Till It Hurts by Cora Brent
Jace
Now
First thing on Monday morning, just after collecting a kiss from Tori, my phone pings with an incoming text.
Check your email. Full report enclosed. Call with any questions.
Tori’s distracted and doesn’t even notice that I’ve glanced at my phone.
“What are you going to do today?” she asks, tossing her long hair aside and shouldering her handbag. This morning she’s lovely, as always, in spite of the dark circles beneath her eyes that appeared overnight.
With a steep sense of guilt, I store the phone in my back pocket. “Thought I might make room for a couple more peach trees in the orchard.”
Her smile is wistful. “Gloria would love that. She always talked about planting fruit trees.”
“How about I stop by later and treat you to lunch?”
Tori’s face lights up. “Really?”
She kills me with her delight every time I suggest doing something nice. This motivates me to do nothing else but make her happy.
“Sure. Anywhere you want to go within the limited confines of the Arcana dining scene. Or I can drive to Plainsfield and bring back some takeout.”
“Giorgio’s doesn’t open until four so that leaves hot dogs at the gas station or tacos at Dave’s.”
“I vote for Dave’s.”
“Done.”
“I’ll be there around at noon.”
She gazes at me and then launches into my arms for an impulsive hug. I’ll never tire of wrapping my arms around her soft warmth.
“See you then.” She kisses me once more, orders McClane to be a good boy and happily exits through the front door.
She’d be far less happy if she knew that I was listening for her car to depart so I could access the report from the private investigator. In that report there’s bound to be details that she hasn’t shared with me, perhaps things she doesn’t want me to know at all.
If I had any balls, I would delete the email and level with her directly.
If I was less worried about her then I would do exactly that.
Every day dawns with a growing conviction that something isn’t right with Tori. On the surface, everything is great. We’re together and we’re happy in the little world we’ve made. Tori is funny and affectionate and gorgeous and sexy. She’s a dream come true. I know there’s still past shit that we haven’t quite gotten around to sorting through, but at this point there’s nothing she could tell me that would change the way I feel about her. We made mistakes back then. We gave up on each other too easily. That’s not a mistake I’m planning to repeat.
But my instincts continue to fire off alarms, warning that Tori is struggling. Something happened to her in California, something that completely upended her life and shook her to the core. That’s why I don’t delete the email. That’s why I walk out to the back patio filled with dread because I need to learn what it is.
McClane chases after the tennis ball I toss into the grass and I sit down with my phone to open the report.
Fifteen minutes later I’ve read every word twice. The language is matter of fact and filled with hideous details culled from police reports, hospital records, and personal interviews.
My god.
Tori could have been killed. That’s undeniable.
THE MOTHERFUCKER COULD HAVE KILLED HER!
And when Tori tried to tell the truth about who was responsible for beating her half to death, she was dismissed, condemned as crazy. Ignored. The restraining order she sought was thrown out of court. She was buried by medical bills. She couldn’t find another job. Her landlord began eviction proceedings. When she finally reached the point where she had nothing left and no one on her side, she came here in desperation, to the only possible refuge remaining.
Sorrow and rage battle for control of my emotions. My worst suspicion is confirmed. Tori has been through hell.
Something else is also true. I have a new enemy and his name is Dr. Timothy Gatlin.
He’s easy to find. An internet search produces hundreds of results; press releases on the ribbon cutting ceremony for the facility opened by the husband and wife team of Dr. and Dr. Gatlin, pieces lavishing praise on his community charity work, articles he wrote for various medical journals. He looks to be in his early forties with a clean shaven, well manicured look and thinning honey colored hair.
As I stare into his smiling grey eyes a blast of sheer hatred overwhelms me. I would unconditionally hand over everything I own in exchange for five minutes alone with this sick fuck.
McClane trots along beside me when I start pacing around the yard. I punch the air. I pick up a shovel and smash it in two. Never in my life have I been so tempted to commit violence. All I want to do is jump into my truck, haul ass to San Diego, find Dr. Timothy Gatlin and show him just how it feels to have his head cracked into pieces.
The dog is not used to seeing me behave like this. He whines and backs away with his ears flattened against his skull.
“Hey, buddy.” I get down on my knees and hold my hand out to show him I’m no threat. He’s probably having flashbacks to his old life.
McClane eyes me with wariness for a few seconds, then wags his tail a few times and creeps closer.
“It’s okay.” I let him sniff my hand. He puts his front paws on my thigh and rolls his tongue out to lick my face.
