Jay gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles blanched white. He was dead set on becoming Alex's guardian - there was no doubt there. However, his mind was a whirlwind of frustration, guilt, and a desperate need to make things right. The conversation with Dr. Charles kept replaying.
Connection over correction.
The words echoed, louder now, pounding in his skull. Even though he wasn't fully convinced that it would work, he couldn't ignore the doctor's perspective. He'd been trying to force Alex into compliance…trying to control her to an extent, even if he didn't see it that way just yet.
And look where all this got them.
Nowhere.
Worse than nowhere.
Their relationship was in shambles. Hanging on by a thread.
So what did he have to lose?
Absolutely nothing.
Jay exhaled slowly when the elevator doors closed inside his apartment building, his shoulders tense under the suffocating weight of his dress shirt and tie. This suit felt like a goddamn noose. He wasn't built for this formal appearance bullshit. He was built for action, for protection. And yet, when it came to Alex, he'd failed at both.
This time would be different. He had to believe that.
As he exited the elevator and approached his apartment door, his eyes immediately snapped to the top corner. The thin strip of tape still clung to the frame. Intact.
A small breath of relief. She hadn't run - at least not today. That was a start. He was fueled by a small spark of hope as he entered the apartment. However, it was eerily silent. No music. No sarcastic jabs echoing from her room. Just... silence.
That set the hair on the back of his neck on edge.
He discarded his messenger bag on the floor, draped his suit jacket over the back of the couch, and yanked at his tie, while he took in his surroundings. The belt felt tight around his waist, biting into his skin after a long day. He ripped it from his loops in one swift motion, doubling it over in his hand, more out of habit than anything else. He wanted to get out of this damn monkey suit.
However, before he disappeared into his room to change, he thought it would be good to check in on Alex - give her a heads up that he wanted to have an open and honest conversation. And it'd give her a chance to shake off whatever bad attitude she probably already had.
Jay knocked on her bedroom door. "Hey, Alex?" He waited a few moments to see if she'd reply.
On the other side of the door, Alex stared at the ceiling, contemplating just about everything in her life while music blared through her noise-canceling earbuds. As her mind drifted to purchasing the drugs, guilt crept up in her throat, so she abruptly sat up, took her fourth or fifth swig of whiskey, and let the burn push the feeling down into the abyss.
With a sigh, she put the cap back on the bottle and sat it on her nightstand. Ugh, nature was calling and she needed a bathroom break. She shuffled to her bedroom door as the hard rock song Bulletproof rang through her ears.
She opened the door and immediately ran into Jay, clearly startled at his sudden appearance. She stepped back and stared him in the eyes as she pulled out her earbuds. "What the–" she began to ask as her eyes drifted downwards and saw the doubled over belt resting in his right hand.
And just like that - all the fear, the terror, the nightmare that she'd tried to bury deep inside came to the surface as her heart stopped beating.
Oblivious to her internal reaction, Jay began explaining, "Alex, we need to talk about…"
She sharply sucked in air and her body refused to let it out.
It was a scene from a nightmare that Jay had promised would never become reality. She'd let herself believe him, start to trust him even, and he ended up being just like the father that spawned them both.
The belt.
The words.
It was just the beginning.
Before Jay could say another word, her fight or flight kicked in, and she slammed the door in his face, pushing her body up against it as she locked it. She threw her earbuds on the floor as the room moved in dizzying circles while her eyes darted around, trying to come up with a plan, any plan.
The window wasn't an option. They were 17 stories up. The door clearly wasn't an option.
There was no escape from these four walls.
She was trapped, like she'd always been with her dad. Her mind began to spiral and her subconscious immediately went into survival mode to help her make it through what was about to happen.
With no other option, she opened her closet and dove in, shutting the door in front of her. The darkness was suffocating as she cradled her knees to her chest. She rocked back and forth and tears started to form, her throat closing up as she waited for the inevitable to come.
Yes, she'd fucked up. She'd royally fucked up. She was well aware of that and had spent the whole day unsuccessfully coming to terms with it all. But she had never anticipated that he'd come at her with a belt. After everything he'd promised…
Jay was a liar just like the rest.
She'd known it was only a matter of time before things took a turn. But she felt no comfort in being validated.
The detective stared at the closed door in shock. What the hell? Sure things weren't great between them right now, but he hadn't expected this. He heard the lock and shortly after the sound of her scrambling into the closet. The latter made him realize this wasn't her normal teenage drama. Something was going on.
He reached above the door frame to grab the key to the room, and in doing so, he saw the belt in his hand literally stare him in the face.
Well fuck.
How could he have been this careless? After everything she'd been through, he came barging in here "to talk" with a damn belt gripped in his hand.
No wonder she fled.
He tossed the belt onto the couch and rested his head against the door as he silently berated himself for not thinking this through. He just kept making everything worse!
Once he regained composure, he tapped again on the door. "Alex, I'm sorry. I'm not…I'm not going to hit you. I was just taking off this damn suit I had to wear today."
He desperately waited to hear any acknowledgement of his confession. However, Alex's mind was too far gone. She wouldn't have heard a bomb explode beside her at this point. She was in a full inebriated panic mode. Her rapid breathing was the only sound that she heard over her loud inner voice telling her to brace for impact.
Feeling that every second mattered, he immediately unlocked the door and walked to the closet, pausing before he opened it. "Alex, I'm sorry. I'd never do that to you," he explained, remorse soaking every word.
When Alex saw his shadow outside the sliding closet door, her mind spiraled to its darkest place. With her dad, she'd eventually stopped fighting back and let whatever was going to happen…happen, because that usually meant it didn't last as long as when she'd fight back.
But she wasn't about to roll over and let Jay do this to her.
Hell no.
Despite her panicked breathing and tingling extremities, she managed to grab a tennis shoe in each hand. As soon as the door opened, she launched the shoes blindly at the figure.
"Don't touch me!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.
Jay reflexively caught one shoe but the other hit him square in the face. He'd never seen his sister in this state - the level of vulnerability and terror was only something he'd witnessed with true trauma victims on the job.
His throat threatened to close.
Jay kneeled down in front of his little sister. "Alex, hey, listen to me. I'm not going to hurt you." He reached out to try and gently grab her arms to get her to focus on him, on his voice. But he was only met with her flailing arms as she tried to get away from his clasp. Her mind kept telling her that the second he got ahold of her, he was going to drag her ass out of this closet and lay into her.
She was going to go down fighting.
Alex pushed against his arms with all the energy she could muster up as a tipsy sixteen year old against a trained army veteran. Jay tried over and over to get her to listen, but nothing was working.
Finally, he did the only other thing he could think of; he stopped trying to control the situation and sat down beside her in the closet, desperately searching for a connection.
The movement hadn't been something that Alex was anticipating, so it jolted her mind for a moment. Why was he sitting beside her? Why wasn't he trying to drag her out of here and start beating her?
What kind of game was he playing?
Here we go! The beginning of the end - so bittersweet! I wrote these final chapters last April and it's been my north star to work toward ever since. There will be either 1 or 2 chapters more. Please let me know what you think in the comments - they are such great encouragement and feedback for me!
I plan to do a story of one shots (some may be a few chapters each) as a continuation of their lives after this story. If that's something you'd be interested in reading, please comment to let me know, so I can make sure there's still interest in a one-shot series :)
