Chapter Eight: Comfort and Explanations
They arrived home within 30 minutes and Jenny and Alex were watching cartoons. When they saw Evy, the immediately ran to her. Alex got there first. "Mum? Mum, what happened!" He was really concerned for his mother. He always was when he saw her upset. He was afraid something happened and he might lose her again.
Jonathan walked over to Alex, "You're mum's fine, Alex. She just needs to be with your father right now, ok? Come on, let go back to the TV." Jonathan took an unwilling Alex back to the TV. Jenny followed.
Rick took Evy upstairs. The whole way home, Evy hadn't let go of Rick for one second. And she was still clinging on to him for dear life. When they got to the bedroom, Rick sat them down on the bed, still holding onto Evy. "Evy?" She moaned softly, indicating for him to continue. "I know that probably don't want to talk about it, but I need to know what he did to you." She sniffed, and slowly sat up away from him. Just enough to look him in the eyes. "Did he fight with you? Did he hit you, or anything? Or just try to…'take you' so to speak?"
"He didn't hit me. But he choked me." She finally revealed the marks that were still on her throat.
"Oh my God, Evy…"
"And he had me bent backwards over that table, which hurt my back a little." She turned away from him to allow him to see if there were any marks there. He lifted her shirt a little, enough to see that there were pretty good size bruises on her lower back.
"He hurt your back more than 'a little'. You have some pretty big bruises." He lowered her shirt again and she turned back to face him. "Is there anything else he did?"
"Well, what you walked in on wasn't all he did. He ---." It was hard for her to finish, just thinking about made her want to curl up in a ball again. So she leaned into Rick again. And he held onto her.
"It's ok. Take your time." he said, rubbing her back, where there were no bruises.
"He kissed me. And he roamed my body while he did it." Tears were now in her eyes again. Rick didn't know what to think. He couldn't come close to imagining what she had gone through that day. He knew that there was nothing he could do for her but comfort her. So that's exactly what he did.
"It's ok now. You don't have to ever worry about him again! I promise you that I'll never let anything happen to you again, ok?" He started rocking them again.
"Ok." she replied. It was almost night, so they decided to go to sleep, the best they could. Surprisingly, they slept quite well.