Carmen
I wake up the next morning, feeling completely refreshed. When I spoke with Brandon yesterday, he told me that he was going to change my schedule around so that Peter can't figure out what it is and hopefully give up his pursuit of me. I go in at eleven today. I also made an appointment with Kathy, my therapist this morning before I go into work.
When I arrive at her office, I sit inside the car for a few minutes to get my thoughts together before going inside. I know this is going to be a difficult hour because of all that I have to talk about. But maybe getting it off of my chest will help.
I get out of the car and walk inside of the building and press the button for her floor at the elevator. I continue to collect my thoughts when the elevator opens and I walk inside. I look around and I'm alone so I relax on the trip up.
I walk inside of Kathy's office and she's waiting for me. "Hi Carmen! How are you today?"
"I'm doing well." I answer, surprised that I'm telling her the truth. "That's good! Come on in and we can get started." We walk further into the inner office and take a seat. "What brings you in today?"
I explain what happened the night before last and she listens to me, asking questions and taking notes. When I finish, she asks me, "Do you remember anything from before you woke up in the hospital?" I shake my head, "Not at all. I thought after all of that, I would remember, but nothing happened. How long is it going to take for me to remember?"
"There is no set time for these things. The reason that we know that you are going to get your memory back is because of the headaches. If they weren't involved, then I would say that there is a chance that it won't happen. Your mind is blocking what happened because of the tragedy that happened. It's just not ready to deal with that time yet. It will happen, just be patient. What else is going on in your life?" She moves around in her seat a little.
"I met some friends!" I reveal excitedly. "Someone other than Mrs. Mayfield?" She inquires. I nod, "I met a guy and his friend while working one night. Then they brought the rest of their guy friends in a few nights later and then they brought their wives in about a week later. The wives all like me except for one. I think there is a connection between Samson and I because his wife was killed in the bombing." My head starts to hurt and I close my eyes. Kathy is quiet and sits patiently until I open my eyes. "Did you ask her name?" I shake my head. "You should in the future. It may help your memory."
I nod. "How is Mrs. Mayfield?" She asks. "She moved in with her son. He lives in California." I answer.
"Are you okay? I know that you miss her."
After relaying that story to her, I tell her, "I do miss her, but she needed more assistance that what I was able to give her. Tyson is very well off and able to get her around the clock care. I know that she is better off living with him. I talk to her every day and she's loving the beach!"
Kathy nods and smiles at me. "I'm glad you made more friends, I know it was hard on both of you with her leaving."
"I'm glad also. She wouldn't leave until I made more friends. I took her to the barbecue that they had about three weeks ago and she likes all of them. So we were able to get her to move." I tell her.
"They've kept me so busy that I've hardly had time to miss her." I say. "Tell me about the person in the group that doesn't like you?" She requests. "I think that she doesn't like me because she was best friends with Samson's wife. She thinks that I'm taking her place when that is definitely not happening. Samson's not ready to date yet and I would like to have my memory back before I decide to get into a long term relationship." I tell her.
"Why do you want to wait until then?" She asks. "Because I want my life to be stable before getting into that type of relationship." I answer. "You need to live like you will never get your memory back. You won't forget this time when you remember, but you definitely need to make new memories." She tells me. "I thought about that and have been thinking more about it lately, but wasn't sure if that's the right thing to do." I respond.
"I understand why you would doubt that, but waiting may be the reason that you haven't gotten your memory back. If you move forward instead of staying in a standing pattern, then maybe your mind will feel that you are ready for the memories that have been suppressed. Live for today, not yesterday."
I nod thinking about what she just said. "Our time is up for today. Why don't you go in the next room and lay down before you have to go to work." I thank her and go into the next room putting my things away and laying down on the cot. I set my alarm and close my eyes so I can get some rest before work. She gave me a lot to think about.
The next couple of weeks at work go by quietly. My shifts move around a lot and I haven't seen Peter at all. Samson and some of our group are always there and walk me out to my car every day and night making sure that I'm safe before I go home. Agents Holmes and Yard have come by for the security checks and everything is clear. They've also been following Peter and he's not doing anything out of the ordinary. Just going to work and going home. They've seen him go by the bar a couple of times, but he's usually just there an hour and then goes back home.
