.”

Rod then seemed to realize that there
was another person in the house. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there
at first. Who’s this Jessica?”

“
This is my younger
sister, Amber,” I said as I smiled at her. “Amber, this is Alex’s
best friend, Rod Gepper.”

Rod crossed the room and reached out
to shake Amber’s hand. I noticed Amber kept her gaze downward, as
if trying to hide the violent marks on her face. I was surprised
when after only a moment Rod laid two fingers very softly on the
side of her face, just over the bruise on her cheek.

“
Did someone do this to
you?” he asked very quietly.

Amber didn’t say anything, just kept
her eyes on the floor.

“
Tell me where to find him
and I’ll make sure he can never do that to anyone again,” I was
shocked at the venom that filled Rod’s voice, it was frightening in
the way he sounded perfectly calm at the same time. When I looked
over at him I saw the intensity his eyes were suddenly burning
with.

Amber finally looked up at him, with
shock in her eyes. For a moment she almost looked fearful but after
a second it melted away into a smile. “Thanks, but I really doubt
he will find me here. He’s about 900 miles away right
now.”

“
Well, if he shows up and
bothers you again, you call me and I will take care of him for
you,” he said, his tone serious but a smile starting to spread on
his face. I couldn’t help but smile too. So did Amber.