Page 11 of Tinley's Daddy
I reached her, but she scurried back against the wall.
“I won’t touch you.” I crouched in front of her. “But you have to breathe for me.”
Her eyes grew wide, and her breath was coming in shallow bursts and close to panic. I had to do something.
I held my hand up.
She covered her head and got as small as she could.
It broke my heart into a thousand pieces. I lowered my hand and fell back on my ass, trying to avoid my own panic attack.
“I’m sorry.” I covered my face. “I am so sorry. I wasn’t going to hit you.” I inhaled and exhaled. “I wasn’t going to hit you,” I whispered. A small hand pulled on my pant leg.
I flinched and sat up. She drew her hand back.
We stared at each other. She initiated touching me. It was a pants leg, but progress. And her panic attack had subsided.
She pointed toward the notepad.
I reached for it and handed it to her.
She took it out of my hand, rested it on her knee, and wrote.
“I am sorry,” I read her words. “They would hit us sometimes when we didn’t do what they wanted us to do. It was reflex. I know you won’t hurt me.”
“How do you know I won’t hurt you?” I smirked.
She took the pad back.
“I think it would hurt you more than it would hurt me.”
“Smart girl.”
And just like that, my heart mended.
She wrote another few sentences and handed the pad to me.
“I can talk, but whenever I go on”—she wrote jobs and crossed it out and wrote dates— “they would ask me to talk a certain way, and I refused. So, it was safer to just remain silent.”
“How long were you with those guys?” I handed the pad back to her.
She held up two fingers.
“Two months?”
She shook her head.
“Two years?” My heart broke all over again. “You are such a brave young woman.”
She rolled her eyes and sat back. She smoothed the blanket across her lap.
A knock on the door startled us both.
“Brave.” I stood up and went to grab her food.
I would do whatever I had to get this woman what she needed.
And those motherfuckers were going to pay.
