Chapter Thirty-Two
Shawn
After I finally was able to tell Valerie what her mother had told me, she raced off to call her mother, just as confused as I was. I had no idea what was going on. It didn’t make any sense to me that Valerie’s mother wouldn’t have been able to get in touch with her daughter.
Diana said that she had tried to call her daughter many times before, but she was always unable to reach her. Since I had no idea what was going on, I just answered her questions as best as I could. I tried my best not to embellish, because I knew that I wasn’t entirely sure what I was talking about and so, I didn’t want to do or say anything that would make things worse for the two of them.
However, I was happy. I knew that if Valerie was able to start talking to her mother again, the wounds might begin to heal and life might eventually go back to normal, at least for Valerie.
I was happy for that and for once, felt no jealousy. I had learned my lesson about that, or at least I hoped I did. I certainly didn’t want to end up bitter and miserable. I had eluded that fate my entire life. I would hate to have to start such an exhaustive, thankless and demeaning lifestyle now.
Therefore, when her mother asked me if she could speak to her, I told her the truth, that Valerie would be extremely happy to hear from her mother once she spoke to me long enough for me to tell her.
When her mother seemed confused, I explained that even though she was here and she was safe, she was ignoring me at this particular moment. I was going to have to try to tell her that she was looking for her as soon as I possibly could, when she stopped being so stubborn, but as we both knew, that might take a while.
Confused as I was, when I got off of the phone with her mother, I was very pleased by the result of our conversation. In addition to Diana wanting to work things out with Valerie, she also didn’t seem to be all that angry with me either. At the very least, she didn’t threaten me and she actually spoke with me, even after I assured her that Valerie was safe.
At the end of the conversation, my stepmother even went as far as to thank me for taking her in and ensuring that she was okay.
I told her that she knew I would do anything for Valerie and even though she seemed slightly weird about her answer, she agreed that was one thing that she never had to worry about, which made me happy, despite the strange situation.
Now that I had delivered the important message that I had for my stepsister, I imagined that Valerie would want nothing to do with me anymore, but for now, that was okay. At least I was able to help her reconnect with her mother. That was something after all and I was sure that once she stopped wishing that she could kill me with her glower, she would find it in her heart to be somewhat appreciative.
Perhaps then, she would want to talk to me a little bit, but after the fight that we had earlier in the afternoon, I certainly wasn’t going to hold my breath. However, not too long after I finally relayed my message to Valerie, there was a knock at the door.
Unless she got drunk and lost her key again, I seriously doubted it was my mother, but at this point, I didn’t really care who it was.
I opened the door without giving too much care to who was behind it and as soon as I did, I felt a hard swing to my face.
Bracing myself against the door I staggered backward, but before I could recover, I felt myself get pushed inward and a guy quickly pounced on top of me.
I immediately knew that my nose was bleeding, but before that could completely register, I felt hands grasp at my shirt, pull me up and then slam me back down. “Where is she? What did you do, you sick pervert!”
Immediately, I put my hands up to block my face while I tried to see through watering eyes who it was that had attacked me.
However, when I saw that the man was about to hit me again, I quickly rolled my head away, andhe smashed his hand against the floor.
I heard him yell and I took the opportunity to force myself up and push the man back. I ran after him, grabbed his shirt and got a good punch into the square of his jaw.
The guy’s head whipped to the side, but when it swung back around, I could tell that it was Zachary.
Not wanting to really hurt him, or anyone, I backed up and demanded, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Where’s Valerie?”
“I don’t know,” I lied, defensively putting my hands up to cover my face. I wasn’t about to tell him anything about her while he was acting crazy.
“Oh, don’t even try to lie, you piece of shit,” Zachary screamed as he got back to his feet and began to come toward me again. “Dalilah told me everything!”
“Dalilah?” I growled hatefully. The malice that I felt must have distracted me though, because I was sure that I felt my hands drop slightly, before Zachary pushed them completely out of the way and hit me again, this time in the exact same place that I had smacked him.
He grasped my shirt again and ran me into a nearby wall. I winced, but I didn’t want to yell out, because I didn’t want to alert Valerie. I wanted to keep her away from this psycho, if it was the last thing I did.
I took a deep breath and pounded my fist into the side of his head. He staggered back slightly, but then returned with a vengeance grabbing my fist next time I tried to get another hit in and twisted it around, so that I had no other choice but to collapse onto the ground. He put a knee into my back.
Suddenly, I felt as though I couldn’t breathe. I tried to wriggle free, but he had a tight hold on me.
“Dalilah, you know, your ex-girlfriend that you attacked, right after she found out what you did to your stepsister?”
“What? What the hell is wrong with you?” I gasped for breath. “I never touched either of them!” I stopped to catch my breath, before I wheezed desperately, “You’re delusional!”
“You’re the one who is delusional! Valerie was just upset and you took advantage of her!” I felt his weight continue to bear down on my back as he arched himself closer. “You hurt her and for that, I am going to hurt you.”
“No!” I insisted. “Dalilah’s a liar!” While I spoke, I continued to try to wriggle out of the hold that he had placed on me, but since I wasn’t too good at fighting and it seemed as though each time I took a breath and exhaled, his weight made it even harder for me to take another one, it was to no avail.
I was still convinced that he was crazy and therefore, I didn’t want to yell out. I didn’t want to draw any attention to the fact that I wasn’t alone. If he didn’t know that Valerie was here, I wanted to keep it that way. But when he threw a hard jab to my side, it caused me to yell out involuntarily, and the sound of that incited a terrible sense of panic inside when I heard the bedroom door open and Valerie’s voice call my name.