Debbie

Normally I loved my job, even the busiest times of the year, but that day I was just not able to focus. I found myself going over the same things a dozen times and still not getting anything done. I was stagnating and growing increasingly frustrated. By the time lunch rolled around I was beyond ready to get the hell out of the office.

I wanted to go see Paul. Every time I thought of him lying, bruised, hurt, and doing his best to put on a brave face even though I knew he had to be scared, I wanted to scream. I’d never been one to dwell on things or have much anxiety. I was usually able to let everything just kind of roll off my back, but when it came to Paul I became a nervous wreck at the very thought of anything happening to him.

I’d never felt so close to anyone. I had no clue what love was before this. That realization filled me with glee that Daniel dumped me and opted out of our engagement. It had taken me a long time to realize that he’d done us both a huge favor.

I decided that no matter how much I had to do I was going to take a break and eat something. I hadn’t really had any breakfast and I was starving. I needed energy. I’d stayed up all night the night before with Paul, came into the office and gotten a little bit of work done, although I mostly just realized how much was piling up from taking one stinking morning off, and then I’d gone back to see him. I stayed until visiting hours were over and then came home against my better judgment.

My mother tried to comfort me. She knew I was very down, even though I did my best to put on a happy impression. She was my mother; she knew when I was faking something.

But it was nice because we’d actually had a really nice talk.

I must have been much more tired than I thought because I overslept and missed my alarm. By the time I got to the office it was a bit after nine. Luckily my boss wasn’t around to chew me out and hopefully he wouldn’t realize that I was running extremely late. He might not have cared too much any other time of the year, but then again as long as I got everything done then it would be no problem. The perks of being on salary.

“Hey, Debbie,” Miley Watson said sitting down beside me in the break room.

I usually ate lunch at my desk, but I had so much stuff cluttered on it at the moment that there was just no space. It seemed that people were constantly just piling more and more on me to see how much I could handle. I loved my job, but sometimes I had to wonder why I became an accountant.

“Hey,” I replied swallowing a mouthful of my sandwich.

“I heard what happened to your friend,” Miley said. “Is he going to be ok?”

I paused and looked at her. And then I felt it. I felt the overwhelming need to correct her.

“Actually, it’s my boyfriend, Paul. He is going to be ok. They are releasing him from the hospital later this afternoon. I’m trying to get as much stuff done as I can before then.”

“Oh, ok,” Miley said. “I didn’t know you were dating anybody. Good for you, getting back out there.”

I tried to hide my anger with a forced smiled.

I wished everyone would quit treating me like a victim after the whole Daniel thing.

“So, what happened?” Miley asked. “I heard he was mugged?”

I wasn’t sure I really wanted to talk about it or give Miley any more information. In a town that size it was usually best to just let rumors fly. Anytime you tried to set things right with the truth people just used it as a springboard for more lies that they could loosely base on it. Everything just got spread around and polluted.

“Something like that,” I said weakly.

Miley seemed to be getting the message that I didn’t want to talk much about it.

“OK,” she said.

She quickly grabbed a cup of coffee and walked out of the break room.

I felt a little bad about dismissing her that way. She was a staff accountant like me, so there wasn’t going to be any repercussions for being rude to her (if I had been rude, I couldn’t really tell) but if I made her not like me she could have started running her mouth and ruining my reputation.

But oh, well. I had other things on my mind.

I finished my lunch and went back to my desk to bury myself in work for a few hours before going to pick up Paul when he was being released.

He was supposed to be let out early that morning, but yesterday the doctor decided that they wanted to run one more test that morning just to clarify that an error hadn’t occurred in a previous test.

When I learned that I began to think the worst. I was trying as hard as I could to keep those negative thoughts out of my head, but a huge feeling of dread was dragging along with me through everything that I did.

When I finally got the text from Paul that they did not find anything else wrong and he was being released at four, I almost shouted out loud with joy.

Immediately a huge weight was lifted off my chest and I felt about ten pounds lighter. The world suddenly seemed bright again and my mind began to focus on the task at hand much more easily. It wasn’t like me to let worries get me down to that point, but lately I had been freaking out about so many things. I’d had a lot of stress on me. Why was it in life that stress always piled on all at once? Everything that could possibly happen that you didn’t want to happen was almost guaranteed to happen and fall apart all at the same time.

