C.J. just looked at the distraught young woman in front of her, and she stopped in her tracks. Trina glared at her, still holding onto the knife.

"I'm just going to put my things down okay and then we can talk…"

A dark pair of eyes flirted around the room, Trina's mouth quivered.

"I don't want to talk anymore," she said, "I just want it to be over."

C.J. put her things down and moved closer to her slowly, relying on all of her experience dealing with women in crisis. She sensed that something had happened or been happening to Trina and that somehow she had gotten pushed to the breaking point.

She knew the feeling herself.

But she definitely couldn't leave her like this, even though Trina had warned her away. She didn't know how serious her student had been about hurting herself and she had to find out.

"You are calling the police?"

C.J. shook her head.

"If you tell me you won't hurt yourself, I won't but I can't let you do that, you do know that don't you?"

Grudgingly the woman nodded and her grip on the knife relaxed slightly.

"Trina…why are you doing this to yourself," C.J. asked, "What's going on here?"

"I can't tell you…I can't talk to anyone," Trina said, "No one will listen and who would understand anyway?"

C.J. sighed.

"I don't know if I can…but if you want to talk about it, I'll listen."

Trina looked skeptical and C.J. understood that too.

"You couldn't understand," Trina said, "Look at you, the way you're dressed…how could you understand?"

C.J. smiled at her, her mind still thinking fast…searching for the right words to say that wouldn't set Trina off on a self-destructive path.

"Just tell me and I'll listen to you…I might not be able to understand what you're going through but I'm not going to judge you for it, or for what you to me."

Trina's grip on the knife tightened again.

"How can you say that…your boyfriend didn't try to force you to turn tricks with a bunch of creeps."

If C.J. felt shocked by her words and at this point little shocked her, she learned not to show it.

"Is that what your boyfriend did Trina?"

She didn't get much of a response from the student at first but then, she slowly nodded.

"Are you still living with him?"

Trina shook her head.

"I left him but he still calls me…says I owe him and I told him to fuck off but he won't leave me alone."

C.J. sighed, going through her mental list because she knew now at this point in her life, she could help the woman in front of her. But she had to deal with the knife, because she knew that right now, if Trina felt threatened she'd use it on C.J. or more likely herself. The way she held onto it right now it appeared to be the only protection she had that wouldn't let her down. What she needed was a different safety net.

"Do you have a safe place to go?"

Trina sighed.

"There's no safe place from him."

C.J. rubbed her forehead…the tension building there. She didn't feel fear but she didn't feel secure that Trina wouldn't hurt herself.

"Trina…I can make some calls and find you a place to go, even to stay as long as you need," she said, "and I can make a couple other calls to help you get a temporary restraining order against your boyfriend."

A trace of something that looked like hope started to transform Trina's face but then the fear returned and her body tensed, the knife started moving closer to her throat. C.J. thought it might be a defense action, not a conscious movement but either way she had to proceed carefully.

"Why…what can you do…look at you…you've had an easy life…you got a great job…great clothes and I bet you're married to some rich guy with a nice house."

C.J. suppressed a smile because some of it was true. But she had her own scars and only some of them were visible to the rest of the world.

"Maybe you'd think that just by looking at me Trina but you'd be wrong about part of it…I love my job, and I like teaching too. I'm married to a great man, my best friend and I live in a nice house we fixed up together before the wedding."

Trina blew some air out between her pursed lips and her eyes flashed.

"See…what'd I say?"

C.J. paused and flipped a lock of hair out of her face, with one of her scarred hands.

"I had a really great life a few years ago working with the man who's my husband now…helping people with our investigative firm and I thought I had almost everything that I'd ever want and as for the rest…that I'd get it if I worked hard enough and when the time was right."

Trina tilted her head and looked skeptical. C.J. extended her hands, an action that nearly made Trina pull the knife closer again.

"They're empty Trina…I just wanted you to see them."

And the woman did peer at them and her eyes widened slightly at the sight of the silvery web of lines that wove their way around C.J.'s fingers and into her palms.

"How'd you get those scars?"

