14
“I need to talk to you,” Travis says the next morning as I struggle to shift myself into a comfortable sitting position so I can drink my coffee.
I pause, glancing over at him. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
He smiles, but it’s hesitant. “Something went down with Janice, and I had to help her out.”
I blink, confused. “What?”
“Can you just let me get through this before you say anything?” he asks, already picking up on my tone.
I nod, fingers tight around my mug of coffee.
“She’s been seeing someone. It’s only new, a couple weeks maybe. His name is Eric. He got real weird, real fast. Obsessed. She tried to end it last night.” He looks at me and hesitates for a second before going on. “He hit her, Vi. A couple hours after she told him it was over.”
I drag my teeth over my bottom lip. I feel my pulse thudding in my neck. “Why did she come to you?”
He shrugs. “I’m the only person she trusts, I guess. She doesn’t have any family in town. She knew I’d help.”
My mind flips through every way you can interpret that. I try to keep my voice neutral. “So. What’d you do for her?”
He shrugs. “Put her in one of my rental apartments, it’s empty currently. Cleaned her up. She crashed on my couch, then I drove her over there this morning before I came here. I figured she’d be safer if he didn’t know where to find her.”
I set my coffee down a little too hard, and some sloshes over the side. I know I shouldn’t be angry, it is incredible he is helpingsomeone out, but Janice...I don’t trust her. She is borderline obsessed with him, and I don’t like how she is playing her hand.
“Why didn’t she just call the cops?”
“No idea, I guess she was scared they wouldn’t protect her.”
I exhale, trying to keep an open mind. “You should have called anyway, Travis.”
He crosses his arms. “Yeah, I should have, but I was just trying to help a friend.”
“She isn’t your friend, though. You have made that clear to her, but you open your door and let her in. She is an employee, yes, but if you were genuinely concerned you would have called the police. Surely you can see what she’s doing?”
“If it were a tactic to get me back, Violet, I doubt she would have allowed some man to beat her up.”
“I never said that,” I snap, getting frustrated. “But she has other people she could turn to, and she chose you. She is obsessed with you and has been trying to get you back.”
He stiffens. “That’s what you think this is?”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I’m not a fucking idiot,” he grates out. “I know what she is like, but I wasn’t going to turn her away.”
“I never asked you to, but putting her in one of your apartments is a big leap from helping...”
He shakes his head. “I’m not going to stop helping people just because it makes you nervous.”
“It isn’t about me,” I snap, then exhale, the pain in my shoulder a little too strong. “I don't want to do this right now. I need to rest.”
“Violet,” he steps closer, “Not everything is me somehow finding a way to hurt you.”
“I never said it was,” I whisper. “I just don’t trust her.”
“She means nothing to me. You’re the only thing I care about.”
“She meant something to you once,” I murmur. “And she knows it.”