“Someone hurt our girl,” I tell the dog. I don’t know if he can understand me at all or if he hears the agonized crack in my voice but he cries a little.
There are hours left to kill before I meet Tori for lunch. I’m going to plant some peach trees like I told her I would. Otherwise I won’t be able to stop myself from running down to Elkins Law, scooping her up and carrying her away where nothing and no one will ever be able to harm her again.
A few hours of manual labor calms me down, even if I end up being so filthy that I have to shower and change before leaving to meet Tori. I’m prepared to keep my emotions off my face so that she doesn’t guess what’s eating me alive.
She’s waiting for me outside the building. She waves excitedly. She’s beaming. For a few seconds I just stare and wonder how I lucked into this second chance.
“Let’s walk.” She pulls me out of the truck. Dave’s Taco’s is only two blocks away so it’s not an outrageous idea. I’ve quit wearing my stupid bet-it-fools-nobody disguise around town and two teenage boys immediately approach to ask if I’ll pose for a photo with them. I’d never turn down kids. I even manage to smile when one holds up a cell phone.
Tori laughs at me and takes my arm. “Your bad reputation is going to be ruined, Mr. Personality.”
Oh, how I love her.
Tori yawns a couple of times over lunch but she’s in a happy mood. My stomach clenches when she excuses herself to use the restroom and I see her walking away with her purse dangling from its strap. I’ve been watching her when she doesn’t know I’m watching. The bottle of pills is still in there and I don’t know what they are or why she’s taking them but I’m uneasy, especially after the shock of this morning’s revelations.
“You’ve been quiet,” she observes on the slow walk back to Elkins Law.
“Got worn out with all the tree planting.”
“Please. You’ve got the stamina of a bull.”
“You should know.”
“I do know.” She hugs my waist. “And I plan to make you prove it again later.”
I stop walking. Tori becomes puzzled when I reach out to hold her face in my hands. “You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
The wariness overshadowing her face is fleeting but it’s there. Then she smiles. “I’ll see you at home. Now kiss me.”
I kiss her, just as she asks. I would move mountains for her.
The afternoon consists of a lot of aimless driving. I’m starting to really really wish I had a way to get in touch with Colt. Does he have any idea what his sister has been through? Does anyone?
But Colt is inaccessible. He’s somewhere in the Wyoming wilderness with his head up his ass.
For dinner I pick up her favorite pizza from Giorgio’s, stick it in the fridge and wait for her to come home to me. We eat on the back patio on the old redwood set that probably should have been replaced fifteen years ago. We watch McClane chase his tennis balls and hunt for disgusting discoveries in the darkening corners of the yard.
Tori wants to go inside to snuggle on the couch and watch a movie. I can think of no better way to pass the time and give her free reign to select the flick. She chooses some off the wall comedy about a bachelorette party in Atlantic City. It’s a good thing the plot isn’t complicated because I’m finding it difficult to focus.
I’m so happy to be with her again. I’m afraid of disrupting this bubble of bliss we’ve been living in. Yet I’m doing her no favors by pretending that I don’t know about Timothy Gatlin or that I don’t notice she’s on medication. Maybe it’s nothing. Tori seems to have issues with anxiety. Maybe that’s the reason for the pills.
“Save my seat.” She kisses me and then dashes off to the bathroom with no clue about the storm inside my head.
Part of me doesn’t want to know the answer to my main question. But I have to know. For her sake. No matter what it means for us.
That’s why I reach over to the armchair and pick up her handbag as soon as I hear the bathroom door close. She doesn’t keep much in there and I find what I’m looking for in a zippered side pocket. I roll the bottle around in my hand to see the label and my breath leaves my lungs.
Oh, baby. No.
I open the bottle and shake a pill into my palm to make sure they are what the bottle says they are.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I didn’t hear her leave the bathroom but there she stands, three feet away, her face pale.
I hold up the bottle. “Why are you taking these?”
Her mouth compresses with anger. She lunges and tries to grab the pills out of my hand but she hasn’t got a chance. I wrap my arms around her and pull her down to sit in my lap.
“Tori, we need to talk.”
She squirms out of my lap and whirls on me, both angry and hurt. “What are you accusing me of?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“Because I have a prescription! Surely you could see that while you were snooping.”
“How long have you been taking hardcore painkillers?”
She crosses her arms. Glares. Looks away. “Not long. I was having some pain.”
“From the concussion?”
