On The Sidewalk Bleeding

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Payton

            Kyle's sister Emma was absolutely adorable. She never stopped talking, which was good, because I wasn't really in the mood to talk anyways. I knew Kyle would ask who did it, and I wanted to put that conversation off for as long as I could. I was listening to Emma tell me about her favorite Barbie doll when there was a knock on the door.

            Kyle goes to open the door, looking at me for confirmation, so I nod. He opens the door to reveal a rather young female doctor. She smiles at Kyle and then at me, and it isn't a fake smile. It's warm and kind. Her facial expression changes as she observes Emma, who is sitting on the bed beside me with her mismatched shoes and mismatched outfit. She purses her lips for a second and then looks like she's trying to stifle a laugh.

            "If it's not too much of a problem, I need to speak to Payton alone please," the doctor says, "My name is Dr. Sarah. It's my first name because I don't like being called by my last name because it makes me sound old. I promise we won't take long, I just need to ask Payton a few questions."

            Kyle simply nods at the doctor and then grabs his sister's sides and lifts her to his hips. She waves bye to me with a sad look on her face.

            "Quite an interesting outfit she has there." The doctor's voice holds humor in it.

            "Very." Is my reply.

            "The boy's not too bad looking, is he your boyfriend?"

            "No, he isn't." My voice is tight as I answer. My boyfriend is the reason I'm in this damn hospital in the first place. But I don't say that out loud, I don't think the doctor needs to know that, or maybe that's why she's here. Maybe she wants some answers.

            "Well that's too bad, you two would make a beautiful couple." She smiles at me before she continues. "On another note, we need to discuss what happened last night." As she says this, the warm smile falls from her face, and is replaced by a frown. "What happened Payton? I need to know. Who did this to you?" And there it was, the question that I had been dreading. "If it was someone who might do it again, or has done it before, we need to know so we can arrest him."

            I have to take a deep breath before I can start my story. "I will tell you everything from the beginning, but you can't interrupt, no matter what, ok? No one knows anything about this."

            Two years ago, I started dating one of the guys on my school's football team. His name was Luke Fortis.

            Luke was nice and did amazing things for me in the beginning. He planned special dates, and never let anyone say anything bad about me. We were happy together, as a couple. It was the school football team's best year yet, and he believed that I was his good luck charm because I went and watched every game, and he always said that he could hear me cheering over everyone else, because no one had such a beautiful voice. For the first ten or eleven months, what we had was the best thing I could have ever imagined for.

            And then something changed along the way.

            It was like a switch had been turned off in his head, and that I was the reason for all of his problems. I still went to watch their games, but they had started to lose, and he blamed it on me. We no longer went on dates, he no longer did nice things. I had just figured that it was because he was having problems or something at home.

            Then one day, we went to a party together, and we hooked up. It was my first time, and he knew it, but it didn't matter to him, he was rough anyways. He didn't care that he was hurting me, and he realized too late that he had forgotten to put on protection.

            A month later, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. I told him I wasn't going to get an abortion, that I would keep it. He said that I would do no such thing. After another 2 months, I went for the first ultrasound, just to make sure everything would be alright. Everything was, and when I came back home, Luke was sitting on my house porch waiting for me. I hadn't told him where I was going, because it wasn't his business to know. He wasn't the one who was going to have the baby, I was, so I didn't think I should have to tell him.

            But when I walked up to him, and said hi, he demanded to know where I was. I said that it didn't matter, and that was when he slapped me across the face for the first time. I was hurt, but figured that he was just mad that I didn't tell him where I was. But I was wrong.

            When I was 5 months into the pregnancy, he beat me, killing the baby. He made me dispose of my child myself, making me give birth to a dead child and then making me bury in it the ground. I never knew anyone could be so cruel as to do that to someone.

            I wanted to break up with him after that, but he showed me a gun that he keeps in his room and threatened to kill me and my family if I left him, or if I told anyone about what he had done. So, I had to lie to my parents and say that I had a miscarriage. So I stayed with him and endured the pain of him beating and raping me, just so that my family could stay completely safe, even if I wasn't.

            Yesterday, he tried to beat me to death because he thought I told someone what he was doing to me, when in reality, someone had caught on. He wasn't able to finish what he started, but I don't know why. I had already blacked out by the time he stopped.

            "So now you know. You know who did it, what happened, around how long it's been happening for, and now you can arrest him. But if you need to, do it at school, somewhere public. I want him humiliated, like he humiliated me. I know it's low, but it's also for safety. He will do anything to keep his reputation, and no one else knows about the abuse so..." I looked at Dr. Sarah and she had tears in her eyes, some running down her face and some splattered on her shirt. There were numerous emotions swirling about in her eyes, but I couldn't pick out a single one.

            "I'll let the police know immediately." And then she was gone.