Page 20 of The Survivor
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When Sam walked into Elaine’s hospital room early the next morning, she found the young woman in tears.
As heart-wrenching as that was, witnessing Elaine’s obvious distress only made Sam glad that she hadn’t listened to Blake’s suggestion about saving this visit for tonight.
When she’d awakened, the very last thing she’d wanted to do was sit around Blake’s house all day, twiddling her thumbs while she waited for night to fall so she could see Elaine. Blake had tried talking her out of it, but in the end she’d convinced him that the morning visit wouldn’t be the end of the world. She hadn’t been comfortable on her way up to Elaine’s room,dodging nurses and visitors in the halls, but now she was happy that she hadn’t listened to Blake’s objections.
She wasted no time rushing to Elaine’s side.
Without hesitation she pulled Elaine into her arms, gently stroked her brown hair, and murmured, “It’s okay. Tell me what happened.”
Elaine simply whimpered and clutched at the corner of the newspaper as if it were a lifeline she couldn’t let go of.
Pulling back, Sam reached for the box of tissues on the bedside table and handed one to the young woman. “Please, Elaine. Tell me what’s got you so upset.”
Elaine wordlessly handed her the newspaper, which was open to the wedding announcements. The top of the page displayed a photograph of a young, smiling couple. The caption readCharles and Davis to marry.
Sam looked up, questioning. “Do you know him?” She glanced again at the handsome blond man in the picture. Matthew Charles.
“My ex-boyfriend.” Elaine’s voice was scarcely above a whisper. “We broke up a few months ago. It was before the…attack.”
“And he’s getting married. Is that why you’re upset?”
Elaine sniffled. “I know I shouldn’t be. After all, we broke up. But I never stopped loving him. I just needed to focus on my new job for a while. He didn’t take it well, started dating another girl pretty soon afterward.” Her gaze drifted to the attractive blonde in the photo. “I was thinking of calling him about a week before…the attack…but I was scared that he and his new girlfriend might be serious. I guess they were.”
Sympathy bloomed in Sam’s chest. Though she couldn’t say she’d ever truly been in love, she did know what it was like to care deeply about someone. She could just imagine how Elainefelt now, dead to all who knew her, seeing a past love moving on with his life when she couldn’t do the same.
“It’s not as if I want him back.” A bitter scowl creased Elaine’s delicate mouth. “After what happened to me, I don’t expect another man to ever want me.”
Sam quickly cupped Elaine’s chin and forced her to look at her. “Don’t say that,” she ordered. “You’ll fall in love again.”
“Who’s going to love me?” Elaine laughed harshly and lowered the sheet covering her body. All that gauze instantly sent a piercing shot of pain to Sam’s heart. “I’m damaged.”
“You’re not damaged.” Sam’s voice wavered. “I don’t want to ever hear you say that.”
It became hard for her to breathe, especially when the words coming out of this young woman’s mouth were the exact words Sam had uttered not so long ago.Nobody will ever want me. I’m tainted. I’m damaged goods.That’s what she’d told Annette Hanson, what she’d believed for months after the attack. Normal thoughts to have, she knew that. Being attacked and left for dead did that to a girl.
Elaine had every right to feel the way she did. Hard as it was to admit—and it made her guilty as hell even thinking it—Elaine had it worse than her. Sam had thought that one rose on her body, that stark evidence of being branded, would be enough to send any man running. But Elaine had a lot more scars. So many that Sam wondered if the girl would ever meet someone willing to look past the damaged shell and appreciate the courageous beauty inside.
“I wish I’d died that day,” Elaine whispered. “Do you ever wish that?”
“I did at first,” she admitted. “I was so angry, lying there in the hospital. I went back and forth from self-pity, thinking I was better off dead, to self-hatred, blaming myself for what happened.”
“How could it have been your fault?”
“It wasn’t.” She smiled faintly. “But at the time, I thought it was. I left my bedroom window unlatched. That’s how he got in.”
“He attacked you in your house?”
Sam nodded. “I got back from a party, still in my slinky red dress, a little tipsy, too. I had no clue that anyone was in the house. No clue. But when I went up to my room—” she sucked in much-needed oxygen “—he was there. Waiting. He even said hello.”
Her throat suddenly burned with vicious-tasting acid and she feared she might throw up.Hello. She could still hear that raspy male whisper, eerily calm in the darkness of her bedroom as he slid up behind her and reached a hand around to press a knife to her throat. Her first thought was that she was being robbed, and she remembered saying, “Take whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me.”
And he’d laughed.
“He. Laughed.”She gritted her teeth so hard she feared she’d break her jaw. “He told me he didn’t want my belongings, but that I’d pay. And the funny thing—” she chuckled callously “—I never thought to ask what I was paying for.”
She heard Elaine sniffle again, and when she glanced over, she saw that the tears had returned. “He said that to me,” the girl murmured, her face growing pale. “He told me I’d pay.”
