Chapter Twenty-Five
Ally
Raising my arms above my head and stretching when I woke up made me realize how many sore muscles I had from last night. So worth every, single pain too. Rolling over and hugging a pillow to my chest, I screamed.
“When the hell did you get here?” I demanded as my pulse raced.
“I have been here for over an hour watching you sleep, Freckles. You snore something awful, you know that, right?” he said with a smirk.
What the hell? He had been watching me sleep instead of joining me in bed. That was not a good sign. A feeling of dread washed over me, as I sat up and grabbed the crutches to head to the bathroom.
“Are you hungry?” he asked as he watched me hobble to the bathroom.
“No thanks. I will be back in a minute.” I closed the door and went about my business taking my time to wash my hands, procrastinating the inevitable. I stared at myself in the mirror, giving myself a quick pep talk.
Ally, you can do this. Tell him everything. Let him in. You love him and you will lose him if you keep lying to him. Turning, I opened the bedroom door and sat in the chair opposite Jonah. My heart pounded so hard that it was trying to come through my chest. Ok, here went nothing.
“We really need to talk, Ally. I have put this off so many times trying to give you the room you need to feel safe and to trust me. I will never betray or hurt you. This I swear to you. You can count on me to protect you and Sam, no matter what. There is nothing you could tell me that would make me change my mind. I am here. I am in this with you if you will let me,” he said in a confident and passionate plea.
“My name is not Ally Black. But Ally is who I am now. I am a much stronger person because of who I was and what I have gone through. But that woman went through hell, so I put her to rest and left her behind in my past, along with my mistakes. My married name was Sarah Lane. My son was given the name Jacob at birth, but has now embraced his new name and life as Samuel,” I released the flood of information quickly.
The look on his face encouraged me to continue. “My first mistake was that I married right out of high school and had no idea what I was doing. He was charming, handsome and a police officer. An all-around great guy as far as everyone was concerned. He bought me lots of pretty things and catered to me in ways that I had never experienced before. I thought I was in love. I thought he loved me. But I had no idea what love was. But you couldn’t have told me that then.”
Another deep breath. “Grams had just passed away and now looking back, maybe it was the grief that blinded me to the monster before me. I was lonely. Alone. And he knew it. He groomed me, Jonah and I didn’t even realize it was happening. He changed quickly after we were married. Started making me stay home all the time, not allowing me to work, choosing the clothing that I wore, telling me how much money I could even spend on groceries. He managed me in every way possible.” I told Jonah as I thought back on those terrible days.
Turning my head to stare out the window I continued, “He started coming home later and later each night it seemed. He went out on his days off. He could go out whenever he pleased, but I had to stay in the house. I was alone all the time. I didn’t have any family or friends anymore. One evening, he was over four hours late, dinner was cold and I became worried, so I called the station to check on him. He wasn’t there. I was angry. And damn tired of being cooped up all the time. I just needed to get out for a little while. I called an old friend from high school. We met at a local twenty-four-hour pancake restaurant to catch up and chat about the good old days. It felt so good to be out and talking to someone. It had been so long. That was my second mistake. One that will forever be etched in my memory.” I took a shaky breath and looked over at Jonah, tilting my head to look deeply into his eyes. They brought me comfort and gave me the courage to go on.
“My friend and I got carried away. You know, talking and eating and when I realized what time it was, I panicked. I remember thinking to myself thinking Oh well. If he can do what he wants, I can too. Big mistake. Huge. When I walked in the door that night he was waiting for me on the couch that he had turned to face the door. I just stood there for a minute trying to shore up my courage to walk past him to the bedroom.”
Jonah just let me keep talking, barely breathing himself. “As I tried to walk past him, he asked where the hell I had gone. I told him. I gave him the truth and told him I would be doing as I pleased from now on, that he didn’t own me. Heading for the bedroom again, he grabbed me by the arm and flung me against the wall. He threw me so hard my head bounced off leaving an actual dent where I had hit. I was stunned, dizzy and shocked. I didn’t understand what he was doing to me or why he was doing it. I still don’t, Jonah.” My eyes stung as I said it and I heard him growl and try to get up. I waved my hand at him to stop. I needed to sit there and collect myself to tell him the rest. Distance was crucial to me getting the rest out.
