Torn

THE DOCTOR GAVE ME GOOD NEW AND BAD NEWS after he had placed my arm in a sling and adjusted it correctly. The good news was that none of my bones were broken, but the bad news was that my left arm would be in a sling for three to four weeks so that the ligaments in my shoulder would heal correctly. After he had explained to me that to stop my muscles from getting stiff or weak, I had to carefully rotate my arm three to four times a day, he informed me I could go.

With a simple nod, I walked over to Skylar and swallowed the lump in my throat as I looked up at the doctor, who introduced himself as Dr. Collins, and gave him a tight smile. Thanking him for fixing my shoulder, he nodded and grabbed my right hand in his and gave it a firm shake. As Skylar wrapped her arm around my shoulders, she kissed my temple and then we said a final goodbye as she led me out of the room, down the hallway, and out of the emergency room doors.

Outside, I quickly grabbed my cell phone from my pocket and tightly held it in my right hand, the urge to call James rushing through me. “Should I call him? I’m kind of afraid to call him.” I blurted out as I stumbled along side of the blonde, my eyes scanning over the dark screen of the phone, hoping that the answer to my problems would pop up. After a few minutes of silence Skylar sucked in a small breath and looked over at me, my eyes still on the dark screen of my cell phone.

“Given that you two aren’t romantically involved at all, and he text me back almost instantly when I told him you were in the hospital, I would probably give him a call. It’s only ten, I’m sure he’s still awake.” The blonde gave me a faint smile as I nodded along with her words. “Come on, let’s go sit on the trunk of your car and you can call him. I’ll even hold your hand if you want.” She sent me a sly smile and then gave my side a little nudge, “You’re good hand.”

“Oh hush up, Blondie.” I snapped with a small smile as we silently walked through the parking lot and over to my car. Hoping on the back, I ran my thumb across the screen of my phone, and then carefully navigated through my contacts until I reached his name. Sucking in a deep breath, I clicked on it and leaned back against the car, my back resting against the cold window on the back of the car. Left arm resting on my stomach in the sling, I held the phone to my right ear, and locked my eyes on the stars as Skylar grabbed her own phone and started typing away on it, probably responding to someone on her tattoo or vegetarian cooking blog.

As I let my eyes wander the sky hanging above me, I felt my ribs pierce through my lungs as his voice came through the other end of the phone. “Anna?”

“Hey James.”

“Jesus Christ, are you alright?” He breathed. “I’ve been sitting on my bed staring at my cell phone since you text me. I’m… What happened, Anna?”

I sighed into the phone, earning a stern glare from the woman lying against the back of my car next to me. Glancing over at her, I shut my eyes tightly and wished I could sink down into my car, through the trunk and into the asphalt beneath it. I wished I could just disappear and not have to speak about what happened, but if there was anyone in the world that should know what was going on, it should be James. Not because I found him amazingly attractive or because he showed he cared so much, but in a situation where I couldn’t get to the phone, he was the only person I knew that was close enough to be able to do something if I was in real trouble.

“Brady got home after his shift, and we got into a fight.” I summed up what had caused my hospital visit and waited impatiently for the man on the other end to respond.

“And you ended up in the hospital?” He nearly screamed. I could just picture his bright eyes wide and worried, staring at me as I sat quietly before him, trying my hardest not to show just how broken up the sudden change of the man I thought was the love of my life had hit me. I wanted to be strong, I wanted to be careless and leave, but it was hard. Brady and I had been together since the first year of our college career, and the fact that suddenly after all of this time it fell apart to this degree, killed me. We had been through fights before, but they consisted of strong words, not actions. Words were easy to forgive when you thought you loved someone, but as soon as they hurt you, the process wasn’t so easy. For me, I didn’t want the process. I didn’t want to give him another chance.

The urge to cry rushed over me, but as I heard James sigh lightly on the other end, I bit back my sobs and sucked in a small breath, mentally begging him to keep talking. After a minute or so, his voice entered my head, making every muscle in my body relax. “You don’t have to talk about it now, Anna. But I hope you’re aware that when I get home in six days, I’m taking you out to lunch or out to get coffee or whatever you want, and you have to tell me what’s really, really, going on.”

