(Emma)

I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe that after everything that I worked so hard for I was back in this town.

I sat by myself in a booth at one of the town’s few bars, reading my old diary, the one I used from the time I was 11 until I left for college back when I was 18. I was hoping that a combination of alcohol and reading my own old dreams would give me the fake courage I needed to actually make a plan and get back out of this town.

I flipped through all the pages, I really didn’t use it to write much, just when I absolutely needed to get something out. I never actually knew if having a diary was healthy or not but I did know that it was much cheaper than the therapy my parents wouldn’t pay for. I don’t really think I needed it anyway, it was just that being a teenager always came with problems that nobody wanted to go through.

As I looked back through all the pages and I read all my hopes and dreams I knew that I had to find a way to get back out of here as soon as possible. Hell when I read pages that I had written back when I was 14 I could see that I had ambitions far bigger than this place.

I had just gotten back home after finishing my college degree down in Atlanta, I wanted to get into news reporting. I had an internship lined up and then they had to cancel on me due to budget cuts. After nearly a year of floundering around the city trying to chase my dream I was right back here.

To think I came that close, that internship would have opened all the doors I needed. I felt like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun and then came crashing right back down to Earth, I just wish that I crashed in a spot other than rural Vermont. Now I was stuck in my mom’s house living with her and my 18 year old half sister Milly who was still in highschool. I know you’re not supposed to have your life figured out when you’re 24 but still I just felt so stagnated.

I took a drink and looked through more of my diary, skipping past the pages I marked with red permanent marker. Those were the pages I never wanted to go back to, those were the pages I wrote about John.

No John wasn’t an ex boyfriend, he wasn’t a crush I had in highschool or even a weird guy who stalked me. John was my stepfather, and thankfully he was out of my life.

I washed the thought of him out of my mind with another sip of my drink, what I’d give for his memory to be wiped out of my brain permanently. I would have ripped those red pages out, in fact I did rip out a few of them, but every time I ripped one out it felt like I was ridding him of his guilt. I wanted to make sure there was always a record of the what he said and the things he did.

The bar was mostly empty, meaning that I could sit here and think in peace. Part of me thought I just needed to actually make a connection with someone back in town, the only person I ever really talked to since I got back were my mom and my half sister. My old friends didn’t want a whole lot to do with me anymore, can’t say I blame them, we’re all different than we were when we were in high school.

The door opened and the sound of boots hitting the hardwood floor filled the room, the bar was so quiet and empty that even the sound of someone walking echoed throughout the building. Almost felt like you were in a library, a smellier library where the overweight guys of the town would come and drunkenly hit on you.

I heard a deep and booming voice order a whiskey before walking over to a table nearby me.

I saw him out of the corner of my eye, lightly tapping his fingers on the table as he watched the bartender pour his drink.

I looked up to see if I recognized him, when you live in a town this small for as long as I have your know almost everyone. When my eyes hit him I was almost shocked to see the drop dead gorgeous man that sat there before me. He looked like he was in his early thirties, he had short but wavy brown hair, light stubble that peppered his face, and an aura about him that made him seem hardened. There were men around town that acted hard but you could smell their insecurity from a mile away, you could tell that this guy was no nonsense and knew exactly what he wanted.

He wore a plain white t-shirt that revealed tattoos all across his muscular and toned arms. He was absolutely built, but he didn’t look like he spent all day every day in a gym, no he looked like he got these muscles naturally. Whatever he did to get a body like that I had no idea.

My eyes fixated on his tattoos, if you wanted to tell that someone wasn’t from this town you just had to look at see if they had tattoos. We didn’t have any tattoo parlors in this town or any of the surrounding towns and people here still had a stigma about them. If anyone from around here did get one they always made sure it was easily concealable. This guy was definitely wasn’t from around here, my interest was piqued.

The bartender brought him his drink, as he took a sip he glanced over and noticed me looking at him. I tried to quickly look back at my book to make it seem like I wasn’t eyeing him up but I was already caught red handed. I could feel his eyes fixated on me, I looked back at him and we met each other’s gaze. He had deep blue eyes that just pierced right through you, it almost felt like he was looking right into me.

I felt like I was frozen in his gaze, like I wasn’t allowed to move as long as he was looking at me. He was far more handsome than any man we had in town, and all I could wonder was where he was from. Good looking guys just don’t come into this town on a daily basis, he had to be here for a reason.

I looked back down at my notebook, trying to get back to what I was doing but I could still feel his eyes on me. Maybe I should go and introduce myself? At least just to find out his name.

No, no I shouldn’t waste my time, chances are I would just bore him to death anyway. What would a guy like him want with a girl like me? I’m as boring as this town, he’d probably laugh me out of the bar if I even tried to talk to him. I should just go now before he tries to talk to me and wastes his time.

I was already playing the scene in my head, where he comes up and introduces himself to me. I would try to impress him with something he didn’t care about and watch as those piercing blue eyes became more and more dull as he started to phase out everything I said. I would just bore him to death.