Her eyes slide back to me with suspicion. “Yes. I suffered a concussion in the accident.”
“It was no accident, sweetheart.”
She trembles. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know what Timothy Gatlin did to you.”
It’s like I just dropped a bomb on her. It’s terrible to see the color drain from her face and to hear the gasp rip out of her throat.
“What do you mean you know? How do you know? Did Rochelle tell you?”
“No. I had no idea that Rochelle even knew. I was worried about you.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
It’s time for both of us to come clean about everything. “I hired an investigator. He sent me a report this morning and I read it. That’s how I know.”
She erupts. “You are fucking unbelievable! You sneak around behind my back, pay money for someone to spy on me and then think that you somehow have the right to hand out lectures.”
“I know you’re angry at me. I know I deserve it. Please, I just want to be here for you.”
She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head from side to side. Then she opens her eyes and takes a breath. “It’s no big deal.”
“Like hell it isn’t. You’re popping pills like M&M’s and probably have been for months. You think I haven’t seen this shit before? A college buddy of mine went through one of these bottles a week and wound up driving his car off a bridge one night. A former teammate got hooked on this garbage after his knee surgery. Lost his career, his wife, his home. Last I heard he’d been arrested for petty theft.” I stand up and try to hold her. “Anyone can be destroyed and that’s why it’s so dangerous, baby.”
She twists away from me. I’m not even sure she’s heard what I’ve said because she’s in such a state.
My voice breaks. “Tori, please. I can’t stand to see you hurting. I love you.”
She bursts into tears. “You shouldn’t love me. You shouldn’t!”
“Tori.” I try to hold her and she refuses to let me. “This doesn’t make you a bad person. Not at all.”
“Oh god, Jace. That’s not what I’m talking about.” She sinks down to the floor and hides her head in her hands. I can’t hear what she says next so I crouch at her side.
“I meant it when I said that you can tell me anything.”
She raises her head. “I lied to you.”
“When?”
“Then.”
A new fear blooms. “Why does that matter now?”
She won’t look at me. I cup her chin in my palm and try to see into her eyes.
“Tori, what happened then?”
She closes her eyes. Opens them. Delivers the shattering truth. “I was pregnant, Jace. I was pregnant and I lost it the night of the rivalry game. I blamed you. It wasn’t your fault but I blamed you anyway. I think I hated you then, especially because you’d already traded me in. So I lied to you because I wanted to hurt you after you’d hurt me. And yes, of course it was yours. I told you one lie after another.”
Dazed, I rock backwards on my heels. My back smacks into the couch she takes advantage of my confusion by snatching the pill bottle out of my hand.
I have no doubt she’s telling the truth now. The incomprehensible pieces in my head click together.
I understand.
I understand why she was so devastated back then that she felt like she needed to crush everything we had.
It’s my fault too. I should have known better. I shouldn’t have left her on her own, no matter how much she tried to push me away. But I have no clue what she means about having traded her in. That’s not what happened. That’s not what happened at all. Some gossipy fucked up teenage shit, I guess.
It’s not important. I’m about to lose her again and that’s something I can’t stand to think about. Even more unbearable is the terror that the girl I love is on the verge of losing herself.
Tori crawls away with her pills and sobs. “Just leave me alone about this. I don’t want to talk anymore tonight.”
“Victoria, listen to me. You need to hand over that bottle.”
“No.”
“I’ll take it from you if you won’t.”
Her chin lifts with stubbornness. “I can just get more tomorrow, Jace!”
It’s a devastatingly accurate statement. If she can’t find a doctor willing to give her another prescription, she’ll just find a different way to get more.
“What should I do?” I’m not even sure who I’m asking this question to, or why I said it out loud.
“You should despise me,” she whispers. “Like you used to.”
“Never. I love you.”
“Jace.” She pulls her knees up and rests her head on them. “I’m so tired. If you care about me, can you just give me some space for tonight?”
I don’t want to. I don’t want to do that at all.
But I can’t make her see what she’s determined not to see.
She watches me with sad eyes as I pull out the sofa and set it up so she can sleep.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says. “You’re thinking that I have no control but I do. I only take these to rest. I’m not trying to hurt myself.”
But you are hurting yourself.
“Okay, Tor. I’ll be down the hall if you need me.” I’m at the door to my bedroom when she calls my name.
“Jace?”
I turn around and feel a flash of hope.
“I love you too,” she says and then hides her face again.
