Page 14 of Choose the Bears

“Worked that out, did you?”

“That strangled sound, like your balls were in your throat? Yeah, got that loud and clear.” I could hear her smile in her voice. “I’ve got someone on stand-by. Pick up is in ten.”

“Stay focussed,” I told Lucas. “Don’t go up there unless something happens.”

“But don’t be afraid to if it does,” Kyle added before looking up and staring at Imogen’s window. “Actually, maybe call us either way.” He shook his head slowly. “We didn’t get to let the bears out, and mine is going mad right now at the thought of leaving here.”

“There’s somewhere we can go.” I reached over and squeezed Kyle’s shoulder after passing Lucas the car keys, right as our driver arrived.

“Hey, boss man!” Both Kyle and I groaned as a familiar face poked out of the window. Kenny was one of the kids we’d helped out, all grown up and driving taxis now. “Where are we off to?”

I finally allowed myself to look up at that window myself. The light that seeped past the curtains, the vague flicker as someone moved behind it, I created whole stories in my head to explain what was happening in there, but wouldn’t know for real, not for some time.

“The zoo,” I replied. “Take us to the zoo, Kenny.”

Chapter 8

Imogen

I’d waited so long to have a place of my own, so why did it feel so empty?

Because I hadn’t moved in here on my own, I reasoned. Mike, Phil, even my strange rescuers had taken that from me. I could’ve slowly, methodically moved in through a series of trips, adjusting myself to the process of leaving Mike behind.

But why?

Why did I need to adjust to anything? I’d hated living with him for so damn long, it didn’t make sense that I’d be staring at the bare walls, the empty room, jumping at every sound. Someone’s muffled shout from blocks away, the sharp blare of a car horn, it felt like they sent shockwaves down each nerve ending, exploding inside me.

But this is what I wanted.

I wanted to be on my own, away from Mike, ready to take steps towards becoming who I was an adult. I just thought it would be easier than this. My eyes roamed around the place, seeing new furniture, new rooms, sensing strange smells.Not familiar, not home, not safe, my overworked nervous systemtold me. I let out a long, shuddering breath, even as tears pricked at my eyes, trying to push that feeling aside and let this in.

My new place wasn’t a threat. The men who helped me weren’t the enemy. Like when you sat too long in the one position, then felt your legs ache with itchy, scratchy pins and needles, it was only now I’d gotten away from Mike that this feeling was allowed to rush in. One tear rolled down my cheek and that gave the others the go ahead, more following quickly. A sob caught in my throat, threatening to choke me, because there were so many more to come. Every single cry I’d kept down in the months since I’d decided to leave Mike.

I sank to the ground, my arms wrapping around my legs, trying to hug myself, because there was no one else to do it, to comfort myself through this. Emotion, tangled, nasty, snarly barbed-wire threads of feeling tore through me, leaving me bleeding. My tears made a messy pattern on my old/new tiled floor, but now I could barely see them. It was all coming, I thought that hysterically, all of it, more than I could deal with. My whole body shook with my silent sobs, but right when I thought the massive wave of emotions was going to drown me entirely, there was a gentle knock at the door.

I was used to pulling shit back, packing away even the messiest of emotions back inside me to explode quietly while I put on my social mask. Rising to my feet now, the tears dried up instantly as I approached the door. Was it Mike, Phil? Some tweaker from downstairs? Shit, were Jehovah’s Witnesses doing door-to-door visits at this time of night? In response to my silent questions, I heard a voice.

“Imogen… It’s Lucas.”

I could’ve ignored this man, this stranger, and his inopportune interruption of my misery, but that was the problem. Part of me was always reaching out to other people, despite the dangers. Perhaps that’s why I opened the door. Justa crack at first, but I saw the gleam of his glasses before his golden-brown eyes stared into mine.

“You OK?” I looked around me, knowing the walls in this place were thin, but they couldn’t be thin enough for him to hear my muffled cries. “I only ask…” He sighed and looked away, shaking his head as his cheeks flushed bright pink. “The guys don’t send me on field duty for this reason. Look, the women we help, they often talk about the first night being the hardest. Everything feels weird, different, and that can be super overwhelming. If you’d been referred to us, you’d have been brought to headquarters. There’d have been people, women you could talk to, so you’d know you weren’t alone.”

It was when his eyes met mine and held them that I finally let a breath out.

“You’re not alone.” Those three words seemed to fill me with something I hadn’t known I was missing. “Not unless you want to be. If I’m intruding…” His voice trailed away as I opened the door wider and then stepped back. “I…”

This was wrong. I didn’t ask anyone for help, not when it’d been shown over and over that people wouldn’t turn up when I needed it, but maybe it was because he was a stranger, or maybe I just couldn’t bear that look of pity in his eyes. I took a step towards him, then another, not needing to move any further, because he was just there. Just as strange, just as unfamiliar as this apartment, but when I clung to him—when his arms went around me—there was a comfort there that I hadn’t found in my new place. I closed my eyes and tried to keep my breathing regular, even as the tears came rushing back. Instead, his hand landed on my shoulders and stroked down as he said the magic words I didn’t know I needed to hear.

“It’s OK. This is perfectly normal.” That comforting advice was delivered in a shaky voice, but somehow his vulnerabilitymade it possible for me to sit with my own. “It’s OK. I’m here for as long as you need me.”

That was it, the push I needed to topple off the cliff of self-control and into the sea of emotion that raged beyond. Rational thought about the door, the lock, a stranger in my place, was pushed aside as I pressed my face into his chest and bawled.

I cried for the shame of it. In some ways, it would be easier if Mike was physically violent because then at least I’d have something to show for it. Evidence of abuse that I could point to so no one would argue with me about my plan of action. Instead, he left marks all over me that no one else could see, not even myself, just leaving me with this feeling of wrongness. Up was down, the sky was green and the grass was blue, he made me crazy with his circuitous logic, and after every argument, I walked away dazed and confused.

But I was still there.

That’s what mattered in all of this, that I stayed. Because when I dried my tears, collected myself, I’d do all the things he needed me to. Suck his dick, change the sheets, clean the toilet, and make sure we had TP to wipe our arses with. I’d clung to the everyday rituals like a drunk person might stair railings, to keep me moving forward.

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