I shouldn’t get caught up with good looking men anyway, they always have something to hide. At least that’s how I justify my fear of talking to them.

I gathered my things and stood up, preparing myself to walk out the door. I tried again to make it look as if I wasn’t staring at him earlier, as if our gazes had only accidentally met. I made myself look busy by collecting my things only to feel my eyes wandering back towards his table again.

I glanced over quickly to see that he was now looking at the bar’s tv, not even paying attention to what I was doing. Guess he gave up on me the second I got my stuff together. Just like every other guy that has checked me out, loses interest only seconds after eyeing me up. It happened way too often for comfort back in college, although it never hit me as hard because they were never as good looking as this stranger.

“Can I buy you a drink” I heard a voice from behind me say.

The question caught me off guard, I turned around to see a guy in a leather jacket standing near me. He was leaning in uncomfortably close to me, violating my personal space so blatantly that I just wanted to be rude and push him away. I didn’t want to make a scene though, I wasn’t mean, I’d just put him down gently. Besides, he seemed familiar, maybe I used to go to highschool with him?

“Thank you but I’m actually on my way out.” I smiled politely at him as I walked towards the door, he was a pretty big guy but something about him put me off, he had a weird negative vibe to him that felt almost infectious. It was the kind of energy you felt sitting in a hospital waiting room or better yet; an old dive bar where only middle aged alcoholic men hung out, which was coincidentally exactly where we were.

He followed behind me intently, more determined than before. “Oh come on, just one drink. You don’t have time for just one drink?” He sounded more assertive this time and was really starting to creep me out, I just kept heading for the door. I didn’t know how to handle situations like this and at this point I just felt awkward that it was going on for this long.

“I really have to go, maybe some other time alright” I said trying to reason with him.

I walked out of the bar, ready to call the town’s taxi service to come and pick me up.

He grabbed the phone out of my hand, raising it above his head and smiling at me. When he looked at me in the eyes I recognized him, Sam Feldman, he used to play on the football team back in highschool. I could see that he still had the attitude of a teenage jock but he had let himself become incredibly out of shape and was living in the past. Didn’t seem like he recognized me though, story of my life.

“What kind of fucking world is this where a man can’t even buy a pretty girl a drink? You’re not getting your phone back until you accept my offer.” I could smell his breath, he was definitely a few drinks too deep. I would have felt sorry for him if he wasn’t scaring me right now.

“Look I really have to go, please just give me back my phone” I pleaded.

“Why won’t you accept my offer? Girls fucking love me! Do you think you’re fucking better than me?”

“Please I didn’t say that I just want to get out of here I really have to go.” I didn’t actually have to go anywhere, I just wanted to leave but I really needed my phone back.

“Answer my fucking question. Do. You. Think. That. You’re. Better than me?”

The smile on his face turned quickly into anger. He lifted up his shirt to reveal a revolver tucked into his belt. I immediately backed up against the wall in fear.

“And you better say what I wanna fucking hear or else we’re really gonna have some problems.”

“N-no” I stuttered out in fear. I had seen a gun before but never in my life did I think I would be threatened by one, especially in my small town. “I don’t think I’m better than you.” I really didn’t, god if I had just accepted the drink maybe he would have left me alone.

“If you don’t think you’re better than me then maybe you can do a little something for me” he said eyeing my body up and down.

He leaned in close to me before continuing. “You think I didn’t see the way you were looking at that guy? Fucking slut thinking she can run away from her cock cravings” he said putting his mouth just inches away from my ear.

I wanted to run, I wanted to scream, but I was afraid of what he would do with that gun. I was too afraid to even cry.

“Sam please, I know who you are and I know you weren’t like this back in school. You can just let me go right now I won’t tell anyone” I pleaded.

“I don’t fucking know who you are, so you don’t know who I am. We’re gonna go behind the bar and have a few minutes of fun, then you can go do whatever the fuck you want to do.”

He grabbed me by the neck with one hand and pressed the barrel of the gun against my face with the other hand. The pressure on my neck reminded me of the times John would grab me and throw me to the floor just to take out his anger and frustration, whatever was about to happen with Sam would be much worse.

He yanked me over to the side of the building, causing me to drop my stuff on the sidewalk outside the bar.

He led me behind the bar, holding the gun to my throat as he began to unbuckle his belt.

“Hope you like a mouthful” he said laughing as he pressed the barrel of the gun harder. Oh god this was really about to happen wasn’t it? All those years I prevented John from doing something like this to me and now it was about to happen in the back of an old bar with a gun pressed to my throat.

Just as he was about to get his pants down a hand reached around the corner and grabbed the pistol by the barrel, in one swift move the hand pulled the pistol back hard enough that it broke Sam’s finger.

Sam fell to the ground holding onto his hand and crying out in pain as the blue eyed man from the bar appeared from around the corner.

I looked at him in shock, he must have seen Sam aggressively pursuing me in the bar and followed us to make sure I was alright.

