Page 156 of Love Me Stalk Me
I walk Izzy over to the couch, lowering her down carefully, as if she's made of glass. I pull out the smelling salts, crack them open, and gently hold them beneath her nose. The ammonia scent fills the air.
"Come back to me, pretty girl," I murmur.
Her eyelids flutter.
I’M NOT AFRAID WHEN HE’S HERE
IZZY
I'm backin my apartment.
It's been four days since the attack—four days since Evan tried to rape me in my own office, since Callahan broke down my door and saved me. Four days since my entire world shattered and began to reform into something unrecognizable.
I sit on my couch wrapped in a blanket, watching the shadows shift across the wall as the afternoon sun filters through the blinds. Outside my Hoboken apartment, traffic rolls by, horns blare, footsteps echo on the sidewalk. Life keeps moving. People keep living.
But I don’t move. I just sit there, numb and heavy, like I’ve sunk into the cushions and can’t find the will to get up. Everything feels far away. Like I’m watching it all from behind thick glass, unable to reach it. Or maybe unwilling.
I took personal time off from work. Not because I wanted to. Amanda and Cal forced me. If it were up to me, I would've gone back the next day and pretended like everything was fine, like nothing happened. But it did happen. And no amount of pretending is going to erase that.
Both of them also dragged me to the emergency room. The antiseptic smell still lingers in my memory, along with the scratchy paper covering the examination table. They made me do a sexual assault examination. I didn't want to at first. I told them it wasn't necessary. Cal was there. He saw the whole thing. He told me he got there before Evan could do his worst. But then he hesitated.
What if the angle was wrong? That's what he said. What if there was something he didn't see while he was running to get me?
That alone was enoughto convince me to go.
The tests showed no evidence of penetration or sexual contact. Much to my relief. Because I don't know if I could have handled the alternative. I know he hit me hard enough that I blacked out. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe it spared me from worse. But the whole thing was still beyond terrifying. My body still carries the evidence—aches and bruises that make me wince with every movement.
Evan was arrested, of course.
I got a call from the District Attorney's office a few days later. They want to bring charges against him. Attempted sexual assault.
But there's a catch.
They need me to testify.
Without my testimony, they probably won't bring this to trial. I told them I needed to think about it. Because the truth is, I don't know if I can do it. The idea of sitting in open court, reliving that day, detailing what he did—what he tried to do—makes me feel like I can't breathe. My chest tightens just thinking about it, my lungs refusing to expand.
And what if it follows me forever?
What if people search court records someday, and that's all they see about me? Even with victim protection laws, details have a way of leaking out.
What if it never really goes away?
I haven't told anyone about the call yet. Not Amanda. Not Cal. Not my family. Especially not my family. Amanda, bless her loud, chaotic, occasionally psychotic heart, has been uncharacteristically quiet about the trauma. She's respected my boundaries, hasn't pushed me to talk, hasn't forced me into reliving any of it.
And, most importantly, she hasn't told my family.
I begged her not to. Amanda knows my family. She's been to more than a few Sunday dinners. She promised me she wouldn't say a word. She said it wasn't her place. Which thank God, because if my brothers and dad found out? They'd be on trial for murder.
If my mother and Nonna found out? It might actually kill them.
Still, I know she's keeping a close eye on me.
But no one has kept a closer eye on me than Cal.
He's the one who saved me. The first person I saw when I woke up, the one who carried me to the hospital, held my hand through the whole ordeal. The one who brought me home.
He's the one who cooked for me, made sure I showered, and got me into bed. He slept on my couch outside my bedroom door. And I mean, physically outside my bedroom door. He moved the couch in front of it so that any potential intruder would literallyhave to go through him first. The sound of his steady breathing was oddly comforting through the thin wood.
