Page 8 of Chasing Lynda

There’s a long bench running along the back wall and a few clothing items hanging from colorful hooks above it.

A few thick beach towels are folded on the bench and I thank my lucky stars when I spot an inflatable floating bed on the floor.

There’s a pump by it and I quickly top it up. I groan in pleasure when I lower myself onto it and cover myself up with one of the towels. I know it doesn’t seem much, but this is the most comfortable I’ve slept in months.

As usual, when I close my eyes, I see his eyes.

Ausra’s father’s eyes begging for death as he was being literally torn to shreds by some of the women he abused in his church compound.

I’d have had every reason to stand there and gloat, enjoying his pain but I didn’t. I grabbed a rock from the ground and I finished him off, putting an end to his suffering. He didn’t deserve my mercy. He deserved all the pain in the world and more. Not only for what he did to the women in his family and in his community but for what he did to me.

He had my family agree to the marriage with Aaron. He delivered me to a monster who, if possible, is even worse than he was.

I thought I was safe after the cops stormed the compound on my wedding night, but Harold, Aaron and my father bought their way out of jail. So regardless of me killing the pastor, the preacher who ruined so many lives by playing God, I had to run anyway.

I would rather die than let my husband touch me again.

Harold’s watery blue eyes turn into the brown, lifeless irises of the man I’m married to.

The man who raped me on our wedding night. He abused my body so savagely that I was in the hospital for weeks after the cops stormed into the bedroom Aaron had carried me to after drugging me to make me less combative.

I squeeze my eyes closed tighter to banish his face from my memory. Being drugged is the only good thing that happened to me that night, aside from being rescued.

I know what he did to me because the hospital report detailed my injuries but I don’t remember any of it because I was passed out or in a high stupor for most of the time I spent in that bedroom with him.

I cover my head with the towel, shifting onto my side into a fetal position.

Even if I hadn’t killed Harold, I’d have had to run anyway. Because I know that if he catches me, I would probably beg my husband to deliver me to the authorities. I’m sure that the kind of suffering he’d inflict on me would have me begging for death but I know he would have no mercy.

As usual, the last image in my mind before sleep claims me is Kelley’s.

His warm hazel eyes, his sexy smile, the kindness he always treated me with. In my almost twenty years in this world, I’ve learned that men aren’t to be trusted. They’re cruel, violent, creatures. They take, defile, destroy. My pastor, my husband and my father have all taught me this lesson over and over again.

The only man that ever gave me hope that there’s goodness too in the opposite sex, is Kelley.

He was my only real friend for a very long time.

I sigh, dreaming of his lips on mine, of his arms closed protectively around me. The thought of him is the only thing that allows me to soothe my mind enough to fall asleep. He’s the only man who’s ever made me feel safe. My last coherent thought before sleep takes me under, is that I wish he hadn’t fallen in love with Ausra; I wish he hadn’t seen me like a little sister and nothing more.

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Lynda

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“MOMMY, MOMMY, I WANT to go swim!”

The high-pitched voice of a small child wakes me up with a start. I can barely breathe, panicking when I don’t recognize my surroundings. Where the fuck am I?

Last night’s events come rushing into my sleepy consciousness and I’m quickly on my feet. I’m in a cabana by the beach and judging by the noises outside, it’s late enough in the morning that there are people on the beach. I need to get out of here fast, just in case the people who are renting the cabana arrive and find me here.

I can only hope that last night it wasn’t a fluke that the door was unlocked; hopefully whoever rents this cabana isn’t in the habit of using a padlock at night and I can sleep in here a few more times.

I put the inflatable bed back where I found it against the wall and fold back the towel with the intention of putting it back on the bench where I got it last night.

I stop in my tracks when when I remember that while running away from the men who assaulted me on the beach, I left my backpack.

I really need to get out of these clothes and possibly get a shower, I think scrunching up my nose at the odor coming from my armpits.

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