Absolutely Unforgivable(67)
Suddenly I could see flashes of the moments from yesterday. They jumped into my brain like lightning bolts. There was him coming out of the bushes, and then him coming at me upstairs. There was the blood. So much blood. I shook my head sharply to try and break the images free from my mind. Tears were now streaming down my face as the water poured from overhead.
I didn’t hear the tapping at the door so when I didn’t respond Billy burst into the bathroom to make sure I was okay. I wasn’t. I was sitting in the shower, cowering in the corner, sobbing uncontrollably. He jumped in after me, clothes and all, and turned off the water and then lifted me up and into the bedroom, ordering Vin to avert his eyes and get us some towels and Mindy.
I did my best to stop crying as Billy wrapped a large towel around my body. I was so out of it, I hadn’t even realized he had seen me naked. I don’t know how much he had seen but under any other circumstances I would have probably died in horror. But today that wasn’t the case. Today I didn’t care. Today it was all I could do to keep it together.
Mindy and Bree came in just as he got the towel wrapped around my body. Mindy hurried Billy out of the room so they could get me dressed. I apologized for being such a mess and assured them I still wanted to go shopping. Maybe getting out of the house would make me feel better.
Darla and Starla said they would meet us there, while Bree and Mindy were going to ride with me and Vin. Of course he wasn’t going to let us out of the house without him and I didn’t mind this time. I felt safe with him near me. What once irritated me now felt soothing and reassuring.
We all picked various versions of a 1960s go-go dancer costumes for the first night. For the second night we would be wearing Lycra metallic silver miniskirts with matching knee high boots. The shirts were a mixture of white with some silvery shimmer mixed into the fabric. Darla and Starla decided to get some metallic silver boy shorts instead of the miniskirts that the rest of us were going to wear. They wanted to set themselves apart.
When we got back home I had a visitor. It was Jeromy’s mother Debbie. She had come by the house to check on me after seeing the story on the news. Until then I had been really good about Jeromy being out of town but having a piece of him standing right in front of me was too much and the tears dripped down my cheeks.
She put her arm around me. “Stacy dear,” she whispered softly. “It’s going to be alright. I know Jeromy misses you too. I know he loves you so much and he would never want to know he made you this upset.”
“I thought Jeromy loved me. But lately I just don’t know,” I said to her as she rocked me back and forth in her arms lovingly.
“Look around you. Don’t you think with all the money Jeromy makes he could more than afford a place for you two to live on your own?”
“I guess,” I sniffled.
“He brought you here to Billy’s house because he loves you and he wanted to make sure you would be well taken care of while he was away. His job will take him away from time to time and this was his way of making sure you were going to be alright while he was gone.”
I hadn’t really thought about it that way before. But she was right. He did make a lot of money. I didn’t exactly know how much but more than enough to secure us a nice place to live on our own had he wanted to.
I began to perk up and she hugged me again. “Now let me see that beautiful smile of yours; you know like the one I saw on TV last night.”
“Oh God. I had almost forgotten about that,” I laughed. “I hated posing for those pictures but I felt like I had to.”
“I understand. That was very sweet of you. Especially considering everything else going on around you at the time.”
I shuddered at the memory of the pools of blood upstairs.
Vin came up and hugged Debbie. He had also known her as a child. She was in awe at how much he had grown. They talked back and forth, catching up on what they had been up to over the years, and he introduced Debbie to his friends Devin and Rocco.
“I hope you boys are taking good care of my little Stacy.”
“Absolutely, ma’am,” Devin respectfully answered.
Seeing that I was in their capable hands, Debbie made her way back home and left me to get ready for tonight's show.
But before she left, I had asked her to please not tell Jeromy about what had taken place at the house. I was fine now and I didn’t want him to worry about me. There was no point in him rushing home. It was all over. After all, he was out of town right now and there was probably no way he would even hear of the story. He didn’t typically have a habit of perusing news of the local crime beat so unless someone specifically talked to him about it, he would not find out on his own.