Julia 42
I can just make out the glow of the alarm clock on the other side of the bed. Matthew’s side of the bed. Though, right now, it’s Jeremy who’s occupying it. His breathing is soft and even as he sleeps. I’m not so lucky. The respite of sleep is impossible right now.
My face, my gut, my arm, my jaw are all sending out wave upon wave of pain. Everything else is just one dull, amorphous ache from the ribs where he kicked me, to the top of my head, which I’m sure is missing a couple fistfuls of my hair. And then there’s the rest of it … I try not to think about it. I don’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for myself. I have to figure out how to get out of this situation.
From beside me, Jeremy sighs in his sleep and rolls so that he’s facing the other direction. I’m looking at his strong back. I used to love to run my hands along the taut muscles there. Now I can only think about how I’d love to drive a knife right between his shoulder blades. I can’t stand to look at him for another second, I turn away from him, inch by agonizing inch.
Good. This is good. Anger is good. It will keep me motivated to push through the pain rather than just curl up and die. I will not leave my child without a mother. I swallow a sob as I think of the tiny life inside of me. I can only pray for a miracle. Jeremy has been so brutal already that I can’t be sure … Now I can feel the anger filling me up. It brings a harsh, metallic taste to my mouth and it makes me breathe heavily through my nose.
If my calculations are right, Matthew could be here in the next forty-five minutes, but more likely an hour or so. I’m not sure how long I can hang on. In fact, right now there is only one thing of which I can be absolutely certain. One of us is going to be dead by morning. And, as of right now, the odds are most definitely not in my favor.
I jump when I feel his hands on me. He’s turned on his side to face me and is positioning himself close behind me, as if we were lovers again, spooning in my bed in the city.
“How you feeling there, Jules?” he murmurs in my ear. “Did that bring back any memories?”
I don’t respond.
“Oh, come on now. You used to love it when I fucked you. You used to beg me for it. Has your pussy husband turned you off of sex? Is that what it is? I mean, I know we tried a couple of new things, but I thought maybe you should open your horizons a little. You know what I mean?”
When I remain silent, he keeps going.
“No? Ah, well. I enjoyed myself anyway and that’s the most important thing.”
He grabs me around the waist, pulling me closer to him and I let out a low, involuntary moan from the pain.
“That’s what I like to hear,” he chuckles. “A good moan makes me good and hard. I think maybe I’m ready to go another round. How about you?”
We both know he’s not asking. Suddenly, he pulls away, and I’m flat on my back, looking up at him. I think I might vomit, but I force back the bile as it rises in my throat. It would only make him angry. Over the course of the last hellish hour, I’ve discovered that if I just do what he wants without a fuss, he’s much less likely to go out of his way to cause me pain. Unfortunately, I had to figure it out the hard way.
“I think one more time for old times’ sake and then we’ll tend to our baby business, shall we? I mean it’s entirely possible we’ve already dispatched that little blob of cells, but I want to be sure.”
I close my eyes tight and brace for his latest humiliation. But he doesn’t move an inch. I wait another few seconds and then open my one good eye. But he’s not looking at me. He’s staring at the bedroom door. It takes me a few seconds to understand why. From outside of the bedroom, I catch the telltale creak of the third step from the top. Someone is either coming up or going down the stairs.
“Jeremy?”
We stop breathing in unison, both of us startled by the sound of a woman’s voice coming from downstairs. He slams a hand over my mouth before I can scream for help.
“Jeremy, I know you’re up there. Come out and talk to me.”
“What. The. Fuck?” he hisses.
He looks down at me and I can see he’s trying to decide whether or not he should leave me here alone to go and investigate. But at this point I’m so bloodied and bruised, it’s clear to both of us that I’m not going very far.
“Stay here. Don’t you fucking move. Do you understand?”
I nod and he pulls away from me, getting to his feet and going out into the hall to investigate, slipping into his jeans along the way. As soon as the door shuts behind him, I hear voices. Jeremy and a woman, but I can’t tell who it is. Jesus, who could it be? My head is so foggy that I can’t tell. Right now, his words are clearer than hers, closer.
I take a deep breath and steel myself for the pain that I know is coming as I drape myself over the edge of the bed with tremendous effort. I allow myself to roll and drop slowly onto the floor, stuffing my good arm into my mouth to keep from screaming when my broken one gets caught under me.
It feels like hours before I can try to move again, and when I do, I’m like a giant inchworm, wriggling my way across the room, little by little. Every part of my body throbs with the effort. I stop to take a breath, ignoring the hot tears that are streaming down my face. The door may as well be a mile away for the little progress I’m making. I no sooner have the thought than the door flies open.
Shit!
I cringe, expecting him to deliver another brutal kick or drop down onto the floor to strangle me. But, surprisingly, Jeremy doesn’t even comment on my slow-motion escape attempt.
“Come on,” he mutters, grabbing my forearm roughly and literally dragging my bloodied, naked body across the floor and out into the hallway with him. “There’s someone here who wants to see you.”
It looks like Trudy Corrigan. Could it be? I can’t tell if it’s really her, or if my mind is playing tricks on me. God, my head feels as if it’s going to explode.
