My Knight in Shining Armor

Emmalee’s Point of View

Where am I? I wonder as l look around my unfamiliar settings. I feel as if I have been walking around for hours. What started out as a light mist has now turned into a steady down pour. I do not recognize the part of London I was in either. I try desperately to find anything that looked vaguely familiar but as I continue to wander around aimlessly I realize that it is pointless.Damn, I really should have payed attention to where I was going.

The only thing I was sure of was that this part of London a woman should not be roaming on her own. Especially not this late at night. God damn it, what am I going to do? I can feel the tears starting to stream down my face, mixing with the rain cascading from my hair. A passing car slows down as it drives by me. Keep looking forward, ignore them and pray that they ignore you. The bass was bumping loudly, rattling the windows of the vehicle. The driver slowed down a bit, turned down the music, and rolled down the window.

“Hey sweet cheeks, how much for a ride on my Italian stallion?” Oh God. I look down and quicken my pace. Maybe if I continue to ignore him he would just go away. Boy was I wrong, the car came to a complete stop and the man got out.

“Hey baby doll, I’m talking to you! Don’t you fancy a good rump in the sac? I’m a generous tipper.” He purrs, walking towards me. If I wasn’t terrified before I sure as hell was now. I begin to run, only to trip in the street. The driver was creeping closer by the second, the look in his eyes was beyond frightening. Another car suddenly pulls up right behind me and stops I look up and see its a police car. Thank the Lord. The cop, or bobbie as I have learned most Londoners called them, rolls down his window to speak to me.

“Are you a’right ma’am?” He asks, feigning concern. I look up and see the man who had been chasing me had gone back to his car, and was speeding away. I turned back to the officer.

“I think I’m okay now, thank you.” He looks at me and winks.

“I don’t know what an American girl like you is doing on the streets, but you better find yourself an... employer and get out of this weather.”

What, does think I’m a hooker?! He rolls up the window and pulls away. Isn’t it his job to uphold the law? Aren’t they suppose to arrest prostitutes? I try desperately not to think about what he must have thought of me. I am NOT that person. Looking at my clothes, you wouldn’t have been able to tell though.

The tears had momentarily stopped while I was being chased, were returning full force over the comments made by the cop. They reminded me of the things Oliver had said to me when he threw me out of our flat. How could he have done this to me? All I ever did was love him and do everything he asked of me. Damn it I moved from the states to a foreign country to please him! It was never enough.. I was never enough. I duck under an awning of a boarded up shop, wondering how the hell I had gotten into this mess. My mind automatically began to review the happenings of this god-awful day.

Oliver had called earlier today and told me he was going to take me out for a nice dinner to make up for the way he had behaved earlier that week. He told me to wear the dress that he loves and these dreadfully painful four inch stilettos that I cannot stand, but Ollie loved them. I spent the entire afternoon getting ready. I wore my hair down in curls because he liked it that way. I wore dark smokey eyeshadow that was way to heavy because he said it made me look more beautiful than I actually was. I did it all for him, because I loved him.

The behavior he was making up for an embarrassing scene he created when he came to visit me at work. He came into the pub and cornered the Eli, the Assistant Manager. He pushed him against the bar and threatened his life because Oliver thought he was trying to get me into bed. Eli was nothing but nice to me in the past but with my crazy boyfriend causing a scene and breaking at least five bottles of $800 scotch on his way out, I was let go. I wasn’t surprised, as this was not the first time one of Oliver’s little outbursts had gotten my fired. This was the third. Why I was working in a pub was a question I still could not answer.

I grew up in a small Texas town that I adored, but I wanted more. After I graduated from college I moved to Manhattan and got my dream job as a second grade teacher at an elite private school on the Upper East Side. I was living in a rent controlled apartment with two of my girlfriends, and we would often go out for drinks at a bar across the street from our place. Thats where I met Oliver. He was a decently handsome man with a cute British accent who swept me off my feet. He was in New York for a month and we spent every moment of those 31 days together. I was taken with him, so taken with him in fact that when he asked me to come back to London and move in with him I said yes with no hesitation. My friends, family, the barista at my local Starbucks all told me I was crazy. They didn’t understand how I could drop everything for a man I just met. They just didn’t get it I would tell myself. They had never experienced this kind of love, there was no way they could understand.

My first job in London was at a day care center. I had been living with Oliver for a few months when he caused a drunken scene at the employee Christmas party. I was let go a week later, right before Christmas and being out of a job prevented me from being able to afford to go home for the holidays. The second job ended in the same fashion. I was working as a secretary for a law firm downtown. Ollie came in to take me to lunch when he saw me talking to a male co-worker. He knocked him out with one punch and literally dragged me out of the building. Oliver had never been abusive with me but I’d be lying if I said in that moment I wasn’t concerned he might start. He pushed me into his car and reamed at me all the way back to the flat, telling me what an awful girlfriend I was. That jealous outburst ended up with me out of a another job.

