Rated R for a disturbing memory
Series: Snapshots of the Past
Story: Say You Love Me Too
Chapter 20
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Previously: Abbey and Lizzie reconnected as they shared memories during a mother-daughter slumber party; Abbey's decision to remember the night of the attack with the help of her therapist, upset Jed, especially when she ignored his objections
Summary: In an attempt to relieve the stress, Abbey reaches a compromise with Jed; Jed supports Abbey as she begins her therapy session
- - -
Jed's eyes danced around the breakfast table, taking note of silent Abbey and unusually reserved Elizabeth. The tension he felt wasn't imagined. It was real. It had been there ever since Abbey independently made the decision to delve into the night of the attack. Gripped by fear and insecurity, she had become somewhat withdrawn. And he was angry. Angry that his objection had been completely ignored, that his opinion didn't seem to matter.
Lizzie didn't have to be told what was going on. She always knew when her parents were upset, when the dynamic had changed and left everyone feeling a bit somber and unhappy. As soon as she sensed the emotional blender at work once again, she simply adapted to the mood in the house.
Only Ellie seemed oblivious. Her mischievous chatter echoed through the room as she swirled her fork around her plate with her tiny fingers barely gripping the handle while she scribbled letters with the prongs.
"Ellie, stop playing with the syrup and eat your pancakes," Jed ordered.
After only a few bites of food, table time had miraculously turned into playtime. Dressed in her ice pink Snow White bathing suit and matching flip flops, she fidgeted around her seat anxiously.
"I'm not hungry," she declared as she slid her rear to the edge of her chair and stretched her short legs to the floor.
"You have to finish your breakfast."
Ignoring her father's stern tone, she continued her trek downward until her head bumped the side of the table, causing it to rattle and nearly spilling her orange juice all over Lizzie.
"Ellie!" he admonished. "Sit up in your chair and eat your breakfast."
"You know, it's wrong to eat then swim," Liz interjected with a grin directed at her parents to relieve the strain.
"Then we can call Amy's mom and tell her you two won't be going," Abbey replied, her own grin reflective of her daughter's.
"I was just saying..."
"It takes an hour and a half to get to the beach. You won't be swimming for a while."
Jed's voice wasn't nearly as lighthearted as Abbey's, immediately casting a gloomy cloud over the foursome. Lizzie looked down at the utensils in her hand and absently pushed the food around her plate while Ellie sat herself up and picked up her fork in a silent gesture that made Jed cringe.
He hadn't meant for his statement to have such a harsh edge.
"Just eat a few more bites," he gently pleaded once again with the four-year-old. She twirled the small bite-sized pieces around her plate, but didn't respond. "If you eat a few more bites I'll play Candyland with you tonight."
"Okay!" Ellie began to pack her mouth with the leftover pancakes.
"Not all at once, Sweetie." Abbey took a napkin to the syrup that began to dribble down her chin as she asked Jed, "So bribery is the answer?"
"It always works for me."
"We've talked about this before."
"There's absolutely no harm in getting her to eat her breakfast by telling her I'll play Candyland with her."
"Until she figures out that you would have played anyway," Abbey responded with a playful smirk.
"I'm finished!" Ellie declared.
"Yes, you are," Jed picked her up out of her chair and headed for the sink. "Now let's clean you up before they get here."
"Too late. They're here!" Lizzie called out, her eyes glued to the window as she grabbed her towel and slipped into her beach shorts, leaving only the top of her royal blue bathing suit visible. "Lets go!"
"Hang on a second." Abbey stepped in front of her. "You remember what we talked about?"
"Yes, I'll make sure Ellie doesn't go in too far and we'll both listen to Mrs. Gardner."
"Why can't I go far?" Ellie asked.
"Because you can't swim as good as I can," Liz answered.
"As 'well,'" Jed corrected.
"I can so!" Ellie was clearly outraged by the accusation. "I wanna go in all the way and swim only under the water. I don't wanna come out at all!"
"Can't do that, Princess."
She turned to her father with wrinkled brows. "Why not?"
"You're a girl, not a fish. You're going to do exactly what Mrs. Gardner and Lizzie say."
"Do you have the sunblock?"
"Yes." Liz let out an exasperated sigh at her mother's question and urged her father to let Ellie down. "Come on, Ellie."
Ellie's legs barely hit the floor when she began running, Lizzie following behind. They shouted their goodbyes and without a second glance, they sprinted towards the car, impatiently jumping in as Abbey spoke to Mrs. Gardner.