“He grabbed me by the hair, telling me I was a worthless whore and that I needed to learn who was in charge. I wasn’t just going to sit there and take it. Hell no. My grams taught me to not ever let someone get away with hurting me. I swung at him with all I had, but he caught me just in time and laughed at me maniacally. He punched me in the stomach knocking me to the ground. I thought for sure he broke my rib. Dragging me by my hair all the way down the hallway and to our bedroom, he picked me up and threw me on the bed. I scrambled to try and get away. He hit me square in the face that time and blood came shooting out of my nose spraying both of us. I remember thinking that this couldn’t be happening just before I lost consciousness.” I drew in the deepest of breaths and steeled my spine to prepare myself for telling the rest of my horrid tale.
“He threw water in my face to wake me up. I didn’t know what was happening, until I tried to move. I couldn’t move my arms or legs, Jonah. I pulled and pulled, tried to twist my body. All that did was make me look up and see that I was tied to the bedframe, naked and spread eagle. A wave of panic hit me and I started screaming. That’s when I felt a pain so harsh and deep, that it scarred my soul,” I finished on a sob.
Jonah did get up then and wrapped me in his arms, just letting me cry for a bit. He rocked me back and forth whispering words of love and reassurance to me. When I finally pulled back and looked at him it was with the realization that no one in my life had ever heard my story in complete detail, until now. Some people guessed, I think, but no one cared and no one helped. “Please, go sit back down, Jonah. I need to finish this. All of it. I need you to know all of it,” I softly pleaded with him. With reluctance he did as I asked.
“The pain was from different sized electric cords. The first time he whipped me with them, it nearly broke me. The pain was so intense, one lash after another and with each whip, he condemned me with words that reverberated through my mind. Nothing made sense. When he stopped after the first few lashes, realizing my screaming would draw attention, he gagged me and sat down on the bed ranting to himself. Once my mind cleared a bit, I could make out his words. He said to me, ‘Why don’t you do what you’re told? You must behave. You’re a fucking whore and need to learn a lesson. You are nothing but a piece of white trash. You should be grateful that I married you! No one wanted your lazy fat ass. But I took you, didn’t I, bitch? Didn’t I?’ Tom demanded in the voice that could have only come from the devil himself.”
I wrung my hands as I continued, “He grabbed my hair to pull my head back and demanded that I answer him, but I couldn’t with the gag, Jonah. That angered him even more and he whipped me several more times. ‘You were out fucking around with some guy, weren’t you bitch? You’re a fucking whore. You want to be fucked? Yeah! You do. I will show you what it’s liked to be totally fucked.’ Tom yelled into my ear. I heard him unzipping his pants and I started begging the best that I could from around the gag. It didn’t help.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at Jonah as I kept talking. “He was possessed. A fucking animal. He raped me. Sodomized me over and over again that night. I thought I was going to die, Jonah. I knew I was going to die. At that point, I had no more tears to cry. I just lay there in my own blood and his filth left inside of me. I prayed for death,” I screamed to the universe.
Looking up, I saw my story shook Jonah to his core. I could see it in his eyes. Something had changed in him and would not change back. It was pure vengeance I saw there. The look confused me at first. Maybe he felt betrayed by my previous lies and lack of information. Then he grabbed my hand and slowly brought it to his mouth, closing his eyes, he kissed it with such gentleness that it started to heal what was broken in me. He was a good man. A real man. A man of honor and courage. A true hero.
“Sometime later, Tom untied me and told me to get my nasty self into the shower and clean up. I could barely walk. I had to hold onto the walls and furniture to stay upright. I thought he was done with me but I was so wrong. I smelled something burning and didn’t recognize it at first. Then it dawned me. He was smoking a joint. He was fucking high.”