I actually have today off and I decide to go grocery shopping after I finish all of my errands since this is the first day I have to myself in the past couple of weeks. Between work and friends, I haven't had a minute to breathe. I arrive at the grocery store in the evening when it's starting to get dark, so I look around hoping that my security is with me.
I take my time perusing the aisles picking out what I want and need and go stand in line. Of course at this time of the day, there's only one cashier ringing up everyone. Just my luck, every time I'm here, there's only one line going. It's not as fun without Mrs. Mayfield and I spend my time in line contemplating if I should find another grocery store.
It's finally my turn and I pay for my groceries and bag them. I take everything and the basket and roll it out to my car. After I put everything in the trunk, I turn around to take the basket to the corral when Peter steps in front of the cart. "What do we have here? It must be my lucky day." He sneers. I roll my eyes, "Get away from me Peter."
He shakes his head, "Today is both of our lucky days. You are going to come with me." He reaches across the basket and tries to grab my arm, but I evade him taking a step back. I push the basket into him and try to turn towards my car. He reaches out again grabbing my arm and some of my hair with it this time. He pulls me forward towards him, yanking my hair and I grimace in pain. "Let go of me Peter!" I try one more time to pull away from him.
His grip tightens and I try to stomp on his foot. He moves out of my way and I hit the ground instead. I feel pain radiating up my foot from the stomp on the ground. I use my other hand to try to hit him in the nose and he grabs my arm and starts to drag me to his car. I scream, "Fire!" as loud as I can fighting him all the way. We get to his car and I put my foot on the back of his trunk to hold myself back with some leverage.
He comes around behind me and wraps his arms around me so I am completely trapped against him. He moves me back from the car and wraps one of his legs around mine, using his weight to move my leg off of the trunk of the car. I scream, "Fire!" again as loud as I can as he moves me to the back door of his car. I feel his hot breath on the back of my head and he has to take one of his arms from around me to get his keys out of his pocket. I lean my head forward and ram it back into his mouth as hard as I can.
"Fuck!" He lets me go, putting his hand to his mouth. I sweep my feet behind his and he falls. I immediately stomp his balls before putting my foot on his neck. He starts clawing at my leg and I press it down on his neck harder, while pulling my phone out of my pocket. I press the telephone number for Agent Yard and put it to my ear. "Get your foot off my neck, bitch!" He yells. "Shut up or I'll make you pass out!" I growl pressing my foot into his neck just a little harder.
Agent Yard answers the phone just as my security comes around the corner. "What happened?" she instantly asks. They grab Peter and lift him up, leaning him over the trunk of his car, handcuffing him. I explain to Agent Yard what just happened. "They're just now getting there?" She gathers. "Yep. They just cuffed him and they're taking him to their car right now." I tell her. "I'll meet you at your apartment." She responds. "Okay, see you there." I hang up the phone and look around. They just left me here. They didn't check to see if I was okay or anything.
I walk back over to my car and luckily my keys and purse are still on the ground where I dropped them. I move the basket back into the roundup and get into my car. I sit there for a minute and take a deep breath. I'm glad that I could get him. I think I'll ask about another type of fighting so I can learn another way of self-defense.
I walk inside of my apartment and Agent Yard is sitting on my couch in the living room flipping channels on television. She looks up at me and mutes the television, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Just a little shaken up." I sigh and sit down on the other end of the couch. "Did your security stay and ask you what happened?"
"No. They cuffed him, put him in their car and left." I tell her. "They didn't even make sure that you got to your car okay?" I shake my head. She mumbles something under her breath. "You'll have new security tomorrow." She tells me. I'm going to where they took him and Holmes and I will talk to him. I'll let you know what he says, okay."
"Sure. Thanks again." I say. I watch her as she gets up and walks to the door. She turns around, "You may want to take tomorrow off, you'll probably be sore all over in the morning." I salute her. She laughs and walks out the door.
