Page 37 of With Love

Marshall

I managed to put a small pack of photos and keepsakes aside to show Adrienne when the time is right. Just as I finish putting the box back in the closet, I hear voices downstairs.

Walking out of my room and into the hall I see that Lucy and Adrienne are back from their walk.

“If you wanted to go get changed, we can get set up for a little one-on-one if you’re still up for it?” Lucy says to Adrienne.

“Yeah, I’m feeling good. I may be able to lay you out in record time today,” Adrienne jokes. She hasn’t been able to do that just yet, but she is close. My girl isn’t anything if not a survivor.

She begins to walk up the steps and glances my way once she is at the top.

“Hey, how was your walk?” I ask.

“It was nice. Really chilly today though,” she answers.

“Where is Owen? You didn’t lose him out there, did you?”

“No, he said he wanted to stay out there and enjoy the scenery a little more.”

I give her a small smile and nod.

She looks at me like she wants to say something, then thinks better of it.

“What’s up?”

She is still quiet, but only for a moment longer.

“He… was stuck there too. Lock had something on him that he was never able to tell me about, but he wanted out of there as much as I did,” she begins. “I know that you guys don’t like one another. I am not 100% sure why and I am not sure that I am ready to know either. But I need you both to understand that you each mean a lot to me. And that I have room in my life for both of you.”

“I understand and I am sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable about this in anyway. You’re right when you say that I don’t particularly care for him. I am trying to understand him because I know how much he means to you. I know how helpful he was to you these past few years when I couldn’t get to you. But there is something about him that doesn’t quite sit well with me. I’m working through it though, so I can try and put these feelings to rest. The most important thing to me is you and if having him in your life, as long as it’s safe for him to be there, means this much to you, then I promise he and I will work through it all.”

She moves forward, hoping up on her tiptoes in order to wrap her arms around my neck.

“Thank you, Marshall. He really is a great guy. You will come to find that out,” she places a kiss on my cheek.

I hug her back but don’t respond.

“Want to come fight with Lucy and me?” She gets into her defensive stance and throws pretend punches my way.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” I say before following her down the stairs.

* * *

Adrienne

“That’s it, Adrienne, good!” I hear Lucy say from the side of the mat. Marshall and I are working on different ways to escape someone’s grasp and I just managed to twist my body to the side and kick my foot out toward the side of his leg, forcing him to lose his footing. That loosened his hold on me slightly and I was able to get free.

It didn’t last long though. Just as I was walking away from him, he grabbed me around my bicep which stopped me in my tracks and made my blood run cold. Moments later I started screaming and trying to break free of Marshall’s hold. Once he noticed something was wrong, he let go immediately.

Just then, Owen came barreling through the front door and shoved Marshall to the ground.

“Adrienne, what happened? What did he do to you?”

Getting up off of the floor, Marshall rushes over to me to make sure I am okay, completely ignoring the fact that Owen just knocked him on his ass.

“Adrienne, sweetie, what happened?”

I hold my hand up signaling for them to give me a moment. I lean over, bracing myself with my hands on my knees, taking deep breaths, trying to calm down.

“When you grabbed onto my bicep like that, I don’t know. It was so weird. It took me back to the gala. When you first cornered me underneath the balcony and I tried walking away from you. But then, just as quickly I…” I don’t know if I can continue. I start hyperventilating thinking about what happened a few days later. After Lock saw Marshall and me in the pictures. What happened in the garden.

Someone gently grabs ahold of my elbow and leads me over to the sofa. No sooner than I sit down, I completely fall apart as I relive the fight in my old room, the chase through the grounds of his estate, the shattering effect of the attack in the middle of my solace. Everything thing he did. Everything he said. It all came flooding back to me.

“A little blood never hurt anyone...I hate to think of what could have happened to you that evening...what’s going to happen to you tonight, because of it...There was a time that you thought I hung the moon…Where did that girl go? Where did my girl go? Your recent actions have proven to me that you forget who you belong to…we’re going to change that tonight.”

The next thing I know, I am being carried up the steps and placed into my bed.

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