Ch7- Counting to 10
"Spinner! I thought you were at Paige's!" Jimmy exclaimed.
"Where's your baseball bat?" he asked as he pushed his way through to his living room.
"What?" he asked incredulously as he shut the door. He cocked his head at his friend, waiting for a response.
"I said-"
"Yeah I heard you. Now what the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm gonna kill that bastard," Spinner muttered still seething.
"Woah, woah. What happened?" Jimmy asked as he led Spinner to the couch.
"Remember Dean? That fucking shit that raped Paige all those years ago?"
"Yeah..." Jimmy said, not sure where he was going with this.
"Well he did it again." A scream sounded from behind them and they both jumped and turned.
"Paige got...again?" Hazel said with her hand over her mouth with the other one supporting her on the doorframe. Jimmy looked from his wife, to his friend several times trying to understand.
"Paige lives in Bardell?"
"Her parents do."
"She's there...why?"
"Long story for another time," Spinner said bitterly.
"Ok...Dean, this guy from like 7 years ago shows up and just rapes Paige? Like that?" Jimmy asked as he snapped his fingers.
"No. it happened at a club. He took her, raped her and beat her, apparently all night long. Now where's your fucking bat?" he said slowly. Jimmy went over to his closet, pulled out a bat and grabbed his keys.
"Baby..."
"Huh-uh. Paige is my best friend. You'd have to kill me before you leave me here." Jimmy looked at Spinner who shrugged and followed him out to the car. Next stop, Craig's house.
"Where's Spinn?" Paige asked later that day after she'd calmed down some.
"He took off about 5 hours ago. Nobody knows where he went," Ben said quietly. Paige's eyes flashed and he braced himself for the hurricane that would be inevitably following.
"He came all the way here, found out what the hell I just went through and he left? Oh I don't think so!! What kind of person, much less a fiancé, would..." Paige continued her rant as she paced back and forth around her bedroom. Ben lay back on the bad and tuned her out until the last part of her speech.
"Wait, wait. Rewind," he said quickly.
"What? All I said was I'm through. If he's gonna do this to me, then fuck him! I don't need him if he's just going to leave me. I'm done; we're done," she said putting an emphasis on the last part.
"Paige! You don't mean that. You love him, you know you do. I'm sure that he-"
"Has an explanation. I'm tired of it! He should be here right now and he took off instead. If he's not here by the count of 10, fuck him."
"Paige!! Listen to me! Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't love him, that you can go through life without him," Ben said as his voice grew louder.
"Seven...Six...Five," was all she said as her eyes got cloudy and her voice wavered. Ben was right, she knew that. But she'd already started, she couldn't just stop now.
"Three...two..."
"One." They both spun around to see Spinner and everyone standing in the doorway.
"So that's it? Just like that, we're done?" he asked.
"Spin..." she stared as he walked away.
"Save it," he muttered as he shook her hand from his arm and stalked out. She looked around at everyone there, but the only person who'd look at her was Jimmy.
"Real smooth. He left to come get us to beat the shit out of Dean. And you think that he's the bad guy? He's not the one who ran out on their fiancé without letting anyone know. He's not the one who dumped the other one because they weren't here when he needed them to be. No, that was you. If it was him that did that, he'd have counted to 10 about 30 times by now."