Title: Cuts Like A Knife
Author: Stress
First written: May 12, 2002
Edited and replaced: January 21, 2005
Summary: Part I of the Soul Mates Series; She thought that life couldn't get any better. She had friends and a family that loved her – she was taken care of and had no complaints. But that was before he came into her life. And, no matter how hard she tries to escape his grasp, he'll never let her go.
Running to the O'Connor's
Though her body ached, her head spun and her shoulder felt like it was on fire, Jess kept running towards the O'Connor's apartment. Faintly behind her she could make out Rip running after her, calling her name as he went. "Oh my God, he's coming after me. What am I supposed to do?" she panicked as she tried to run all the faster. "He wouldn't dare follow me to the O'Connor's, right?" She prayed that Rip would be subtle enough to leave her family out of it. "Ah, but remember? He always said that they would be the first to go if I upset him. And I'm sure I upset him now," she sobbed as she reached the tenement.
Not slowing her pace in the slightest, lest Rip caught up with her before she reached the apartment, Jess ran up the stairs and, using her right arm since her left was now out of commission, barged through the front door.
Upon entering the apartment, Jess came face to face with Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor and Grace, all of whom were extremely angry at her for leaving her room.
Mrs. O'Connor stepped forward. "Jess, where have you been? We've been going nuts-- Where are you going, young lass? I'm not done with you yet!" she cried as she watched Jess storm pass her and enter her bedroom.
She started to follow her but stopped when her husband gently held her back. "Wait, my dear. I think something bad has happened to Jess. She'll tell us when she's ready," he whispered as he guided her to the sofa to sit alongside Grace.
Meanwhile, inside her bedroom, Jess was trying hard to regain her composure. "I can't panic, I can not panic..." she recited to herself as she stumbled to her bed and quickly went to work making herself a bandage for her wound. She stripped off a piece of her bed sheet and tied it around her right shoulder. After tying a tight knot and applying pressure to stop the bleeding, Jess changed out of her torn blouse and grabbed a fresh one. If she was going to confront her family and explain to them her version of the events of the past few weeks, she didn't want them to see some of the evidence that might prove otherwise.
Once her arm had stopped shaking, though the pain was still immense, Jess was prepared to talk to the O'Connor's. Using her left arm to open the door, she stepped out into the living room. "Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor? I need to talk to you and it's kind of important--" she started to say but was cut off when there came a sudden pounding at the front door.
Before she could continue her sentence Jess leapt forward and locked the door. Once she was sure that the person on the other side would remain there, she walked back into the living room, shaking slightly.
Fear was written in her green eyes as she heard a voice call out, "Jess, are you in there? Answer this door, NOW!"
No doubt about it, Rip was waiting outside of her apartment door for her. And he was mad!
Now that she was being forced to face both her real life and the secret life she had been living for the past three weeks, Jess broke down completely. She had been prepared to tell the O'Connor's a fictitious story of what had happened and why she had felt the need to leave without anyone's permission, but she knew that she must tell them the truth.
"Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor, Grace, I've got something very important to say. All I beg of you is that you don't interrupt, you don't judge and just that you believe me, please..." she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes, eyes that were refusing to make contact with anyone else in the room. Before she had a chance to begin her story, she jumped back when she heard Rip call to her again.
"I know you're in there! You can't hide from me and you know it!" Rip called, even louder and more desperately as he rattled the door handle and beat against the door.
Mr. O'Connor looked at Jess questioningly as he went to send whoever it was at the door away. Jess ran forward and, with her left hand, clutched his shirt, obviously horrified. "No, please..." she whispered before dissolving into sobs. Grace ran forward and enveloped her in a hug as Mr. O'Connor backed away from the door, looking ashamed.
Ignoring the frenzied screams coming from the other side of the door, Mrs. O'Connor spoke softly to Jess. "Jess, honey, I think it's about time you tell us what's going on. It has something to do with that boy out there, doesn't it?"
Calming down long enough to nod her head, Jess covered her ears to avoid hearing Rip's call of her name. Her head was spinning and she felt waves of nausea overwhelming her every time he spoke her name. "Please just stop, Rip. I can't take it no more," she said to herself as she sank onto the couch, hiding deep into the cushion as if she was hiding far away from Rip.
Everyone in the living room stayed in there exact positions for the next twenty minutes or so. As Jess curled up into the fetal position on the couch, pressing her left hand against her left ear and her right ear against the material of the couch to drown out Rip's anguished voice, Grace sat by her side, trying to get her to tell them what had happened. The O'Connor's stood by the edge of the couch, shoulder to shoulder, waiting for Jess to calm down enough to explain why there was someone standing outside their apartment shouting her name.