All I could do was roll past it. And I decided that was what I was going to do.

I finished up several of the accounts I was working on, grabbed my stuff, and headed out the door to go pick up Paul.

I barely remembered actually driving over there, but suddenly I found myself standing in front of the hospital doors.

And soon after I was in Paul’s room. He was moving slowly helping to get his few items together. I’d brought him over a couple of books and some notebooks so that he could do some reading and some writing. He said he was going stir crazy in the hospital. I would have been, too.

“Hey, baby,” Paul said giving me a kiss as I entered the room.

I could tell he was in a lot of pain and it hurt him to move around, but he would never complain about it. If I asked him he would probably tell me that he was fit enough to run a marathon.

“I got that,” I said grabbing the small backpack and placing his items inside.

Paul gave me an annoyed look and raised his eyebrows.

“I’m not an invalid,” he said.

“No, but you are still hurt. Remember the doctor’s orders.”

“I do, but I assure you I am fine. I can certainly carry my own bag,” Paul said taking the bag from me.

I let go of it begrudgingly. Paul was so strong, but sometimes I felt that he tried to be too strong and never wanted to allow anyone to see that he might be vulnerable sometimes.

An orderly came in right then with a wheelchair.

“Alright, Mr. Henry, have a seat and I will wheel you outside.”

“What? I don’t need a wheelchair,” Paul said.

“I understand that, sir. It’s really just policy. Anyone who is admitted overnight has to be wheeled out. It’s for insurance purposes.”

Paul laughed and gave me a look like ‘this is crazy’.

I nodded and smiled.

He sat down in the wheelchair and held his backpack on his lap. The orderly wheeled him out the room and down towards the elevator.

Paul looked so miserable that it was funny.

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” Paul said teasing me.

“I’m going to tell everyone,” I replied. “I might even post a big blog post about it.”

When we finally got outside Paul stood up and stretched his legs, arching his back a bit.

“Yeah, being in a bed for a few days is rough. Every time I tried to get out and sit in the chair in the corner for a bit someone would come in the room and yell at me to get back in the bed,” Paul said.

“You aren’t superhuman,” I said. “You were in a very serious incident. You could have been killed. I think they were just trying to make sure you were ok.”

“I know,” Paul said. “I’ve just never been comfortable with people fussing over me or babying me when I’m sick or hurt.”

“Are you telling me that your mom wouldn’t be doing the same thing if she were here?”

“Yeah,” Paul said with a smile. “She definitely would.”

“See?”

“That’s why I didn’t tell her,” Paul said.

Paul started walking towards the parking lot.

“What? You didn’t tell your mother what happened to you?” I asked.

“Why would I? There is nothing she could do but worry needlessly. I’m fine. My folks are a few hundred miles away from here. There isn’t any point.”

I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“Are you going to tell her now?” I asked.

Paul thought a moment before answering.

“I doubt it,” he said. “What’s the point?”

“Sometimes I don’t understand men,” I said shaking my head.

“Well, we don’t understand women, so that makes it all even,” Paul replied through a sexy grin.

He really was so damn adorable.

“Mr. Henry?”

I turned my head to the direction of the voice and saw the two police officers we’d seen the other night walking towards us.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Paul asked as they approached us.

“We’re glad we caught you here,” Officer Travis said. “We already went by your place.”

“Ok, well I’m here,” Paul said. “What’s the emergency?”

I got the feeling that Paul had a dislike for cops for some reason. Or he was just really tired of dealing with this and wanted to get on with his life. Still, it was pretty plain to see that Paul could have a bad temper if you pressed the wrong buttons.

“We believe we’ve identified the suspects who attacked you,” Travis replied.

“Yeah,” Sanders added. “They are down at the station. Would you be able to come down and give us a positive I.D.?”

Paul groaned for a moment, and rested his hands on his hips. He paused for a moment and said “Of course.”

I’d never been to the police station before. It was an old building that kind of reminded me of an old movie. Stepping into the building was like stepping back in time about forty years. Everything was old and outdated, the paint was bad and faded, the ceilings looked like they needed to be replaced, and there was a foul odor I wasn’t able to identify right off. It was musty with a hint of something that was almost… spicy.

And the place gave me the creeps.

I was surrounded by a building full of cops and I did not feel safe.

