Ten

TEN

Huck

"I'm sorry. I'm such a mess."

The last thing I wanted to do was dismiss anything Josie said to me. In this instance, however, I couldn't ignore how I felt.

"You have absolutely nothing to apologize for, Josie. If anyone should be sorry, it's me."

No true words had ever been spoken.

From the moment I sat in that booth at the diner having pie with her, I knew. Or, well, I had a feeling about it. After we left and I found myself almost consistently clutching my phone in my hand, waiting to hear from her, the feeling became stronger. But after everything that had happened since I got that call from her yesterday morning, I no longer had any doubt about it.

I would go to the ends of the earth for this woman. Lie, kill—it didn't matter. There wasn't anything I wouldn't do.

No matter what it took, no matter what it cost me, I was going to be the man she needed and deserved to have in her life.

There was a long road ahead of us. Josie was certainly going to have to face some demons in getting through this, but I was going to be right by her side as she did it. For now, I was going to do whatever it took to get her healed.

Everything else would be secondary, even if I believed it was going to be just as crucial and monumental in her healing process. We had to take this one day at a time.

And though I didn't intend to drop all my plans on her immediately, I expected it wasn't going to be long before I made it known to her that she was the woman I ultimately planned to spend my life with.

Every time that thought had passed through my head since I'd been sitting beside her bed in this hospital, I wondered if I was crazy. Why was I so willing to make such an outlandish claim?

I could only assume it was that thing people said—when you know, you know. And when it came to Josie, I knew. All these years, so much time had been lost, and it had always been her.

To think I'd walked away from her the way I had so many years ago when she could have been mine all this time. What a fool I'd been. It was easily the biggest mistake of my life.

I knew we were older now, and a lot of time had passed. It was likely we both had changed a lot in the time we'd been apart from one another. But deep down, I believed I knew Josie just like I believed she knew me. Who we were at our cores hadn't changed, and that was the woman I was ready to put everything on the line for.

And when it all boiled down, I certainly wasn't prepared to have her blaming herself and apologizing for what had happened to her.

I was still sitting beside her on the bed, having just held her in my arms for several long minutes as she cried. With every tear she shed, the guilt I felt grew stronger and stronger. She deserved so much better than she got in life.

"But I really am so sorry," she insisted. "I should have listened to you. None of this would have happened. I thought I'd be fine. I thought I knew how to escape. I really don't know what I'm doing."

"Josie, honey, I do this for a living," I explained. "I've worked with a lot of people who've been in a similar situation as you, so I knew better. I should have done more."

She shook her head slightly as she eased her body back against the mattress. "You tried. I wouldn't listen."

Placing blame wasn't helping either of us. "Look, there's nothing we can do about that now. It's done, and we just have to move forward."

"You have to teach me."

"What?"

"I need to learn self-defense, Huck."

She'd just barely woken up and been evaluated by her doctor. We were having our first real conversation since we shared pie with each other a few days ago. And after everything she'd been through—both the physical and emotional trauma—all she could think about was how she was going to defend herself. I'd never deny her that. When the time was right, I'd teach her. But for now, Josie needed to trust I could keep her safe while she focused on letting her body heal.

I took her hand in mine and stroked my thumb across her knuckles. "I'll teach you anything you want to know. But let's make sure you're completely healed and cleared for stuff like that before we dive in. Until then, I promise I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."

As I continued to run the pad of my thumb over her hand, Josie's good eye drifted shut. Every time I looked at her and saw what he'd done to her, I questioned whether I'd done enough when I paid him a visit. It would never feel like I'd given him all that he deserved.

On the bright side, what I'd said seemed to have helped Josie, because there was an unmistakable sense of peace that had settled over her.

She sat in that for a moment before looking at me again. "I don't know how to thank you for coming so quickly. You have no idea how relieved I am to still be alive."

That she thought I needed her to thank me was crazy. She had no idea the lengths I was willing to go for her. Then again, it wasn't like I should have expected her to understand that. Until now, until all of this had happened, I hadn't known, either.

"I'm glad you called me. But I am curious about something, if you think you'll be okay talking about it," I returned.

She shifted slightly in the bed, wincing as she did from the pain in her ribs. "Okay. I'm bracing myself for this."

