Page 37 of Never Give Up

It is the first time I looked at the carnage that wrecked Maya’s body, and my heart stops for a moment and my stomach drops. Nausea rises like a violent wave.

Carefully placing the photos back on the table, I rush to the bathroom and vomit. Once I’ve emptied my stomach, I force myself to memorize the details of every photograph we have of the attack.

The images change, and there are a series of them that contain her mattress and window, footprints outside of the residence that they believe belong to the attacker. They got molds made of the print and had determined he wears a size 11 shoe. It’s a common work boot sold at local hardware stores.

The lab hasn’t been able to trace it.

The last dozen or so photographs are of her body in the hospital. The fluorescent lights illuminate the marks that hadn’t been clear at the scene before they rushed her to the hospital for emergency surgery.

Yes, I’m used to seeing photos of dead bodies, horrendous car accidents, and have been on scene for a multitude of difficult situations including death and destruction.

But these?

Nothing is harder to look at than these pictures of Maya, in that condition.

“I told you, you shouldn’t see her like that.” Jake speaks quietly.

I don’t glance at him; I just start going over the photos and the preliminary reports from the scene once again.

“I can’t understand why someone would do this to her. She goes to work and home, that’s all. She’s not out being crazy. She didn’t even have a boyfriend.” I put my head in my hands.

“We both know that most attacks have nothing to do with strangers.”

Jake doesn’t need to say that we’re looking for someone that knows Maya, especially to me, but he does anyway and the statement accentuates the fact we most likely know the man responsible for what had happened to her.

That knowledge sits there, uneasy. Poking at me like a blazing hot spear lancing my eyes over and over again.

“He was watching her.” I speak the words calmly, even if calm is the last thing I feel.

Jake will know the man watched too, but there’s a reason that it isn’t in his case notes.

“He waited for her to fall asleep, and then he attacked her. How do I look her in the eyes, Jake? Knowing I told her to stay home from work that night?” I want to break something, to yell about how unfair it is. But I can’t do any of that.

If I do…

Well, it won’t change a damn thing.

“You couldn’t have prevented this, Brian.” Jake’s words permeate my melancholy, but only a little. “We were both there, and I know for a fact that there’s no way in hell Maya would have stayed away from her house. She’s stubborn, that woman.”

“Jake, you don’t understand.” I’m ashamed to tell him the rest, to claim ownership for her pain. “The night she called because someone had been in her house, she told me how she felt. And I got up from the table. I walked away from her. What am I supposed to do, Jake? I can’t take that back. That guilt.”

My reasons had been so clear, but…

“I should have handled it better. I should have…”

“Yeah,” Jake says. “Well, you didn’t.”

I slide my friend a glance. “Not helping me.”

“I’m not… This isn’t about you, Brian. It’s about Maya. She’s been through hell and you know it. I know it.” He pauses and tilts his head. “That night I told you to tell her the truth, and you weren’t going to, and now?”

“I’m giving her the time to heal.”

Jake nods slowly. “So you punch her ex because…?”

“Frustration? Guilt? Anger that he could help her? That he has a history with her that I’ll never get.”

“I call bullshit on the last one, Brian. You have feelings for her, and you pushed her away, and now you’re just sitting on your hands.”

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