Chapter 23

“His name is Andrew Spencer. I met him when we were both in the foster system.”

Caleb's eyebrows raise. “You were in the foster system? For how long?”

“My whole life since birth, but that really isn’t relevant to the story,” I answer. “*Anyway*,” I snark, and he holds up his hands in surrender, “We were in a couple of foster homes together. One when we were young, and then another one when I was thirteen or fourteen, and he was a few years older. I’m sure you know that not all foster parents are there to actually help. A lot of them are just in it for checks they can cash. Most of mine were like that. That last home we were in together was the worst of them. Andrew and I… We made a pact to stick together. Up until that point, I had really been alone in the world. It was the first time that I felt like someone had my back.”

I can feel myself slipping into those memories, back into that younger, incessantly angry, terrified version of myself. I take a few deep breaths to center myself, and, as if he can sense that I am struggling to stay grounded, Caleb reaches over and grabs my hand, giving it a squeeze. I squeeze back, and I’m grateful that he doesn’t let go. I clear my throat, then continue.

“Andrew aged out of the system while we were living there. Neither of us had our own phones, and he didn’t know where he was going to go, he had no plan, so we lost contact. I was devastated. I learned the hard way just how much he had been protecting me from. I suffered through the abuse for a few more years until one day I had finally had enough. I ran away. I got a shitty minimum wage job, and couch surfed until I had enough money saved to buy a beater car and then I lived out of that for a couple of years. When I was seventeen, I started taking night classes at a local community college. I started the nursing program the next year.”

“About halfway through nursing school, I got slapped with trespassing charges after getting caught sleeping in my car on campus one night. My car’s registration was also expired, since I couldn’t afford to update it, so they towed it and brought me into the station for the night. I was in a panic. I didn’t have money for food, much less money to pay for my registration and to get my car out of impound. I realized that I was going to have to drop out of school and work more overtime… but I also didn’t have a way to get to work anymore. It was a disaster. I have had a pretty shitty life, but that thirty-minute ride in the back of a police car was probably my lowest moment.”

Caleb has his full attention on me, I can feel the weight of it. He is leaning forward, as if this pathetic, depressing, mess of a story is drawing him in, like it is the most fascinating story he has ever heard in his life.

“But then… But then I walked into the police station, and who did I run into but Andrew fucking Spencer. Literally, I *ran into* him. He spilled the coffee he was holding all over the both of us. I actually have a little scar on my arm from the coffee burn.”

I rotate my arm so that he can see the small patch of skin on my forearm that is a slightly different shade from the skin surrounding it. He reaches for me, and gently, so very gently, grazes his thumb across it. It’s nothing special, just a casual brush of his finger, but it sends goosebumps skittering across my skin, and sends a wave of heat down my spine that pools in my lower belly. I have to catch my breath before I can continue.

“Andrew saved me that night,” I confess. I both love and hate this part of my story. The man who is ruining my life also saved it at one point. Even knowing how our story ended, part of me still looks back at these memories with fondness, even though that man deserves none of my positive feelings. “Once he recognized me, he pulled me into the biggest hug. He had entered the police academy not long after leaving me. He told me he had been looking for me since, but, of course, I didn’t have an address and I was never in the same place for long.”

“Anyway, once he heard what was happening he offered me a place to stay. He paid to get my car out of impound, and he got my registration all squared away. I moved in with him and then just kind of… stayed. At first it was more of a joint-survival, roommate type situation, but over time our relationship evolved into something more. I looked at him like my own personal savior of sorts, and I was honest to God head-over-heels in love with him. Every part of my life revolved around him. For a while, things were amazing, and I honestly believed that everything bad that had happened, all of the pain I had endured in my life was worth it if it led me to him.”

“Things started to change after I finished nursing school and got my first real job, though. I am not sure if it is because I became less dependent on him, or because I started taking better care of myself and putting effort into my appearance once I could afford to, or whether it had nothing to do with me and was just about him and his trauma and insecurities. Whatever the reason, things started going downhill. The things that he used to love about me became problematic– he would make me change if I was wearing something he deemed ‘too revealing,’ he would get jealous when I would care for male patients or worked with male coworkers and accuse me of wanting to sleep with them. He would just get so *angry*.”

“Then his anger slowly turned physical. At first he would throw things. Then it escalated to him punching walls, which turned into punching walls right next to me. Then eventually, he just started hitting me. Part of me knew it was abuse, but another, louder part of me believed that this behavior wasn’t really him. That if I just paid more attention to how I behaved, if I just tried a little harder to make him happy, that he would stop. It honestly felt like it was my fault.”

I have to take a moment to compose myself before I continue on. I have never, ever shared the next part of my story with anyone voluntarily. I take a shaky breath, and wipe my eyes, brushing away the tears that are forming in an effort to keep them from spilling over.

“Then one day, things came to a head. We were fighting– I can’t even remember what we were fighting about. It was probably something stupid, but… Something in me snapped that day. Rather than just taking his anger, and trying to placate and soothe him, I talked back. I stood up for myself. And I paid for it.”

Caleb’s eyes flash with anger, and the muscles along his jaw clench tightly. Part of me is a little worried about what this next part is going to do to *him*, specifically. However, if he wants to help me deal with the Andrew situation now, he needs the whole story. I drop my eyes to the table, knowing it will be easier if I don’t have to look at him while I force the words out.

“He almost killed me that day. I honestly believe that he *tried* to kill me, but failed. He wrapped his hands around my neck and strangled me until I was on the brink of consciousness. To this day, I don’t know why he stopped. I just know that my vision went black, and for no good reason, he just let go. I went in and out of consciousness for a few minutes. I don’t remember much from the next few days after that. I remember him wrapping his hands around my neck… then I have these flashes of memories of his face going slack, expressionless, then him simply walking away calmly– I’m not even sure if those memories are real or imagined– then I remember crawling to my cell phone and calling 911. The internal damage he did to my neck and vocal cords was so severe that I spent weeks in the ICU, and months doing rehab.”

I finally lift my eyes up to Caleb to assess his reaction, and I see a look of horror on his face as he makes the connection between my near-murder and his own actions the first day we met.