After I called Brendan I called the school and let them know I was a bit under the weather and needed to be off for a few days. Shannon understood and even commented that something was going around and I probably had caught it. I thought to myself that it was more like something was trying to catch me. I sat down on the couch and wondered if I should even call my mother and let her know what was going on. Brendan called and checked up on me and let me know he would be over as soon as he finished one meeting. He had cleared out the next three days to spend with me. Having him here with me over night was going to test us but at this point I think that other kind of intimacy was far from both of our minds. I made some breakfast and decided to go through some mail that I hadn’t even started to look at. I had been busy with all this PTA business going on. One envelope caught my eye. It was from the State of Georgia Correctional Facility, Victims Rights Unit. I tore it open and then everything began to fall into place. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. He was out. Eric Bradley had been set free. Even after holding me at gunpoint and stabbing me to the point I almost bled to death, they had let him out. I was shocked. I didn’t get any notification that he was even up for parole, let alone a full release.Now the note and the car that followed me made sense. Eric was back and he wanted revenge.He wasn’t going to find it in me. I found my voice that day in court and I wasn’t about to let him put me in a corner again. I knew I would have to protect myself and the least I could do was put another restraining order out on him. When I come to think of it, that is what made him go crazy in the first place. Now it all seems like it was yesterday….
“Come out here and talk to me Veronica!!” Eric yelled from the steps of my house. “I know you are in there, I can see you girl!” I cowered inside my home in my hall closet. My hands were over my ears but I could still hear the shrill voice come through two doors. “OPEN THE DOOR!You won’t like me if I have to break it down. I know you know what I mean. So why don’t you open your door so your nosey neighbors can go back to their lives and leave us lovebirds alone, huh baby? Can you just do that?” I didn’t want to open the door. The voices in my head told me not to. But he called me baby and he sounded like he had calmed down and my neighborswerepretty nosey. I didn’t want to risk having them call the authorities like they had once before. I walked slowly to the door and could see him there with that charming smile that he always had.His eyes though, there was something off about them. It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen the look before but it looked even more sinister today. I paused in the foyer of my living room. “Come on, Baby, you are almost here, and then we can talk about this.” He said with sweetness dripping off of every word. I turned the lock and he pushed the door open so hard I fell to the floor. He leaned over and whispered to me. “Dumb girl, you just opened the door for the last time of your miserable life! No one disrespects me! Do you know who I am? I am Kingggg!” he then took the back of the gun he had tucked in his pants and struck my head and the blackness covered me. He went to work closing all the blinds in the front of the house. After 15 minutes I began to come to but was afraid to open my eyes. Afraid of what I may see. I could hear him moving around the house. I believe he actually had the nerve to go in the kitchen and fix himself something to eat as I was laying on the floor. I must have moved or he must have sensed I was moving because as quick as a flash he was standing over me. “You thought a piece of paper was gonna keep you from me? You thought you could get away that easy. That’s not how things are going to happen, no way sister, not at all.” I opened my eyes and saw he was pacing back and forth in the kitchen. I wanted to move but the pounding in my head wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t just lay there. I had to get up. I started to find strength from deep inside and stand up. He ran to where I was and pinned me against the wall. “You will ALWAYS be mine!” He shouted. He pushed my face to the side. Then suddenly, from somewhere came…my voice. “No” I said. He spun around. “What did you say?!” Still looking at the floor I repeated the word, louder than before. His breathing became like that of a bull preparing to barrel towards a bull fighter. That was when he couldn’t take it anymore. He took the knife out of his pocket. The same knife he had made a sandwich with in the kitchen. The knife from the set I was given by my grandmother and he plunged it deep into my stomach. As I gasped and slid down the wall, he followed me all the way to the floor whispering the words…always…always…always… Maybe one shred of sense was left in him because he flung the front door open and ran out. Even then it was too late for him. While I was sitting in the closet I had called 911 on my cell and left the line open. The police were pulling up as he ran out of the house. I looked down at my hands and saw they were covered with blood. My blood. As I began to slip out of consciousness I heard a voice. Are you okay? Maam? Are you okay? Fading…away…Are you okay? V, Baby are you okay?! I was jerked back to reality and didn’t even realize that I had gone into a trance while Brendan was frantic and at my front door. I let him him. We had to make some plans.
©Lainey Starr
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