“Jonah, in his stoned-out mind, he proceeded to threaten me. He said, ‘If you ever tell anyone about this, cunt, what happened tonight will just be the beginning. I will fucking torture you, every single day, if I want to. I dare you to call the police too. They are mine, bitch, and will not help you. I will make sure you are watched 24/7 from now on. You won’t fucking be able to breathe wrong without me knowing about it. Do you fucking understand me?’ I did understand, but I was in so much pain just trying to remain standing, that I couldn’t respond quickly enough for him. So, he grabbed me, threw me to the floor and started putting the lit joint to one of the slices along my back. When I tried to scream, he shoved my face into the carpet and started on my inner arms with the burning joint.”
Jonah clenched his fist in his lap and the vein in his forehead throbbed in rhythm to each new piece of information I divulged. “I honestly do not know how I survived that night. Barely able to shower, the pain from the water alone was excruciating on my skin. I don’t think there was a part of me that didn’t hurt in some way. I passed out on the bathroom floor. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in my bed that had clean sheets and I was laying on my stomach. Someone had dressed me and cleaned the open wounds and burns.”
Jonah looked at me in confusion. My next revelation would clarify his confusion, “Tom came in and said, ‘Sarah, I hope you learned a valuable lesson. Know this, if it happens again, I will kill you. Do you understand me?’ I nodded yes. He continued in a calm voice, ‘Good, now I have to go to work and I expect dinner to be on the table hot and ready, on time tonight and be sure to clean the entire house. Every inch of it.’ He leaned in and kissed me, biting my lip hard enough to reopen a split in my lip that I didn’t realize was even there. He just laughed all the way out the door.”
I wanted to reach out and smooth the tension from Jonah’s face, but my story wasn’t over. “That was the monster I was married to. If I so much as had a hair out of place I would be whipped or burned and sometimes both. That night changed me forever, in more ways than one. I ended up pregnant with Sam, as a result. At first I wanted an abortion. I didn’t want his child in my body. But this was not just his child, it was mine! Tom figured it out soon enough and the psycho actually acted happy about it. He treated me better for the most part, until after Jacob was born. Then it all started over again.”
I paused for a short moment. Telling my story to Jonah was much easier than I thought it would be. “When I delivered the baby, a nurse saw the marks and tried to get me to talk to her. But I wouldn’t. But she knew what the marks were and gave me a card with just a phone number. She told me to call this woman, said she could help me if I needed it. I kept that card, but was so scared he would find it. After a bad beating one night, he left me alone and I could hardly take care of the baby. I was desperate, so I called the number and talked to the wonderful woman on the other end of the line, Kathy. She helped me calm down. We talked many times after that night. Always after the beatings. She promised me she could help me and Jacob disappear and no one would ever know. At that time, I didn’t believe that, I couldn’t.”
An understanding started to dawn on Jonah’s face, but I didn’t know what exactly it was about. I just continued talking, I couldn’t have stopped if I wanted to. “Then he was fired from his job and brought up on charges for carrying with the intent to distribute cocaine, armed criminal action and so many other things. I thought I would be free. Jacob was around three or four then. Tom was in jail and we had the house to ourselves. Tom wanted me to alibi him and counted on spousal privilege protecting him. But the prosecution made me testify because I had filed for divorce and I did know about him dealing and the guns. My testimony helped to seal his fate and he went to jail. I was so happy until I noticed we were still being watched. By everyone. People on the streets, at the stores, cops everywhere. I knew we had to run. And we had to soon. I called Kathy and she took care of everything. We were able to just disappear and start a new life here. It wasn’t easy but we did it.” I finished my story and felt drained. Exhausted and somehow lighter. Telling someone everything, trusting Jonah had helped me.
Then we talked about the van, comparing notes. Jonah asked more about my story and who the men stalking me might be. We talked about all of it. He asked me to write down all the information that I could remember on Tom, including the prosecuting attorney’s name. When we were done, he simply picked me up cradling me in his arms and lay down holding me in bed. No sooner had I closed my eyes, I was asleep. Exhaustion took over me.