It was just Holtzmann and Tom. Holtz had asked to be alone. The other three were on the other side of a door. Holtz could sense Patty at the crack- ready to pounce in-case she was needed.
"Jillian." Tom started, Holtzmann whimpered. He was the last person to call her that, after that she asked people to call her by her last name. When her first name was used it sent her back to that time. She could almost hear him whisper it into her ear as she felt the weight of him on top of her. How his breath scattered across her cheeks causing her to turn her head.
"You've done well for yourself." He said. Holtzmann frowned. She could feel him looking at her, he looked her up and down, as if he was analysing her, she felt the back of her neck go hot.
"I suppose my son informed you that I was out..."
"He rang Pete." Holtz replied.
"I got out on good behaviour." Holtzmann snorted involuntarily. Tom ignored it.
"So why are you here?" She whispered.
"I came to apologise." For the first time Holtzmann looked at him properly. Her eyes bore into him, as his bore into hers. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. This was not what she was expecting.
"I had a lot of thinking time, all those years. It was extremely lonely- I only had myself for company" He looked sad. Holtzmann frowned as she felt anger bubbling up inside of her.
"All those years! You deserved them all and the ones you didn't serve. What you did to me...what you did. It shouldn't have required years of thinking...just one split second. That you shouldn't have done it!" Holtz started off quietly but soon found herself shouting. She heard the door creak open slightly. Tom opened his mouth to retaliate. Holtzmann cut him off.
"Do you know what that did to me, the first time you hit me? I couldn't understand why. It was just a window and it was an accident! Then all the times after that...then the day you raped me!" Holtzmann was taken back. She had only said that out loud once before- when she gave her statement. She had never said it that bluntly since. Tom sighed.
"That first time, I was angry. I lost control and I'm sorry." Holtzmann nodded.
"And all the times after that?" Tom looked down. Holtz couldn't stand how pathetic he was being- it was her who had to live through these things, it was him who had caused them. He did not have the right to wallow about them.
"Do you remember the day I was in the kitchen making myself some lunch to take to school? Pete had left early to catch a teacher before class. I was making a sandwich- I was cooking the meat. You held my hand over the gas flame. You burned me, then you left. I wrapped my hand in cellophane and went to school. I claimed it was an accident."Tom shook his head.
"I don't remember Jill..." Then Holtzmann lost it. She pushed up from her chair and leapt at him. Her hands fastened around his neck, they fell to the floor. Tom groaned and tried to roll Holtz onto her back. She was stronger than him. She relished at this. She successfully pinned him down and held him there. She noticed she was crying, she wiped a stray tear from her lashes. Patty was at her side. She gently put her hand on Holtzmann`s back and coaxed her off the man. Holtz lay against Patty, she tried to catch her breath. Suddenly Pete burst through the door. He saw the scene. He saw Erin and Abby against Tom and Patty holding a shaken Hotlzmann. He automatically jumped to the wrong conclusion. For the second time in three short munities Tom James was attacked by a Holtzmann.