“See, Mom?” he crows, pulling my arm up as if I’m some trophy. “I told you, she’s just fine.”
I’m not imagining this. That’s Trudy.
“She doesn’t look so fine to me, Jeremy,” I hear her say from below.
“No? Huh. Well, let me see what I can do about that,” he considers, letting go of me so that I fall abruptly to the floor. Then he delivers a quick and brutal kick to my back. My mouth twists into a scream that I can’t seem to get past my swollen lips. I can see Trudy through the spindles of the railing that runs across the upstairs landing. Her eyes move from me on the floor, up to her son towering above me. And she looks pissed.
“Stop it, right this instant, Jeremy!” she demands in as harsh a voice as I’ve ever heard.
But Jeremy isn’t put off by her tone in the least. He moves closer to the head of the stairs so he can look down at her.
“Why don’t you come up and make me, Mom?” he suggests, holding out a hand toward her.
“No, thank you, Jeremy. I’ll stay right where I am,” she spits back at him.
“Are you really foolish enough to think you’re safer down there?”
She doesn’t respond.
“You’re not safe anywhere, Mom. Do you know that while Dad was gasping his last pathetic breath, I told him not to worry, that you wouldn’t be far behind him? That man died in a state of fear and dread, believing that I was going to murder you and he wasn’t going to be around to help you. That was my little parting gift to him.”
She doesn’t reply. Eventually Jeremy gets tired of waiting for a response and continues.
“My little parting gift to you will be that tidbit, plus the knowledge that after I kill you, I’m going to kill Maggie and frame Brett for it. I’ve already started gathering what I need to put that little plan in motion. I’ll take his life and his love, then I’ll take the money you left him and use it to make a new life for myself on some nice tropical beach somewhere.”
“Well,” I hear her say. “That’s quite a plan.”
“I know! Right? I’m nothing if not an exceptional planner.”
“So, what’s next in this plan, then?”
He pretends to ponder.
“Oh, hmmm, good question. Well, there’s the decision about who to kill first, you or Julia here. But see, Julia’s a little more complicated. Part of my punishment for her is to help her lose that little bundle of joy swimming around inside of her. But you know, she’s a little out of it right now, and she’s not going anywhere, so I guess she can wait. Maybe you and I should have a little mother-son bonding time.”
“Whatever you think is best, Jeremy. But you’ll have to excuse me for a moment, I was just going to call the police,” Trudy starts to turn toward the kitchen.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t do that, Mom.”
She stops and looks up at him as if she is surprised that he wouldn’t want her to make the call.
“No? Why not?”
“Because if you do, I’ll strangle you with the phone cord before they even pick up.”
There is something nagging at me. Something right there, on the fringe of my cloudy mind. I know it’s important, but I can’t quite grasp it.
It’s okay, I’m going to be okay. I can do this.
I close my eyes and I breathe in and out slowly, trying to block out the pain, allowing my subconscious to show me the way. I see Matthew’s face, strong and loving. And then there is my sweet little boy with his rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. I can almost hear his laugh. I think about the tiny life inside of me, not yet strong enough to protect itself.
And then, it comes to me.
“Sometimes, the best decision you can make for your child is to leave them behind.”
I hear Trudy’s words so clearly that, for a split second, I’m certain she’s said them aloud. But she hasn’t, she’s too busy absorbing her son’s taunts. No, this is a message from my subconscious and it tells me exactly what I need to do.
Jeremy isn’t paying any attention to what I’m doing as he berates his mother, so he doesn’t notice as I roll over and drawing upon every molecule in my body to rise up onto my feet. I back up against the wall, and slide along it, inch by inch until I’m nearly behind him. That’s when he turns around.
Shit!
It doesn’t help my plan, but it doesn’t really hurt it either.
Please, please, please …
“Oh, ho! Look who’s up and about! What’s the matter Jules? Did I spoil your surprise? Were you thinking you were going to push me down the stairs?” he mocks me with his hideous smirk. “Good luck with that! You don’t have that kind of strength on your best day, let alone now.”
While he chatters on, I catch Trudy’s eye as she stands twenty feet below us. I give her a nod that is barely perceptible, but when she returns it, I know she understands.
“Jeremy!”
She yells his name so loudly that she actually startles him and he turns his attention from me to her.
And there it is. A window of opportunity so small, I’ll lose it if I even pause to blink. With every ounce of strength I have, in every cell of my body, I propel myself forward. Jeremy is turning back in my direction, but it’s too late. He’s too late – – I’m already in motion. As I hurl myself forward, I wrap my arms around him tightly. He tries, but he cannot right us against the momentum I’ve generated. We tip. We fall. We tumble. We roll.
With a blind reach, I somehow manage to grab hold of one of the spindles in the railing on the way down. This stops me from falling, along with Jeremy to the base of the stairs. I’m too weak to hold on for more than a few seconds, but by extricating myself from Jeremy’s weight and pull, my descent is more of a bumpy slide on my back than a brutal somersault onto my head.
Not that it matters … I’m unconscious before my feet hit the first floor.