Page 80 of Pieces of Me

I turn quickly, my hand covering hers. “Gina,” I gasp. “You never told me that.”

“Well, of course not,” she scoffs. “You’ve lived it, Jameson. Why would I need to regale you with stories of such horror?”

“But still…” My mind races. “Is that why you knew to save me?”

“Yes, and no.” Her smile is soft, spreading the lines of age and experience in her cheeks. “Simon is how I couldtellabout your abuse, but Conrad Howells is how I knew to save you.”

I turn to her fully, sitting on my heels. Chin raised to look in her eyes, I implore, “Tell me everything.”

Gina laughs a little, setting the brush back in its place. “Simon and I met in high school…” she starts, her gaze distant. She recalls the story, from beginning to end, and I smile with her, cry with her, as if I’m experiencing it all right along with her.

Gina’swhat ifgoes like this:

She was born and raised in Missouri, met her husband in high school, and did what so many barely-adults did back then. They got married right away. Simon worked, Gina took care of the house. Simon drank, and Gina took the brunt of his anger toward him having to work, and her doingnothingto contribute. Obviously, she’d never seen that side of Simon prior to marriage and living together, and even when she voiced her concerns to her parents, they didn’t believe her. When she pushed the issue, their advice was to “suck it up” because no one would love her or give her stability like Simon could. He was your typical abuser—a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

One night, after weeks of daily abuse, Gina awoke to Simon standing over her with a hammer. She’d finally had enough, and sheran. It was the first time she’d ever run from him. Barefoot and barely clothed, she made it all the way to her neighbor’s house, where she banged harshly on the door. She knew her neighbor couldn’t physically save her—she was an elderly woman who lived alone—but the man who answered wasn’t her neighbor. It was her neighbor’s grandson—an off-duty police officer who took one look at Gina and opened the door for her. He took her to the guest bedroom, where he’d clearly been sleeping, and told her to wait there while he retrieved his gun.

For hours, she sat on the edge of the stranger’s bed with her neighbor beside her, holding her hand and consoling her. She heard the yelling, the crashing of objects, saw the red and blue lights just outside the window.

When the grandson returned, the sun was almost up, the lights were gone, and the street was quiet again. He told her to go back to the house and gather her things because it was likely that Simon would spend a night in jail to “sleep it off” and return the next day. Back then, that was the punishment fit for the crime.

The off-duty officer took Gina to a hotel, paid for a week in advance, and then left.

The next day, he returned to check in on her.

The following day, he came back with food and coffee.

The day after that, he brought a deck of cards and some magazines. He admitted that day that he was only meant to be in town forone night. The night she came knocking on the door.

The next time Conrad Howells left that hotel room, it was with Gina by his side. She never saw Simon or her parents again. They moved in together to his home in Tennessee... the same home where we sit together now.

When Gina finishes telling me the story, she sits back in her recliner, a wistfulness in her eyes that brings on my own. “So you married Conrad and—”

“Well, no, I think I’m still technically married to Simon, wherever that evil soul is today—six feet under, I hope… Conrad did ask me to marry him, but…”

My eyes widen, and I lean in closer, completely enthralled by her every word. “But what?”

“Well, he died, sweetheart.”

My gasp is long, loud. “Gina!”

“Yep,” she says, nodding. “Two years after he saved me, he was killed in the line of duty.”

“Nooo!” I’m a sobbing mess again. “That’s a horrible story!”

Gina giggles to herself. “Well, you didn’t ask for a happy ending. You asked for mywhat if.”

I scoff. “What ifthe love of your life hadn’tdied?”

“No.” She draws out the word. “What if I hadn’t chosen that specific night to finally run away? What if Conrad hadn’t been there at that exact time when I needed him? Then I never would’ve gotten to live the greatest two years of my life. Even if it was only two years.” She’s slow to stand, taking her empty teacup with her. “What if Holden is your Conrad, Jamie? The love of your life... andyouget to be lucky enough to experience it twice in a lifetime?”

34

Jamie

Sometimes I wonder how things might have changed had Holden and I met under different circumstances.

Like, maybe we both happen to be at the same place at the same time, and our eyes lock from across the room, and the attraction to each other is immediate. And intense. So intense that we move closer, drawn to each other in ways neither of us understands.

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