“Okay.” I breathed, my chest tightening from the thought of sitting across from the man, sipping on coffee, staring into his bright blue eyes with no one else around. Heart roughly beating against my rib cage, I looked down at the sling my arm was in and started to trace over every little line of light blue fabric that stretched from the white edges. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“Please, never think that you’re bothering my, Anna. I gave you my phone number for a reason, and… this is that reason, so you could talk to someone.” He struggled with his words, pausing a few times, but as he finished his sentence, I felt a spark ignite in my stomach.

“Thank James, it means a lot to me, honest.” I directed my eyes back up at the stars and sucked in a small breath. “Hey, do you ever look at the stars?”

James laughed from the other end of the phone, only contributing to the fire that was now raging inside of me, making every inch of my body warm. After a minute or two, he sucked in a deep breath and informed me that he did occasionally, but wasn’t a big stargazer.

Shaking my head, I felt a smile form on my lips. “You should look at them tonight, they’re really pretty.”

“I don’t think we’re going to see the same stars, Anna, I’m-“

“James Neal, do you have any idea how huge the sky is in comparison to the short distance between Pittsburgh and Toronto?” He stayed silent for a moment before a chuckle and a rustling noise sounded through the phone. After a moment, he told me he was outside, standing on the little balcony that was attached to his room.

“What am I looking at, exactly?” He was amused and confused all at the same time. With a light sigh, I sat up, rolling my shoulders as I tilted my head all the way back and looked up at the dark night sky.

Huffing, I shook my head and then looked over at Skylar who was smiling widely at her cell phone. “You’re not looking at anything specifically, James. Just look up, just look at all of the little stars in the sky. It’s fascinating really. Do you know how far away those are, and yet you can still see them? The galaxy is a wonder, you should be happy that you have the chance to look up at it every night.”

“Anna Cooper, you are the most peculiar and enchanting person I had ever met.” James gushed, making my heart explode in my chest. As we sat in silence for a few more minutes, both us looking up at the same night sky from hundreds of miles away, I swallowed the lump in my throat and realized how relaxed and purely happy I was speaking to him.



Ever since I had met Brady, I had this strong mindset that any physical interaction with someone of the opposite sex, besides my father or men that were familiar, was only going to lead to bad things. It was a mindset that was instilled in me the first time I made a guy friend in college while I was dating Brady. Every time I would mention him, he would get weird about it and tell me ten hundred times that he was just being nice to me to get in my pants. I respected that Brady was protective of me, it was nice to be wanted that much, but seven years later, and many friendships broken due to his insecurities, I decided to toss that mindset aside, especially when it came to James.

It had been a week since the incident, and today was the first time I had been home since. Brady was at work from two in the afternoon until five in the morning the next day, and although I wanted to get what I had to say out as quick as possible, I enjoyed the time alone to be able to sit in the huge window in the living room and watch the dark clouds roll in as I waited for the black luxury car to pull into the driveway directly across from my own.

I spent the first week with my sling under Skylar’s supervision. In the morning when I woke up she would help me pinwheel my bad arm around, giving me her hand to hold when the pain got too much, and then giving it a quick massage to alleviate some of the stress that was building up in my muscle. She did the same thing twice while we worked together, and then once before we said our goodnights and she slept in her bed and I slept on her couch.

The first night, right after we came back from the hospital, she forced me to sleep in bed with her. She told me that she just wanted to make sure I was safe, just for the first night, so I curled up on the left side of her Queen sized bed, shut my eyes, and fell asleep as the blonde laid next to me. In the morning, when I noticed how tired she was, I asked how she slept and she informed me that the first half of the night she watched me like a mother watching her newborn, and the second half – when her sanity started to slip and delusions set in- she mapped out ways to kill Brady and get away with it.

Now, that I was back home, I wished that I was still lying on the other side of her bed, her bright eyes barreling into the back of my head as the overwhelming feeling of being safe washed over me and I fell asleep. There was no safe feeling in this house anymore; only fear and pain.