Shaking my head as I offered a reassuring squeeze to her fingertips, I said, "I don't want you to be worried, Josie. If it's too much to talk about right now, we don't have to. I'm just… well, I guess I'm curious how things seemed to be going well and suddenly took such a horrible turn."

Josie's fingers twitched, and she remained silent for a long time. With the swelling and bruising around her eye, it was difficult to read her. I didn't know if she was against sharing altogether, or if she was reliving the nightmare inside her head.

Realizing I'd probably made a mistake in asking her to recount any part of it, I said, "I'm sorry. This is too much for you right now."

"It's not that, Huck. It's just that… well, I'm afraid of how you'll react once I share the truth with you," she explained.

She was scared. That was the very last thing I would have hoped to hear when it came to how she felt about me. "There isn't anything you can't tell me. Josie, I'd never lay a hand on you. I don't want you to be afraid of me."

"I know that. I promise I trust that I'm safe whenever I'm with you. But this might be difficult for you to hear."

So, she didn't fear me. She feared how hearing the truth would impact me. She'd endured it, suffering the devastating blows to her body. If she could do that, I thought I was getting off easily by simply listening to how it happened. "I'm sure it's not pleasant, but I assure you I want to know how it happened. You don't need to be worried about my reaction. I want you to be able to share it and give the burden to me."

Josie hesitated for a few beats before she finally shared, "He found your card."

"What?"

"As I told you a few days ago, I had a plan to escape. I'd been saving little bits of money from my tips for weeks, but I couldn't just keep that money anywhere that he could find it, so I hid it inside a box of tampons under the bathroom sink. Kurt would never have a reason to go in there, so I figured it would be safe. I don't know what prompted him to look in there that morning. Maybe he knocked it over when he was getting out a roll of toilet paper. I'm not sure. But he found the money. And when he questioned me about it, I told him I was trying to save in secret so I could surprise him with a birthday gift."

"He didn't buy that explanation?" I asked.

"No," she rasped. "Not only is his birthday three months away, but he found the business card you gave me in there, too. So, he put two and two together and concluded that I was planning to leave him."

I closed my eyes and let out a sigh. If I hadn't given her my card, maybe this wouldn't have happened to her. I should have been smarter than that. I should have just gone into the diner regularly to check on her.

If I thought I felt guilty before she gave me this information, it didn't compare to what I felt now. No wonder Josie had struggled to share the details with me. Regret consumed me. Had I brought all of this on her?

"I'm so sorry. I should have known better than to give you my card."

"Huck, you didn't know?—"

"I knew," I insisted, cutting her off. "The first day I saw you, I just had that feeling. That was a big part of the reason I gave you the card. I tried to keep it casual, but the truth was that I had a suspicion about your situation. But without any concrete evidence, I didn't want to come right out, make assumptions, and create an uncomfortable or awkward situation for you. I knew it was possible you were still dealing with lingering trauma over what your dad did to you. Fuck, I'm so sorry for putting you in an even more vulnerable position for my own selfish reasons."

"Selfish?"

I let out a frustrated sigh. "When I saw you for the first time after all these years, I couldn't think straight. I was hit with so many memories of all the time we'd spent together that last year of high school, and I realized just how much I missed you."

For the first time since Josie had woken up, the corners of her mouth tipped up. She flipped her hand over beneath mine so she could curl her fingers around my hand. After giving me a squeeze there, she revealed, "You weren't the only one distracted. Seeing you for the first time in all these years was the greatest gift for me."

That felt good to hear. Maybe all of the things I'd been wondering that day—like if she'd remember my order without needing to write it down because she wasn't going to forget a word we said to one another—had been accurate. She felt the same about seeing me as I did about seeing her. But as much as I appreciated knowing the feeling was mutual, the thought I'd done something to only exacerbate her situation still haunted me.

Considering Josie had already been concerned about sharing the details with me about what happened to her, I didn't want to dwell on the guilt I felt. I'd handle that on my own. For now, I needed to set my feelings aside and focus on what I was going to do to help Josie heal.

Returning her smile, I said, "For what it's worth, if I had known just how bad things were for you, I would have done something differently. My intention in giving you my card was only to give you some hope and perhaps a connection to someone you could depend on. We can't go back to change any of it, and that sucks. As long as you know that I'm going to be here for you every step of the way while you heal, that's all that matters now. And I will say that it's nice to know I wasn't the only one caught up in our first encounter in years."

