Chapter Two

Abbey tiredly gathered up what remained of the garbage the boys had left in the living room. Jed had been kind enough to pick up most of it before he’d left a few hours earlier. He’d been kind enough to do a lot things. He’d tried to save her from herself, he’d helped her take out lunch, and then he’d helped her clean up the mess. He was quite a find and Abbey couldn’t help but wish that she’d met Jed first.

She chuckled dryly as she looked around and realized that there was nothing left to pick up. At least not trash. There were, however, pieces of Abigail strewn all over the place. There was the empty place where a French lamp had stood only a week ago before, having seen its end on the floor after being hurled at her head. There was a stray blouse button near the base of an overstuffed reclining chair that had lost its home after Daniel had forgotten what ‘no’ meant. Well, he hadn’t forgotten what it meant; he’d simply forgotten to care. However, the scars weren’t only on the furniture; the worst covered her.

An ugly burn marred the inside of her wrist. One evening, she’d made his broth too...something and he’d poured his steaming bowl over her hand as she tried in vain to squirm from his grasp. “Please, don’t do this. Please. It hurts so much. Stop! I’ll make it better next time, okay. I’ll make it however you want. Please, stop hurting me, Daniel. Please.” He’d finally succumbed to her pleas or, at the very least, had gotten annoyed with them and let her go.

She’d wrapped her wrist in a cold towel and had fled the house immediately. She’d gone home, straight to her mother’s arms. Or at least to her blind denials. Always a blind denial. To her mother, and especially to her father, Daniel Arthur Rawston could do no wrong. “It was a misunderstanding,” said her father. “Men need an outlet,” said her mother. A bandage and a pat on the head was all she’d gotten before she’d been dropped back on his doorstep. He’d been waiting for her with his heavy knitted brow and the firm set of his jaw. She’d known she’d made a mistake from the moment she’d walked back through the door.

Following that wound was another burn on her side from an iron pot, a yellowing fist-shaped bruise that illustrated a recent blow to her ribs. She’d been in bed for a week with three cracked ribs and a concussion from her ‘fall in the bathtub.’ The worst, though, were the finger-shaped bruises that colored the outsides of her thighs. It made her sick when she thought of where they’d come from. The way he’d held her down, using her small stature against her, and pinned her arms above her head. The way he’d touched her, rubbing his large, hard hands over her sensitive breasts with no regard to her will.

She’d told him time and again that she wanted to save her virginity for when they married, but he’d been determined to have his way with her. She fought him so hard, but was no match for his four years of crew and basketball. He withstood her desperate attempts to stop him and shoved her skirt around her waist. She finally quit fighting and squeezed her eyes shut to try to block out was happening to her. She thought of ways to kill herself as he groped her in places she’d only intended to let one man touch her. Though deeply traumatized already, she was saved from ultimate violation by Daniel’s own body. Apparently, she wasn’t enough to give him a rise. He shouted at her in frustration. He’d shaken her and blamed her for his shortcomings. It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to have her, but had been unable to perform. That was just one more item to add to his long list of failures. That didn’t mean that he failed to get a perverse kind of pleasure out of assaulting her.

It was everyday, nonstop. He took every chance he got to make her cry out in pain, to make her whimper at his touch, to bring her to her knees. That was his substitute for sex; her pain meant his pleasure. She hated him so much, but could find no way out. She was in a bright, white room with no exit in sight and ever in every direction she turned, there was Daniel. He’d effectively cut her off from her friends. All she had was her family and they wouldn’t believe her. They wouldn’t protect her because she was too much outside of what a lady of the Barrington household was supposed to be. They would let this go on in hopes that enough of it would change her into the perfect subservient spouse. Then, she wouldn’t have a word to say about what happened at home, because to quote her mother, “What happens between husband and wife should remain between husband and wife.” That left her with only one option...To stay and wait to become Mrs. Daniel Rawston.

And with that admission went her every hope of ever being anything else.

~~~~

Meanwhile, Jed sat in his hotel room and read his bible absently. That was unlike him. He’d read the Book from cover to cover, but never hesitated to read something again. He thought it was something a future priest should do; study the words that would become his life. At least, that was what he used to think. Suddenly, he wasn’t certain of his future at all. He wasn’t certain of anything.

Since he’d left Daniel Something-or-Other’s home, he hadn’t been able to get Abbey out of his head. At this point, he couldn’t even focus on God without thinking of the scared, beautiful young girl. He wondered if when God created Eve, she was what he had in mind. Her name rolled off his tongue and her green eyes were emblazoned on his mind. He couldn’t believe that there was no way to help her. He wouldn’t believe that. He wasn’t very big, but sometimes, even he had the heart of lion.

Unfortunately, that same heart had gotten him into trouble more than once before.

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