The dark grey clouds that hung over the house opened up and started to allow the water collected in them shower down onto the Earth. My eyes danced along the raindrops as the instantly turned everything outside a darker color. Sucking in a small breath, I shifted my body against the large window and carefully pulled the window-pane up with my right hand, and took a deep inhale as the smell of the rain rushed into through the screen and filled my head.

A smile found it’s way onto my lips as the smell calmed my nerves. It was a scent I remember from when I was the odd little child who would go out in the backyard and lay down on the grass during thunderstorms. There was always something fresh and addicting about the smell of rain, and there was also something that was absolutely fascinating about thunder and lightning.

Getting caught up in my delusions and memories of the rain, my eyes didn’t notice the black luxury car pull into the driveway directly across from my own. As I craned my neck to look up at the sky through my window, I missed the image of James getting out of his car and quickly running across the street and right up to my door.

Only when he knocked did the gears in my brain start to work again.

Jumping from the couch, I jogged over to the front door and without even checking who was behind it, I swung it open, having it miss me by an inch, and then looked up, my eyes being caught by the bright blue ones hiding behind the messy brown curls of the boy who lived across the street.

“Why are you here?”

“I live here, ya’ know.” I chuckled a little at his question, but as his bright eyes darkened and locked onto the light blue sling cascading down from my shoulder, I frowned and then looked up at him, my teeth involuntarily pulling my bottom lip into their tight grasp. “Oh, right”, I mumbled and without a second thought moved off to the side, using my right hand to motion James into the house and out of the rain, even thought I would rather have this gut wrenching conversation outside.

After the first phone call with James as soon as I got out of the ER, I ended up calling him three more times, all at night, all around midnight on days when I knew he didn’t have games. Luckily, whenever I called he was in a hotel somewhere so he could talk to me.

Our conversations were friendly and steered clear of expressing any sort of deeper emotions to the other. He asked me how I was, how my shoulder was, and if I watched the games. I told him I was okay in all aspects, and that Skylar and I had made a new tradition to watch the games or listen to them if we were still at work. After I answered his flurry of questions, I would ask him about the game, the guys, and then I would tell him about a design I was working on for a customer. It was nice to speak about my job to someone that was actually interested in what I was doing. Every time I mentioned how excited I was for a new design for a client to Brady, he dismissed the conversation immediately- at least lately he did.

Brady and I had always had our rough spots, and they would always come on almost instantaneously. One day we would be fine, and then he would have a string of particularly bad weeks at the hospital, we would fight and then he would fix everything, apologize hundreds of times, and before my eyes we would be the couple I always thought we were going to be.

The most recent series of events though, there was something majorly off. The insults rolled out more than usual, and the grabbing and bruises; the physical harm was something new. I guess I should have seen it coming, the mornings filled with rude remarks and the constant sense of insecurity he had around other men. I had seen relationships like this play out in daytime dramas on Lifetime, but I never thought Brady and I would ever get to the point where it would become this serious.

“Would you like some coffee, you look beat.” I asked as the brunette walked into the living room, kicking his sneakers off as soon as he noticed the small mat near the door. Placing them there amongst my moccasins and flip-flops, he turned to me and without another word grabbed my body and pulled it right against his.

Head resting against his strong chest, I nearly melted into the man as I let my eyes flutter shut and I inhaled deeply, letting the scent of rain coming through the window and the slight scent of his manly deodorant or cologne fill my head. It was lethal, the way the smell of nicotine was intoxicating and addicting to a smoker. I never wanted to smell anything else in my life. I would give up the smell of pancakes and roses just to be able to smell James and the rain.

“I was really worried about you.” He breathed, his chin resting on the top of my head as he let his arms loosely hang off of my hips. Despite the loose grip on me, I still stayed close to his chest, my right hand resting on the tense muscles under his soft long sleeved shirt. “You promised we were going to talk today.”

“I’m aware”, I breathed, my breath hitting his chest and reflecting back into my face. “I offered coffee.”