Oliver was going to home in a little less than an hour to pick me up for dinner when the phone rang.

“Hello?” I answered as I finished applying lotion to my legs. The line was eerily quite for a moment.

“Is this Emmalee?” The female caller asked.

“Yes, who may I asking is calling?”

“Emmalee Shepard, the one that is living with Oliver Hastings?” Her tone was hostile, and I began to worry.

“Who is this?!” I repeated hoping to get to the bottom of the rude woman on the other line.

“Thats not important. What is important is that I’ve been shagging Ollie for the past four months.” Wait, what?

“Excuse me? I’m not sure I understand what going on here..” She let out a frustrated breath before continuing.

“I have been bonking your boyfriend for the past four months. How bloody dense are you?” This could not be happening. He wouldn’t do this to me would he?

“Who. Is. This?” I repeated again. This has to be some sort of sick joke.

“Listen, I told Ollie that if he didn’t tell you about us by today that I was going to call you and do it myself. I guess he never talked to you, did he?” I honestly could not believe my ears. I just sat there trying to digest what was happening.

“Look, I’ve said all that I need to stay. Maybe now you’ll move out of the flat and find someone else to leach off of. Oliver does not want to be with you anymore. He wants me. He’s told me all about you. How you don’t do anything, how you’re living off of his money and you don’t appreciate the kindness he gives you. He told me about all of the men you prance in front of him you tart. You just need to leave. Now.” Then the line went dead.

I slid down to the floor in the bathroom, clutching the phone to my chest. This is exactly where I was when Oliver came home an hour later. He instantly knew what had happened and jumped to the defensive when confronted with the phone call.

“What about all the men you worked with. I know you were sleeping with every one of them you hussy.”

“Thats ridiculous, I have never cheated on you Oliver.”

“That’s bullshit Emma and you know it. I wouldn’t be surprised if you whored your way into that pathetic teaching job you had in Manhattan.” I was shocked at the things he was saying, the things he was accusing me of. This was not my fault, this was about him and that woman on the phone. “You’d spread your legs like a common whore to get what you want.”

The tears were welling up in my eyes, I could not believe that someone had supposedly loved me could say such hateful things. I turned to walk away when he grabbed my arm forcefully, ripping my sleeve of my dress off.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me.” He seethed, his spit spraying on my face with every word. I struggled to get away but he grabbed the other sleeve and ripped it away, then grabbed the front of my dress, tearing a slit to my waste. The demonic look in his eye was horrifying. I had never seen him, or anyone for that matter, this mad before.

“There! Now you look like what you really are, a whore.” He then reached down as tore the delicate fabric flowing from the dress shredding it until it barley cover my thighs anymore. I stood there stunned at the sheer cruelty of his actions. He flashed a wicked smile in my direction once he was done.

“Now get out’a here. You are nothing but a well paid streetwalker. That all you ever were to me Emma. You aren’t desirable to anyone. You’re worthless, daft, and disgusting. Now leave my flat!” He roughly pushed me towards the door.

I wanted nothing more than to be out of that flat. I would have been running to the door to escape if he hadn’t been shoving me so hard that I couldn’t keep my balance. He opened the door, put his hand on my lower back, and heaved me out the door. I slammed into the wall across from the door and slid slowly down to the ground, crying at the sheer horror of what had just happened to me.

“You had better be gone by the time Abby gets here, or I’ll have you physically removed.” And with that, he slammed the door.

There I sat, makeup streaming don my face, in a dress that had been torn to shreds in a stunned silence. I couldn’t not sit out here any longer. I quickly got to my feet and left the building as fast as I could. I was such a mess that I paid no attention to where I was going, which is how I ended up in this awful part of town. I had no where to go. What few friends I made in London, Oliver quickly drove away.

I thought about my last friend that didn’t give up trying to make me see what Ollie really was. I met him my first night working at the pub. He was a regular and we became fast friends. He was one of those people who I knew right away was a great person to have in your corner. We clicked instantly, as if we had been best friends our whole lives. But eventually, I sent him away because he was causing to much tension between Oliver and me. I can still remember the look on his face when I told him I never wanted to see him again.

His big puppy dog eyes begged me not to do it. He listed off reason after reason why Oliver was not good for me. But this had to be done, I had to give up my friendship with him for peace in my home. Look where that has gotten me today, I thought bitterly. I was on the streets, thousands of miles away from home with no on to turn too, not even Niall. The mere thought of his name caused me to close my eyes and let out a long, frustrated cry. I should have been watching where I was going because I lost my footing and twisted my 4 inch stiletto into the pavement, falling down hard. I knew I probably twisted my ankle due the unbearably throbbing I felt.

In that moment I gave up. I laid my head on the sidewalk in the pouring rain in the bad part of London and cried. Are things in my life ever going to go right?