"Thank you, Huck. Thank you for always being someone I could put my faith and trust in. It's nice to have someone to depend on."

She should have been able to depend on me in the years that followed our high school graduation. If I'd stuck around, she wouldn't have ever been in the position to feel like she had nobody there for her.

"From this point forward, Josie, you're always going to have that from me. I need to know that you believe that."

Her chin jerked down slightly. "I do."

"Good. Now, what did the doctor have to say? Is he happy with your progress so far?"

"I think so. Unfortunately, I'm not getting out of here right away, and it's just now hitting me that I'm supposed to be at work."

I could tell she was about to start fretting, so I went back to stroking my thumb over the skin on her hand. "I took care of it."

Her lips parted. "What?"

"I called your job and told them you were taken to the hospital and wouldn't be in for a few days. I didn't tell them what happened; that's yours to share whenever you are ready. But I thought you'd want them to know that you didn't just blow them off," I explained.

She hesitated to respond, her eye roaming over my face. There was a sense of disbelief lingering there. "Thank you for doing that."

"I told you I was going to be here for you. I'm going to do whatever you need and get you through this with the least amount of hassle and heartache."

"Well, speaking of hassle," she started. "When the doctor and nurse were in here earlier, they told me they had no choice but to report my situation and that I should expect some police officers will be stopping in to speak with me."

I gave her a nod. "Okay. You don't have to worry about that. Whatever you decide to do, press charges or not, I'm behind you all the way."

"Do you think I should?" she asked.

"I think a man like him deserves everything he's got coming to him. But the way I feel, and the way you feel, are two different things. At the very least, I do think you should file a report. It would be wise to have it documented in case you should ever need it."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Josie's body tensed. "Because it's possible, and likely, he could come after me, right?"

Suddenly, I was the one struggling to speak. I had to tell her the truth, but I didn't know how she was going to handle it. Following a long stretch of silence, I confessed, "I'd like to think he got the message loud and clear, but I don't know him well enough to know how he'll react."

"The message? You think that he realizes that me not being there when he got home was enough for him to recognize that I'd reached my breaking point?" she questioned me.

I shook my head. "That's not the message I'm talking about."

"What do you mean, then?"

Since I was still holding on to her hand with one of mine, I lifted the other and showed her the back of it. "Remember when you asked me about what happened to my hands?"

A look washed over her that indicated she had forgotten about my hands, but at the mention of them, she suddenly remembered. "Yes. Are you telling me that you…"

"I had just gotten word that you were here and heavily medicated, that it would be a little while before I'd be allowed to come and see you," I shared. "So, I went back, and when he got home, I made sure he knew that you were done with him and that he was never to contact you again."

Josie's throat moved with a deep swallow. "You did?"

"I did."

"But it seems like you didn't just have a conversation with him about this," she noted.

Shaking my head, I confirmed, "I did not."

Her gaze roamed over me. "Are you okay?"

My lips twitched. "Honey, he didn't stand a chance against a man. Other than the devastation I feel about what he did to you, he didn't hurt me."

She was silent for a long time, and I wondered if she was thinking twice about trusting me with her safety. I realized it probably wasn't the best idea. She'd experienced enough violence in her life, and I'd just added to it. Maybe it didn't matter to her that I'd only done it to the guy who deserved far worse than I'd given him.

"You went after the man who abused me and beat him up?" she finally asked.

"Yes."

She tipped her head slightly to one side. "Why?"

The answer was simple. "Because he hurt you."

Josie didn't respond.

I continued. "I also did it because I wanted him to know you have someone here for you who isn't going to stand for him ever coming near you again. But mostly, it was because he hurt you."

Following an exceptionally long pause, Josie said, "You defended my honor, Huck."

Relief swept through me. "I did."

"Nobody has ever done that for me."

I offered a nod in return. "I know. But that's never going to be the case from now until forever."

"Can I hug you again?"

Did she think I would have denied her that? I reached out to her, helping her ease her body up from the mattress.

Then I folded her in my arms and held on, hoping she was getting whatever she needed from my embrace and knowing there wouldn't ever be a time when I wouldn't want to give her that.