James nodded, gently stepping away from our embrace and sucking in a long breath as his eyes traced along the contours of the house around him. As he made his way back over to me, his eyebrows met in the center of his head and he chuckled a little. “Looks exactly like my house, just different furniture and paint.”

Nodding ever so slightly, I headed into the kitchen and felt myself smiling. “Welcome to the suburbs.” I glanced at the man behind me, his eyes roaming the room as we entered the kitchen and I walked over to the Keurig, grabbing a mug from the drying rack near it and popping a vanilla Starbucks coffee k-cup into the slot.

“I only have vanilla almond milk and stevia, is that okay?”

“Perfect”, he breathed, his eyes locking onto mine as I leaned against the counter, my right hand gripping the edge as the left stayed tight against my chest. “So what happened?” He got right to the point, his eyes locking on the bump in my shades of grey themed outfit.

“He pulled me off of the bed.”

James eye’s widened as he lowered his head a little, sticking it out further than his shoulders as his jaw unhinged. “So hard that he dislocated your shoulder?” He muttered, amazed.

“Hmm”, I commented and quickly turned to the Keurig as memories of our past two embraces ran through my head. The way his fingertips dug into my hips and my wrist in the same over-powering and possessive fashion. It scared me to think that man was Brady, and he was the man I had spent the last seven years of my life with.

Swallowing hard, I quickly glided over to the fridge and grabbed the large container of vanilla almond milk. “We go through bumps all of the time.” I breathed, my chest tightening as the memories of all of our passed fights flooded my brain. “It lasts for a month and then we’re back to normal. It always comes out of nowhere though. One day we’re okay, and then he’ll come home the next night and be a terror. He never… It never got physical until this one.”

“Do you know how dangerous that is, Anna?”

“I’m beginning to realize.” My hands shook as I fixed the coffee the same way I would drink it, and then walked it over to James. Placing it down on the black granite top of the island, I sat down on the stool next to him and glanced down at the light pink shoelaces that were wound in tightly through the holes in his sneakers. As my eyes traced along the light pink colored string, images of the light pink lace bra that was peeking out from under my bed ran through my head, and I instantly grew sick.

After taking a sip and staring into the mug, James commented how amazing the coffee was, and then as he was about to speak again, he noticed the was my eyes stayed wide and looked off into nowhere. “Anna, is there something else?”

Dragging my eyes back up to the counter, I swallowed hard and nodded my head once, pushing a fake smile onto my lips as my eyes connected with James’ again. “Nope, just… Just a little worried about seeing him tomorrow morning.”

“When does he get back?” James straightened his back; his muscles tightening as he completely turned to me, and then jumped a little at the sound of the thunder.

“Tomorrow around… five in the morning.”

“Listen to me Anna”, James stood up and placed both of his large, warm, hands on my face and directed his eyes right into mine. “If he touches you, at all, for any reason in a harmful way or some way that you find it threatening, you call me.”

“James I don’t want to drag you-“

“Anna Cooper, I am not going to sit across the street and watch him hurt you.” James’ face lowered closer to mine as his eyes stayed glued to mine. “I care about you too much, I don’t care what I have to do, he’s not laying another hand on you as long as I’m here.”

Bottom lip quivering, as my eyes locked onto James’ and the image of the pink lace bra poked out from under my bed ran through my head, I felt my heart stop beating as I leaned into him, pressing my trembling lips against his. As he applied pressure back, we stood in a kiss for what felt like days before he took a slow step back and looked down at me, his eyes the size of saucers as his bright pink lips parted, sucking in whatever air he could.

We didn’t need to speak after that. The way his eyes suddenly darkened and his lips pressed together and become a deep downward curve, I knew he figured it out. I wasn’t sure how he knew or how me kissing him suddenly gave him the final puzzle piece as to what had happened, but as he pulled me into his chest and placed a kiss to the side of my head, he whispered to me, just barely audible, words that I could never push up my throat, words that I refused to put together as a sentence in my head. The idea, the idea of him doing this to me, it was impossible. I would take him dislocating my shoulder ten times over than realizing what was going on. What horrible, disrespectful, unfaithful thing he was doing behind me back.

“He’s cheating on you, isn’t he?”