C.J. didn't hesitate, now was definitely not the time to do so.

"I got them when I pushed them through a glass window."

The night had been dark, the air frigid and she felt keenly the slice of the glass through her skin, as she forced her way through the window.

"Why'd you do that?"

C.J. looked at them for a moment, remembering what they had looked like before she had committed that desperate act. Another slightly thicker scar snaked around her wrist where surgery had been performed to repair her broken wrist that hadn't healed properly the first time.

"I had to escape, the window stood between imprisonment and my freedom."

Trina just looked at her, as if she still hadn't decided if she believed her words and C.J. hardly blamed her for that. Other people had the same reaction when she told her story. After all, on the surface C.J. know she appeared as the woman who appeared to have everything she had ever wanted, a woman who had conquered the world by sheer will. She had become that good at hiding the scars that still were healing inside of her.

"You see…there was this man who stalked me most of my life…I'm still not sure why he did but one night, I left my office building to meet someone and these men ambushed me in the parking lot and knocked me out with some drug and the next thing I knew, I was riding in their car."

"You were kidnapped?"

C.J. nodded.

"We drove and we flew and then drove some more I know now and they took me up to this compound in the mountains and dragged me into it where the man stayed. The first time I saw him, I barely remembered him from years before but his voice…his cologne…then I did."

"Did he…?"

C.J. had heard that question more than any other and seldom did the person asking it finish it. She knew that the crime that she had suffered still bore stigma and she did, as a survivor. But she worked every day to try to change the mindset of those who'd sit and judge.

One person, or one judicial system at a time.

"Yeah he raped me that night…he told me I was his now and I resisted but there was no escape from him and..."

C.J. rubbed her face…because even after this time, parts of her experience still wore like new. But she had caught Trina's attention; her interest even and she knew as long as she did that, her mind would be off harming herself.

"He tore my clothes off and I still tried to escape…I was so determined not to let him force me onto the bed…I didn't even think he'd just do it to me on the hard floor."

"Were you scared?"

C.J. felt her mouth grow dry.

"Yeah I was terrified…I was scared for so long, it never left but the hardest part was that I felt pulled away from myself like I was watching him force my legs apart and jam his arm against my throat and then I wasn't…it hurt, like I was being ripped apart in more than one place."

Trina just sat there, emotions playing out on her own face. C.J. knew that she was thinking and hopefully that there was more than one path for her.

"I was with him for about a month and when he was there, he came to me or I was brought to him every night…then there were times I was drugged and those memories were lost…but not forever."

"You escaped…"

C.J. nodded.

"Yes I did…but I killed a man who stood between me and my own freedom," she said, "I stabbed him with a letter opener…and watched his blood spill out on the floor."

Trina sat there with that for a while, processing it as C.J. fought her instincts to rein in her own memories, but let them flow. If she needed them to reach Trina then it would be worth the remembrance.

Matt woke up with a start when he felt a weight squirming on his chest and looked up into a daughter with eyes just like his own. He carefully sat up holding onto her as she molded to him, hugging him with her pudgy arms.

"Hi Gracie...I guess we both had a nap."

She giggled at him and he hoisted her up as he rose from the couch because the clock told him it was time to get ready to head on down to Chris and Dan's party. He was to meet C.J. there and when he checked his voice mail, he saw her message to him that she would head on out there after class. He tried to call her back to chat but just got her voice mail and figured she was on her way, telling her that he had called back.

So he went to get Gracie ready for her ride with him, he had become nearly an expert in childcare but it hadn't happened over night. She clung to him as they walked into the kitchenette to seek out some of her favorite snacks.

Dan poked his head in.

"You are heading on out…?"

Matt nodded.

"Yeah as soon as Gracie and I get sorted out…"

"Chris has got the food in the oven but she says there's no rush."

Matt looked at his phone but C.J. hadn't returned his message to her. But then again she could be talking to some students after class before heading out. She had told him more than once that she often got hit with questions about particular topics that she lectured on afterward and she enjoyed talking to her students.

So when he went to get their daughter ready, he figured she would arrive there at about the same time that he and Gracie did.