Page 52 of The Survivor
“Sam?”
He was standing in the doorway again, and a balloon of hope rose in her chest before she could stop it. He was back. He’d realized he was acting like an idiot and that maybe whatever it was between them really was worth pursuing and—
“Elaine’s on the phone.”
The balloon burst, little pieces of hope sinking and settling in the pit of her stomach like jagged little rocks.
Of course he wouldn’t change his mind. The master of control never doubted his decisions after he’d made them, no matter how unfair andunnecessarythey were.
Without a word, she walked up and accepted the cordless phone from his hands, then brushed past him without sparing him a backward glance.
“Hey, hon, what’s going on?” she said into the receiver as she climbed the stairs with a heavy heart and headed for the guest room.
She’d moved her things into Blake’s bedroom yesterday, but she had no intention of spending the night there tonight. Trying not to cry, she sank onto the bed and leaned back against the headboard.
“I just spoke to Dr. Darwitz,” came Elaine’s soft voice, followed by a sniffle. “He sent some pictures, you know, of my…my scars…to the plastic surgeon at CGH and he heard back from him today.”
Sam tried not to cringe as she remembered the countless bandages on Elaine’s small body. Nausea scampered up her throat but she swallowed it down, refusing to let Elaine hear any sympathy or pity in her voice. Support. That’s all she would offer this courageous young woman.
“What did he say?” she asked gently.
“He’s willing to perform the surgery. But he said there could be residual scarring. Especially on my breasts.”
A strangled sob sounded from the other end of the line.
“Hey, don’t cry, honey. That’s good news, isn’t it?”
“Didn’t you hear me? He can’t get rid of them completely, Sam!”
“Then maybe you have to take what you can get,” she replied quietly. “If you want the surgery, accept the limitations.Doyou want the surgery?”
Silence. Stretching out so long that Sam thought Elaine might have hung up. She opened her mouth to speak but another sob tore through the extension, laced with such misery that tears stung Sam’s eyes. God, this poor girl. This poor, innocent girl who’d done nothing wrong except go into work on the day a madman decided to show up. It wasn’t fair. It was so beyond fair that Sam suddenly felt like hitting someone, throwing something, anything to release the tornado of anger spinning inside her.
“I know the idea that you’ll always have some scars is troubling,” she finally said, swallowing back the rage bubbling in her throat. Her heart ached for the twenty-three-year-old who, at the moment, was locked up in a safe house so a killer couldn’t find her. “But Elaine, if the surgeon can make even one scar disappear, I think you should do it, honey.”
“What about you?” was Elaine’s shaky reply.
Sam faltered. “What about me?”
“Are you getting yours removed?”
“I…don’t know.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek.
“Doesn’t it make you feel ugly?” Elaine burst out. “Aren’t you scared that if you show it to someone, he’ll laugh at you and be repulsed?”
Sam hesitated. Blake’s voice suddenly drifted into her head, the quiet words he’d uttered when they’d first made love.You’ve got a war wound.
He hadn’t been repulsed by the scar. He said it impressed him, that it showed her strength.
“I’m not scared,” she answered, shrugging off the troubling thought. “If someone wants to laugh at me, or run away in horror, let him. We’re survivors, honey. And if we survived thewrath of a madman, we sure as hell can survive the rejection of a person who can’t look beneath the surface.”
Another silence dragged between them, until Elaine finally made a desperate, strangled sound and whispered, “I’m not a survivor, Sam. I’m a victim. I’ll never be anything else.”
“Don’t say that! Elaine, please, you need to know that you’ll get through this. You’ll—”
The assurances fell on deaf ears. Elaine had already hung up.
Sam clutched the phone between trembling fingers. She wanted to run downstairs and force Blake to take her to that safe house. She wanted to pull that sad, suffering girl into her arms and make the pain go away. But she couldn’t. Blake wasn’t about to drive her to Indiana, and she knew Elaine wouldn’t accept the offer of comfort anyway. For Elaine, comfort would come later. Comfort would come the morning she opened her eyes and didn’t remember what happened to her, the day she looked into the mirror and didn’t see a multitude of scars branded into her body.