Officers Travis and Sanders led Paul and I to a dark room that had a big window on one side. It was very much like I’d seen in the movies. On the other side of the glass was a large room with several guys standing against a wall which had a huge ruler painted on it to showcase height.

There were five men standing there. All of them looked dangerous and mean. They really looked like they were all part of the same gang, but apparently only three of them were suspected of being involved in the attack on Paul.

“Ok, do you recognize any of these men as the ones who attacked you?” Travis asked.

Paul stood there eyeing each of the men very carefully.

About ten seconds later he said, “Number three, Number four, and Number one.”

Travis spoke into a microphone jutting out of the desk while pressing the button at its base.

“Ok, three, four, and one step forward,” Travis said.

The three men did as they were instructed.

“Are you sure these are the guys?” Sanders asked.

I realized it was procedure, but it was pretty obvious that these were the men. They all looked a bit banged up. Number one definitely had a broken nose and a few black eyes. Number three had a large bruise on his chin. Damn he was a big guy.

“Yes, without a doubt,” Paul said.

Sanders walked to the door behind us and called to a few of the officers waiting out there.

“Cuff them,” he said before closing the door and coming back into the room.

“Those are the three men we figured,” Travis said.

“Because they are the ones all beat up?” I asked with a hint of pride in my voice. Paul was that outnumbered in the dark with those guys and he still kicked some ass. I wasn’t sure why, and I knew it was a bit juvenile, but that turned me on way too much.

“Well, that, but they did catch the attack on the gym’s camera. We sent it to a forensics unit in Columbus and they were able to match it with facial recognition software to guys who have previous records. Then when we interrogated these guys number four there broke down and confessed.”

“Yep,” Sanders added. “You were right on the money with your theory. They were hired by a woman named Janice Myers to attack you. She’s left town but we are in the process of tracking her down. She won’t get far.”

“That’s a relief,” I said wrapping my arms softly around Paul’s waist, being careful not to squeeze his bruised ribs.

“Good,” Paul said. “So, what happens to her now?”

“Well, all of them will be charged and booked. This will be assigned a judge and sent towards trial. You may have to appear on the stand as a witness.”

“Sure, I’ll do it,” Paul said. “Anything to get that crazy bitch and these thugs off the street.”

“You are a very lucky man,” Sanders said. “Bobby Owens, the one who confessed, he said that Janice wanted them to just hurt you, but when you fought back and began to injure them that the leader Ronald Finny, number one whose nose you broke, he told the others to kill you. The only thing that saved you according to the video was a car driving by. This scared them off and they left you for dead.”

“Jesus…” I said.

I tried to keep my cool, but my emotions were getting the better of me. It was like some weird rollercoaster you could not get off. I felt a little faint and a bit nauseous which had been happening a lot lately. All of the stress and anxiety was really starting to get to me. But now that the Janice situation had been taken care of Paul and I could just get on with our lives and be happy with each other.

“How long do you think Janice will get for this?”

“It’s tough to say, but she could get at least ten to fifteen years.”

Paul looked at me and smiled. He bent over and kissed me on the forehead. Then he must have noticed I was having a moment of weakness.

“Are you ok?” Paul asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, but my voice was strained from holding back the tears. “I’m OK.”

“We appreciate your cooperation and we will let you know of any further developments,” Officer Travis said.

A few minutes later we were pulling up to Paul’s place. I hadn’t said anything since we left the police station, but I felt weird. All of my senses were being flooded by emotions it seemed. I wanted to lie down and cry and I wanted to celebrate this victory all at the same time. I guess sometimes you don’t realize how scared and worried about something you really are until the threat is over. And then like any emotion, it comes out like an avalanche.

“Are you sure you are alright?” Paul asked.

I shut off the car and grabbed the wheel tightly. I tried to hold it back but the tears began to emerge.

“I’m fine, I’m just overwhelmed,” I said.

“Hey, it’s ok. I’m fine. We are fine. Those scumbags are going to get what’s coming to them. It’s all working out honey. There is nothing to worry about.”

Paul wrapped his arm around me and held me close to him for a moment.

“I know,” I said.

And I wanted to believe it. I wanted to know that everything was going to be fine.

But I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to come and tear our beautiful world apart.

I couldn’t explain the feeling. I told myself it was ludicrous.

I prayed I was worried over nothing.