Jed watched from the porch. He couldn't hear a word between the two women, but Abbey's faint giggle caught his attention. It seemed so forced, he thought. Marred by a dreary expression afterwards, it was obvious her demeanor was nothing more than a facade.
"What?" she asked as she noticed his intruding stare on her way back into the house.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" She closed the door behind them and disappeared into the kitchen. He didn't expect her to return so soon. But she did. She handed him two aspirin and a glass of water.
"What's this for?"
"You have a headache," she said as she pulled out his chair to help him sit back down.
"I do?"
"You've been rubbing your temples all morning. And you've been awfully cranky." Standing behind him, she reached forward, gently caressing her fingers around his forehead. "It is a headache, right?"
"Yeah," he answered. "I'm just surprised you knew. I mean, you used to know. It shocked me how you used to know."
"You mean it irritated you how I used to know," she teased.
His admission was clear with a coy, toothless grin. He put his hands over hers and twisted himself in his chair. "You remember a lot."
"I do. But this time, I knew you'd have a headache. You always used to get one when you don't get much sleep."
"How do you know I didn't get much sleep?" She smiled. The answer obvious, he turned back around. "Yeah."
Abbey took a deep breath and leaned forward so her mouth was right above his head. "You know how sometimes you think something is so incredibly important that you let it overshadow everything else? You shut out people with valid concerns because you don't want to hear them?"
Jed knew where this was going and he welcomed the journey. "Yeah."
Her hands slowly left his skin as she slipped into the seat beside him. "The night Lizzie and I spent reminiscing was wonderful, Jed, one of the best nights of the past six weeks. It was a turning point for me. For the first time, it was like all my fears were gone...well, not really gone, just clouded by such an intense desire to know everything."
"I understand that, Abbey. I do."
"I was really abrupt with you and your concerns about the baby. Of course you have every right to disagree with me and I should have listened to what you had to say."
"Really?"
"Really. You're this baby's father. You have a say in this."
"It's not just the baby I'm worried about," he said as he reached out across the side of the table to grab her hand. "It's you too. When this whole thing started, it was so important to me for you to remember. It was so important to catch the bastard who did this to you. But when I saw you pass out the way you did last week, it scared me. It scared me like nothing else. I thought that my pushing you may have hurt you, made you worse. And I realized everything I didn't want to face before - there's a reason you blocked it all out, Abbey. And I'm afraid if we explore that reason, I'll lose you forever, that you'll never remember me or our life together, that everything you remember now, you'll lose."
"Jed, it doesn't work like that. I'm not going into this blind. I've done the research. So have you. This is a controlled environment in a hospital, with a medical doctor who's a trained psychotherapist. I've talked to Susan. I've told her I want to go slow. I've told her the baby's health is the most important thing. She's going to be cautious."
"I still don't think it's a great idea." He let go of her hand and stood up behind his chair. His weight rested on the back as he slanted himself forward.
"Okay," she replied softly, certain that was the end of the discussion.
"That said..." he paused long enough for her to look up at him. "...I want to go with you."
An unexpected yet welcomed surprise. "Good because I want you there."
So far, so good. He pushed a little further. "I want to have a say in the session. I want to be able to stop it if it goes too far."
That was perfectly reasonable, she thought. "Okay."
"If I say stop, it'll only be because I think it might be hurting you or the baby and I want you to respect that."
"Okay." Her agreement was falling on deaf ears.
"I mean it. I don't want to fight with you about this."
Abbey leapt to her feet directly in front of him. "Jed, I said okay."
"Okay."
"Okay."
He turned from her slightly as if ready to walk away, then turned back. "One more thing. If something ever did go wrong, I would never say 'I told you so.'"
"I said that without thinking. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry."
With a nod, he took a few steps towards her. "Me too."
"For what?"
"I don't know. It just sounded polite," he joked. "I'm sorry I came across so strong."
"That's okay. It's adorable when you put your foot down. In fact, your cuteness factor is immeasurable when you get like that - all strong and demanding."
"You know that's not what I'm going for, right?"
"Yeah. About as much as you know that kind of attitude won't win me over."
"All right. Fair enough," he conceded with a grin. "I'm going to jump in the shower."
"Okay."
His eyes never left her as she began stacking the plates on the table and brushing crumbs onto a napkin. She looked beautiful in her pink and violet shorts and white tank top that hugged every curve on her body. Her hair was brushed into a loose ponytail and her bangs teasingly flicked her long lashes.