After waiting outside of her apartment for close to an hour, Rip realized it would be smart to leave before someone called the police for his disturbance. Figuring her should make her aware that she wouldn't get away from him so easily; he called out to her one last time. "Jess, don't think this is over, cause it ain't. You're still mine and you always will be!" And with that final cry and one last pummeling of the apartment door, Rip took off to head back to the lodging house, praying that Spindle wouldn't have the nerve to meet up with him after all of the day's events.
Grace sat up alarmed when Jess began to shiver and shake upon Rip's parting threat. Slowly curling out of her rolled-up position on the couch, she turned to face her guardians of the past seven years. "I think I'm going to have to leave Queens..." she whispered as she roughly used her left hand to wipe the tears from her eyes.
"What? No-- I mean-- Why?" Mrs. O'Connor gasped as she tried to get her question out, unable to comprehend the meaning of her words.
Looking at the shocked faces of the three people who stood in front of her, Jess sighed. It was the only choice, a choice she had to make. If she stayed she would only end up getting hurt and putting her friends and family into danger. "Stand tall and stand strong," she murmured to herself before beginning to tell the O'Connor's and Grace everything that had happened to her since she had met Rip that fateful day.
She spoke for over an hour, occasionally glossing over the nastier aspects, leaving out the rape and sexual intimacy of their relationship entirely. Though she understood deep down that most of what Rip had done to her wasn't her fault, she wanted to keep her pure and innocent image in the O'Connor's eyes. She would just die if they associated her with some of the other trash that they saw selling themselves on the dirty streets of New York.
"And no matter what I do, this boy is always going after me, hitting me when I tell him no. That's why I ended up so hurt yesterday and that's why we had someone pounding on our door tonight," she ended her story when she dropped her head into her one working hand.
"Then why did you go out to see him tonight if you don't like him?" Grace asked, trying to make sense of the tale Jess had just told. Though she believed what Jess was saying, she couldn't help but feel like there was something important that she was leaving out. "Like who that guy was..." Grace thought to herself. Throughout the entire time Jess was speaking, she avoided saying any names, instead referring to her attacker as "he", "him", "that guy" and "the boy". "But that voice was awfully familiar," she noted, trying to remember where she had heard the voice from before.
Upon hearing Grace question her, Jess tensed up. Mrs. O'Connor, relieved to finally know what was going on with her young ward, hushed Grace up when she noticed Jess's reaction to her question. "Thanks, dear. I'm sorry this has happened to you at all and you should have told us sooner. Don't worry, we'll get that bastard behind bars as soon as you tell us who he is," she said kindly, her sweet voice covering up the spiteful word she threw out in her sentence.
Jess paled visibly. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that."
Her eyes showing her confusion, Mrs. O'Connor opened her mouth to object, but was cut off immediately by Mr. O'Connor. "Well, then, Jess, honey, what would you like us to do?" he asked gently. Though he didn't know why, Mr. O'Connor knew that there was a reason why Jess was protecting the scum that was obviously making her life hell. He may not understand why but he understood it was important to her and he was trying to make things easier for her to deal with.
She turned to face Mr. O'Connor, relief at his kind words written all over her face. "Thank you, Mr. O'Connor. But I really think that I should leave Queens for a little bit, until everything dies down over here. Then I'll come back and everything will go back to being normal." She didn't think that her life would ever go back to being normal, but she knew that the best thing for everyone would be her leaving Queens as soon as possible.
Mrs. O'Connor obviously disagreed. "But Jess, you are only thirteen years old. It's not safe for a girl your age to go off by herself."
Grace cut in. "I'll go with you, Jess."
Jess was extremely grateful for the offer but she knew she would have to decline; Unsafe as New York was, it would be even more unsafe for any of her friends to accompany her on her self-exile from her hometown. "Grace, please understand, this is something I have to do on my own. I'll be back soon, promise. I'll found a nice lodging house to stay in another borough and I'll work there to earn money. When the problems around here die down, I'll return," she added with a set smile planted firmly on her face as she rotated her head so that she could see the O'Connor's reaction to her plan.
Though he knew his wife and Grace longed to argue with Jess, Mr. O'Connor gave in. "O.K. Jess. Tomorrow morning I'll put you on an early trolley to get you out of Queens. But only until things die down, alright?"
Jess slumped deeper into the couch with relief. "Now we'll all be safe." she sighed contentedly to herself as she nodded and agreed with Mr. O'Connor.
Mr. O'Connor looked over at his wife, who was staring dumb-struck at Jess. He knew she would be furious with him for agreeing to let her leave but surely she realized that there was something more at stake that they didn't know about, right?