Page 33 of Dark Biker Protector

"He’s dead?" she blurted out, then lowered her voice quickly, not wanting to attract the attention of anyone else around her.

I nodded.

"I know it’s hard to believe," I replied. "But...but he’s done. It’s dealt with."

She still couldn’t quite take it in, clearly not believing what I was telling her. She shook her head.

"How...why?" she asked, incredulous. "What happened?"

"It doesn’t matter what happened," I assured her. She didn’t need to torment herself with the details; she had already been through enough as it was. All she needed to know what was that it was over.

To my surprise, her eyes suddenly welled up with tears, and she clamped a hand over her mouth, trying to contain herself.

"I’m sorry," she muttered, shaking her head. "I...I didn’t even know..."

"It’s okay," I assured her, and I handed her a napkin to dab at her eyes with. I had been through the same mess of emotions when all of this had first happened for me – shit, I was pretty sure I would be sifting through them for a long time yet, trying to work out exactly how I felt and what it meant to me now he was gone.

She pressed the napkin to her eyes, and took a long, shaky breath, pulling herself together.

"I didn’t expect to feel so emotional about it," she murmured, as she folded the napkin neatly in her lap. "I...you have no idea how many times I’ve thought about this. About someone coming to me and telling me that he was gone and he could never come after me again. I fantasized about it...does that sound crazy? It must sound crazy..."

I reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

"It doesn’t sound crazy," I promised her softly. "I know what it feels like, for him to be...for him to have that much control over your life. It makes you feel like you’re losing yourself. Like you don’t even know who you are anymore."

She nodded slowly, her eyes softening as she finally looked back at me once more.

"I never thought I would get away from him," she admitted. "I thought...I thought he would always be there, you know? Even if he had moved on to someone else, I figured he would come back to me eventually. I never felt safe. It didn’t matter how long it had been since I had seen him last, I was always looking over my shoulder, wondering when he was going to take a swing at me again, wondering..."

She trailed off, catching her breath.

"I’m sorry, you don’t need to hear all of this."

"You can talk to me about it, Iris," I told her. "I know what it’s like. I get it. And I know how it feels like you can’t speak to anyone about it, either. Like they’re looking at you as though you’re crazy. It’s the worst thing in the world."

I could see something move in her when I said that to her, like she was finally accepting that someone actually trusted that she was telling the truth. Oh, it was something I knew all too well, that feeling like you couldn’t even trust yourself – like your reality had been so twisted and warped by everything that had happened, you couldn’t believe a single word that came out of your mouth. That was what it did to you, being stalked and harassed like that, having your life spiral down into this one thing. It was what Franco wanted, to make it so there was nowhere else for us to go, nowhere else for us to run to.

"It is," she agreed, smoothing her hair down, her hands still a little shaky. "I...did the cops get involved?”

I shook my head.

"I wouldn’t have trusted them to," I replied. "Even if they had cared when I was back in Lilyvale, they wouldn’t have done enough. He never actually laid a hand on me, so that was all they needed to hear to brush me off and act like he wasn’t doing anything wrong."

"Same with me," she sighed. "I tried to go to the police a few times, but they just acted like I was the crazy one. Like I should be flattered someone would go to that much effort to be with me, because..."

"Because that’s what guys who are in love do," I finished up for her. I’d heard it myself, from people around me who had meant well – they'd told me that he had meant it as a compliment, as proof of how much he really cared about me.

But now, with Chuck, I could see that that kind of obsession and control had nothing to do with love. It never had. I had been spun lies by the love stories I’d heard, with the prince who chased the princess until she had no choice to give in. It was all bullshit, all of it – all of it nothing more than brainwashing to try and get us, get women to accept that this was the best we could hope for.

"I’m glad he’s gone," she told me, her voice small, but certain. "I’m so glad he’s gone. I never thought I would get to feel this way. But knowing he’s not coming after me, knowing he can’t hurt anyone else either, it’s like..."

"A weight’s been lifted," I finished for her. She nodded in agreement.

"God, you know the worst part?" she remarked. I cocked my head.

"What’s that?"

"Knowing there are so many women out there who are probably in similar situations," she sighed. "And they don’t even know it. They’re with guys who are just at the early stages of it, trying to control them, and they haven’t clocked how bad it’s going to get yet...I wish there was something we could do to help them."

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