The night is long and terrible. I keep sneaking into the living room to check up on her. She sleeps peacefully and she has allowed McClane to stay on the bed. That’s fine. I know she feels better when he’s close.
To look at Victoria Malene right now invokes such a mix of tenderness and longing. I’ve wasted far too many years without her in my life.
I failed to fight for her then. I’ll fight for her now.
By sunrise I have a plan. It’s very early when I place my first call and the person who answers is rather shocked to hear from me. After a ten minute conversation, one solution is taken care of. Then I call that private investigator and offer him ten grand if he can move heaven and earth to get me the information I need within the next six hours. I know the basics. I just need an exact location. Naturally, he’s eager to come through. After that, I’ve got travel arrangements to make.
Tori is awake by the time I shower and emerge fully dressed with a small bag packed. She sits cross legged in the middle of the sofa bed while petting McClane, who is curled up beside her. I approach with caution, not wishing to upset her any more than I already have, but when she looks up her expression is calm. Her eyes are red and her cheeks are raw from all of her tears, however she isn’t crying now. She’s just miserable. Heartsick. Lost.
“I’m sorry,” she says and shudders. “I’m sorry for then. And I’m sorry for now.”
“I know. I am too.”
She rubs a hand on her face. “I’m a mess.”
Every old crack in my heart aches with fresh pain today. “No. You’re beautiful.”
McClane thumps his tail in greeting but he’s not willing to leave his comfortable position beside his queen.
She looks me over and takes notice of the bag. “Are you going somewhere?”
“There’s a car on the way to take me to the airport.”
Her face falls. She’s crushed. “You’re leaving.”
“No.” The mattress creaks when I sit on the edge of the bed. “I mean, yes. But not for long.”
I don’t get a chance to explain because the doorbell rings. McClane barks and jumps off the bed. He’s already decided that he likes whoever is on the other side. His tail wags up a storm.
Tori is trying to hold herself together. “That must be your ride to the airport.”
“No, not yet.” I stand and walk over to the door to open it for Tori’s stepmother. “Hi, Rochelle.”
Rochelle Malene was a little stunned to receive a call from me this morning. We’d met before, back then, but never knew each other well. Tori was our connection and I’m sure Rochelle has been told enough about the past to be suspicious of what my current intentions are. I didn’t mince words when I shared what I know. Tori is in trouble and she needs help. I’m going to make sure she gets it but in order to do that I have to leave for a little while. Yet Tori also shouldn’t be alone right now. When I called this morning, my fervent hope was that Rochelle loves Tori enough to drop everything and race to her side. Rochelle, to her everlasting credit, didn’t hesitate. Of course she’d come.
Rochelle gives me a sad smile now, wishing, I’m sure, that we were meeting again under far different circumstances. “Hello, Jace.”
Meanwhile, Tori has hopped out of bed, eyes wide, looking from one of us to the other. “Rochelle, what are you doing here? Where’s Carrie?”
I pull McClane back and move out of the doorway so Rochelle can step inside.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she says gently to Tori. “Carrie is staying with my parents.”
“Do you have a bag?” I ask her.
She nods and the dog twirls in circles, demanding attention from this exciting new visitor. Rochelle holds her hand out to him and smiles. “In my trunk.”
“I can get it.”
She hands me her keys and I hear her trying to explain to Tori that yes, she’s here because I called her, and yes, she’ll be staying until I return.
While I’m extracting Rochelle’s suitcase from the trunk of her car, my phone pings with an update that my ride to the airport will be here in ten minutes.
Back at the house, Tori is still bewildered and tearful but not angry.
“Don’t worry,” Rochelle assures me with her arm draped around Tori’s shoulders. “I’ll take care of her.”
“I should be back within two days at the most.”
She nods.
I haven’t told Rochelle where I’m going. I just said that there was something I needed to take care of and it couldn’t wait. I don’t want Tori to know about my mission in case things don’t go as planned.
Tori looks to me and her chin trembles. She’s still very emotional. So am I.
But she comes to me when I open my arms. I give her lips a soft kiss. And then I hold her face in my hands. “I’m coming back. I swear it. Hang in there until I do.”
Tears stream from her eyes but she manages to nod slightly. I kiss her forehead and pick up my bag. Leaving her right now is an act of searing torture. It’s also an act of love.
Because Tori is fighting a battle for her very soul.
And to win, she needs her fiercest allies at her side.
Both of us.
The past can’t be undone. But the present can still be fixed. And, hopefully, so can the future.
We’ll win this time, Tori. I promise.
Forgive me.