He tucked Sam’s gun into his own waistband, walking over to him laying in pain on the ground.

“Buddy you’re lucky I’m in a good mood right now, otherwise you’d be dealing with much worse than a broken finger.”

He turned to me and pulled my notebook out of his pocket, handing it to me. “And you, you’re lucky I was here, who knows what would have happened if this jackass got what he wanted.”

As he extended his arm out to hand it to me I got a better look at his tattoos, I recognized it immediately as an initiate tattoo for a gang down in Boston. 7 black stripes all tattooed horizontally on the upper part of his wrist, close to the elbow. I only recognized it because I wanted to get a tattoo back when I was in high school, and of course after a few hours of curiosity and the magic of the internet I wandered across gang tattoos. I would have forgotten it if there wasn’t a huge news story involving the same gang a few years back. Was he really one of them?

The tattoo was old and faded so I could only imagine that he had gotten it a long time ago. I couldn’t remember the name of the gang but I knew for a fact that nobody in this area would dare get a tattoo like that unless they were really in a gang.

“Thank you, thank you so much I owe you more than you can imagine” I replied, as I realized that I was staring at his arm long enough for him to be uncomfortable. I bent over near Sam as he laid on the ground and held his finger in pain picking up my phone that fell out of his pocket when he fell on the ground. I would have thought that a football player would have been used to pain, his finger must have really been messed up. Can’t say he didn’t deserve it.

The stranger took me by the hand and led me away from the scene as I really began to calm down and get over what almost happened. It had brought back too many bad memories, memories of all those times John almost succeeded. He’d come home after a night of drinking with god knows who, grabbing his crotch and complaining about how horny he was. I lived in fear of that man every day, waiting for the night that he’d be drunk enough to come into my room but sober enough to actually overpower me. The next morning mom would always act as if nothing ever happened, as if the bruises on my arms and face that I got from successfully defending myself just weren’t there. He’d go out and freeload around the town and he’d get a goddamn goodbye kiss from her at the door every morning. God I just wanted to forget him.

“Everything alright?” the stranger said as he led me to a nearby parking lot.

“Yeah, I’m just a little shaken up.”

He looked at me deep in my eyes with that crystal blue stare of his, after everything that had happened it was comforting.

“Come on, I’ll take you home.”

He walked over to a motorcycle that was parked, I had never been on one and after what just happened I really wasn’t in the mood for my heart to be racing again, but I’d much rather go home with the man who saved me then call up a taxi after what just happened. I guess I should have expected him to have a bike after I recognized his tattoo, I was still wondering what he was doing in this small town when his gang was based in Boston. I knew that I should run away from him considering the fact that he’s a gang member who was dangerous enough to last this long but after saving me and the way that he looked at me made me feel like he was safe.

“Can I at least know your name?” I asked looking up at him. He towered over me, not to mention his arms, chest, and shoulders were so big that I couldn’t imagine any man wanting to mess with him. Just looking at him made me feel safe from anyone who would dare try to hurt me.

“Sven” he said with a smile.

“Oh, I’ve never met someone with that name before” I replied.

“Swedish name, it’s where my mom’s from" he said smiling down at me. “I saw you looking at me at the bar. I was going to come over and introduce myself but then you got up to leave.” The more he spoke the more I could hear Boston in his accent, it was somewhat masked by his deep voice but it was still there. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and just assume that I was wrong about the one specific tattoo that I saw but it looked all too familiar, his Boston accent just seemed to almost cement to me that he really was a gang member. Would it be wrong if I just looked the other way about it? Would it be wrong if I just pretended that he wasn’t who he seemed to be?

“Good thing you were paying attention to what I was doing” I replied. “Otherwise I’d be in a much worse place right now. My name’s Emma by the way.”

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you Emma” he said sitting on his bike and putting the key in. “You ever ride one of these things before.”

“Once or twice” I said lying, I didn’t want to tell him I was uncomfortable with it and make him feel guilty. I just wanted to go home.

I slowly got onto the bike, wrapping my arms around his waist. I had to hold in a gasp when I felt his toned abs through his t-shirt, I wasn’t expecting that at all.

He revved up the bike and pulled out onto the street, I buried my face into his back immediately as I held on for dear life. I normally never liked to touch men that I had only just met but the fear of riding definitely put an end to that.

“You know I don’t know where you live, and you can’t show me where to go if you’re hiding your face back there” he said chuckling.

I slowly brought my face away from his back, looking over his shoulder to see where we were going.

I took a couple of deep breaths and my fear began to turn into exhilaration, once the wind hit my face I was hooked. It felt so good that I actually started laughing, feeling my hair whip behind me in the wind, hearing the cars whizz by us, no wonder people rode these things. I had stayed away from them for so long because I thought they were death traps, I was missing out.

I was still a little afraid of falling off so I held onto Sven tight, pointing to where he should go as the setting sun warmed our backs and the wind ran through my hair. If I didn’t know any better I’d say I was flying.