I make sure the door is locked behind her and run into the shower. I scrub myself hard trying to get the scent of him off of me. I finish my shower and get dressed and realize that I'm scared and I don't want to be alone tonight. I don't want to put anyone out, but I call Melanie anyway and she comes right over with Brock and Shannon in tow.
I open the door and she walks inside hugging me tight. "Are you okay? He didn't do anything to you, did he?" I feel Shannon wrap her arms around my legs, holding me tight. "No, just roughed me up a little bit. I was able to find an opening and take him down." I tell them. "Did you put your foot on his neck?" Brock asks. I look up and he's smiling. "Right after I stomped him in the ba-" I stop because Shannon is in the room with us.
Brock starts laughing, pulling Melanie and Shannon off of me so we can move further into the apartment. "Thank you guys for coming over and being with me tonight. I really didn't want to put you out. After what happened, I really don't want to be alone tonight." I state. "I'm glad you called," Brock says, "She's been wanting to call you all day. Now she can make sure that you are fine. I'm going to take this stuff to the spare room." He walks into the hall carrying their bags.
"Are you sure that you're fine? He didn't hurt you did he?" She quizzes me. I look at Shannon and tell her that we'll talk more later. She nods and we move over to the television. "Oh, I brought some dinner!" She remembers. She hands me a bag that has the enticing smell of fried chicken and fries coming out of it. My eyes roll up in my head as I pull out a fried chicken strip and take a bite out of it. "I forgot that I hadn't eaten, this is so good! Thank you so much!" I sit down on the couch eating like it's the first meal I've had in a week.
"We stopped and got food on the way over. I was hungry." Shannon informs me. "I'm glad you did stop, because I haven't eaten today. Thank you very much." I reveal to her. "What do you want to watch on television?" I ask her as Brock comes back into the living room and sits down. "We normally watch The Mysteries of Laura tonight. Is that coming on?"
I look at the time and it's eight p.m. I turn the channel and it's just coming on. I've never seen this show before, but I've heard of it. I spend the hour absorbed in this show. I hope it's on Netflix so I can watch it from the beginning. When it's over, Melanie tells Shannon, "It's time to go to bed sweetie."
"I want to stay up with Carmen." She argues. "You can sleep in my bed with me, all right?" I bribe. She perks up, "I can do that."
"Go into the bathroom and brush your teeth and put on your pajamas. They're both in the bathroom." Brock says. "Okay." She hops up off the couch from between Melanie and me and walks into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
"Thanks again for coming and staying with me tonight." I thank them again. "No problem. We will be happy to come anytime." Melanie says. "This is like staying at a hotel overnight," Brock adds, "A mini vacation if you will." We laugh and Shannon comes out of the bathroom with her pajamas on and holding her clothes. "What's so funny?"
"I was just telling Carmen that spending the night over her house is like spending the night in a hotel." Brock says. "A really nice one!" she adds. "Time to get you to bed." Melanie advises. "Are you coming with me?" Shannon looks over at me. "I'll be there in a little while. Go to sleep and I'll be there when you wake up in the morning." I promise her. She nods and lets Melanie lead her into my bedroom.
"Why didn't you call Samson?" Brock asks. "I really didn't want to bother any of you, but I know that Melanie would yell at me if I didn't call her first, so I called all of you."
"You know that Samson is going to be mad that you didn't call him first, right?"
"He won't. I can't keep bothering him every time something happens. He has his own life to live. He doesn't need me in the way." I tell him.
"Samson has feelings for you, Carmen. He's very protective of you." Brock reiterates. "Even if he does, he's not ready to act on them and I can't get in the way of that." I tell him. "I need to give him the space he needs and let him figure things out."
He looks at me and Melanie walks into the room. She sits down beside me and says, "What happened?" I tell them everything up until I took Peter down. "They're questioning him now."
Brock starts laughing, "Every time I think about you stomping his balls, I want to cover mine, but I'm loving it because you took another grown man down." We laugh with him and spend the next couple of hours talking and looking at a movie.