But it wasn't just her appearance he was attracted to. And it wasn't just a sexual attraction. It was deeper than that. His heart fluttered the moment she touched his forehead to relieve his headache. It ached when she told him she needed to go through with the therapy session. It swelled with love when she opened up to him and made him part of the decision. And now, as he stood there and watched her, it was her strength, her steely determination, her willingness to face the demons that she spent six weeks hiding from that reminded him how deeply in love he really was.
So much had changed and yet, so much could never change. She may have lost some confidence and trust, but she was the same Abbey he fell in love with more than twelve years earlier. She was the Abbey he loved even more today.
It had been so long since he felt this close to her, since he was able to hold her, not out of comfort, but just so he could hear her heart beat, so he could run his fingers over the tiny little goosebumps that swelled on her arms when she was cold, so he could feel her hot breath against his skin.
It had been so long since he allowed himself to have lascivious thoughts about her, to lust after her just as he had before the attack.
Without thinking, he opened his mouth. "Do you want to..."
He stopped. It wasn't time yet. Asking Abbey to join him in the shower seemed so right. And at the same time, it seemed so wrong.
"What?"
"Nothing," he said softly as he shook his head. "Nothing."
He ducked behind the wall and headed towards the bedroom. Alone. It was a stressful enough day. Neither one needed yet another obstacle to tarnish what little peace of mind remained.
- - -
His disapproval had vanished, or at least faded enough to allow him to show his support for this therapy session that was like no other. Abbey wasn't being forced to remember him today. She wouldn't discuss her frustration at having her life ripped apart by a senseless act. Today, she would only talk about the unspeakable horror that had been submerged so deep into her subconscious that it would never fully rise to the surface.
And all he could do was sit beside her and hold her hand as she took a terrifying stroll into her psyche. And that's what he did.
Jed sat on the sofa right next to Abbey. One hand rested on his right thigh while the other fell onto her lap, their arms entangled. She inhaled sharply many times. An effort to calm her nerves, he figured as he squeezed her shoulder as a silent show of support.
Susan sat across from them, a large notepad and black pen in her hand. "Are you ready?"
Abbey looked to Jed before nodding. "Yeah."
"Okay. I'm going to take you back to the night of May 10th. You're going to have to help me here. What do you remember about that night?"
She began slowly, her left brow arching as her eyes grew with the memory. "I was at the hospital. I remember looking at the clock, waiting for my shift to end."
"What time did it end?"
"Seven o'clock." A bit hesitant at first, she repeated it. "Yeah, it was seven o'clock."
"And what did you do?"
"I changed into a pair of black pants and a purple shirt. And a belt. I had a belt on." The last part seemed particularly important though she didn't know why. "Then I picked up my keys and walked out of the building, into the parking lot."
"Towards your car?"
"Yeah."
"Then what?"
"I don't know," she answered quickly, her fingers wrapping tightly around Jed's.
"Yes, you do. Take a deep breath." Abbey did as Susan instructed. "Good. Take another. Nice and slow. That's it."
"I can't remember."
"I'm going to help you, Abbey. It wasn't completely dark out yet, was it?"
"No. No, it wasn't."
"You walked to your car. Did you hear anything?"
Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits. Her jaw was clenched and noticeable tremors shook her body. It was hazy. The picture tilted inside her mind, as if she was watching a movie filmed with a shaky handheld camera.
She was removed from the scenario. She was watching it happen, replaying even more horrifically than she imaged. She walked along the deserted parking lot. She turned when she heard footsteps, but saw nothing. Dismissing it, she continued her trek. Only now, in her present state, she could see him. He was behind her, gaining on her. And as she spun around to confront the noiseless stranger, he reached for her.
His strong hands sunk into her flesh. His fingernails felt as if they were piercing her skin. He pulled her hair when she struggled. Her clip fell from the auburn tresses, breaking into pieces all over the pavement. She turned her back to him, staunchly reaching for the frame of her car, anything that could anchor her weight. He grabbed her fingers. The keys scratched the vehicle as she refused to surrender. He pushed one finger so far into the key chain, it penetrated the skin and caused her to scream in pain. But her scream was stifled as he turned her around and stuck claw-like palms painfully into her head, pressing her face deep into his shoulder as he forcefully picked her up.
The keys fell from her hand. She kicked and scratched as much as she could, but her feet were no longer touching the ground. She was completely helpless.
And that was just the beginning. Abbey gasped loudly, unprepared for what she remembered next.
TBC