Sunrise on Sunday morning found me on the pool deck watching the sky change colors over the white landscape. I had determined that I wasn’t going to back out of Remake. There were only three days until the final show, and I would finish what I’d started. But I would question Don first and make sure all the voting results hadn’t been tainted by the ‘owner’ trying to keep me on the show.
I hadn’t slept at all last night, but I needed some rest before Ryan showed after church. I knew it would be just the two of us; he wouldn’t bring Candace. I grabbed the most recent tee-shirt that he’d given me and crawled into the bed, willing my aching heart to sleep.
I woke to a strange noise just before twelve. It sounded as if someone was in the house, but it was too early for Ryan to show up unless he skipped out on the worship service. I got up and glanced in the mirror. I still had dark circles under my eyes from crying so much last night.
“Ryan?” I called out as I emerged into the living room.
“He’s not here,” came a male voice from my kitchen area.
I screamed before I could stifle it as I turned and saw Micah standing inside my house. “Wha-what are you doing in here?”
“I came to see you,” he stated as if I should have expected him.
This wasn’t good. Ryan would be showing up in the next fifteen to twenty minutes and I could clearly see by his unzipped jacket that he was armed. I would have to be strong and I would have to get rid of him in a hurry. I couldn’t show any weakness and I couldn’t fall as easily as I did when I ended up in his arms last night.
“You need to leave,” I was trying to be firm, but not panicked.
“Why? Last night you were ready for me to take you and now you want me to go away?”
I studied his eyes. I could tell the level of danger by watching those green barometers. He was on an edge; anger was in place of the deadly emptiness that I feared more than anything.
“Please, leave Micah. We settled this last night.”
He began moving toward me as I backed slowly.
“Nothing was settled last night, Leese. You wanted me, you needed me, and then you ran away. All I want is to know why? Why Ryan? I don’t believe you love him.”
“Don’t doubt that, Micah. I do love him.”
“More than me?”
I could feel the stab to my heart, “I’m here.”
I couldn’t back anymore as I had reached the couch and was ready to turn and move around it when he swiftly reached out and grabbed my arm.
“Don’t keep walking away from me.”
I could smell his breath and I knew he’d been drinking. He wasn’t drunk, but he was definitely not in his right mind. I had never seen Micah in this state, and fear was spiking inside me as I desperately tried to remain calm. “Please,” I re-asked. “Please don’t do this-I need you to leave.”
“Will he be home soon, Leese? What did he do? Did he go out to get you something to eat? Did you get your thrills with him last night?” He was so close to going over the edge, it was almost visible.
“Out! I want you out now,” I demanded with a shaky voice.
He grabbed my upper arms so hard that I could feel the bruising as he jerked me to his chest, covering my mouth with his. I could taste the alcohol; I could taste the hate and the need he had to kill someone. I pushed hard against his chest, breaking the kiss and slapping his cheek. It was as if I had placed the blade to my chest just as in my nightmare. To hurt him, was to kill myself.
I could see my reaction stunned him and then he seemed to unravel with fury as the back of his hand hit me hard in the face and I flew backward onto the coffee table sending the items on the table scattering. I rolled off the table to the floor and covered my cheek with my hand. It had been a powerful hit and it stung horribly. I could taste the blood in my mouth.
I was rising from the floor when I looked back into his eyes. I couldn’t tell who he was. He had given into the animal part of himself and he didn’t care that I had just been knocked across the room.
“Tell me why you left me,” he growled, snatching me by the wrist with a steel grip.
I tried to twist out of the weakest part of his hold, but at the moment there were no weaknesses. Again he was trying to kiss me, but his mouth was so hard and unyielding that I could feel my lips being cut by my teeth as he slammed into me.
“Stop it, Micah, please,” I begged as I pushed away from him.
“Why? Don’t you like this, baby,” he said mocking me. “Is that it, Leese? Is he better in bed than I am?” He was grabbing at my body roughly as I struggled with him. “Maybe you just need a refresher?” He grabbed the front of my blouse and quickly ripped it open. I could hear my buttons skittering across the floor.
I was crying out for him to stop, but I could tell he wasn’t hearing my pleas as he pushed me violently back onto the couch. I was no longer dealing with Micah; I was dealing with pure rage. I was shocked that he was actually undoing his jeans as I rolled from the couch and scrambled on all fours to try to get away. He grabbed me brutally by my calves and jerked me back.
“No!” I screamed at him as he flipped me onto my back. I was kicking and sliding backwards as he continued to grab at me as if I was nothing more than a piece of meat. He was bruising my thighs as he pulled me to him. He lowered himself toward me and I took the only opening I had to punch toward his face. I was aiming for his nose, hoping to stun him enough that I could get out before his weight came down on me, but he was too skilled of a fighter as he turned his face and I hit his rock-hard jaw. His hand came around my throat and tightened so hard I thought he would crush my windpipe. He slapped my face twice, open handed, but shockingly hard.
I was passing out. I couldn’t breathe. His hand moved just before I lost consciousness. I gasped and sputtered for air. Then he was on me, his weight crushing my already air deprived lungs. He was tearing the last of my clothes and under garments, my body screaming in pain as the elastic on my bra cut into my skin. Then he was biting me, not the way he used to when he would make love to me, but literally sinking his teeth into skin. I was crying and pleading for him to stop. I was saying his name over and over, hoping it would shake him out of his inhuman state before he did the unthinkable.
It was too late. I screamed out in pain as his body tore into mine. I wasn’t prepared for his entrance and even if I had been, his aim was skewed and my body seemed to split under the punching drive of his hips. His massive hands were gripping my shoulders too hard and it felt as if he had bruised every inch of my body has he raped me on the floor.
I was convulsing with sobs, as the violence slowed. The rage was releasing its hold over him and he began to call out my name. He was becoming controlled as he found his rhythm inside me. “Leese, Leese, I’m sorry,” he cried, tears now coursing down his face as he continued to bring himself back to the human side. “I love you, baby-I’m so sorry-I need you so badly-please, please don’t cry.” He lifted slightly as he looked into my bloody, shocked face. His mouth came down again, but this time softly, kissing my eyes and my cheeks, my chin and my mouth.
My body was starting to respond to what was now turning gentle. I didn’t want to let my physical side win this battle, because that was what it had been, but the needs I’d had stored away for so long were now being brought to life.
His mouth was begging me to part my lips and respond. With tears rolling down my cheeks, I accepted the kiss; the taste of my blood mixing with the flavor of the alcohol. His hips were grinding so deliberately and I couldn’t fight the feeling any longer as I cried out and thrust my hips upward to meet his strokes. He cried out at the same moment and we crested together.
I didn’t want to open my eyes and look at him as he observed the damage he’d done to me. “God, Leese, why did it have to be this way?” he said with a stunned, choked sob, “I never meant… I didn’t want to hurt-”
At that moment, I heard the sound of the Javelin and terror flooded me. Micah raised himself, pulling up and refastening his jeans. His human side simply vanished as his eyes went blank; he reached in his jacket and pulled out his pistol.
“No,” I begged, gripping his arm, the gun pointing dangerously toward me, “Don’t hurt him, Micah. I swear if you hurt him then you might as well kill me right now.”
His eyes were still blank as I heard the engine turn off. He looked up and then looked back at me.
I grabbed the barrel and pressed it to my chest. “Go ahead,” I choked, “pull the trigger, Micah, because I won’t live if you hurt him.”
“I-I can’t.”
My finger went into the trigger guard and I was poised to finish this.
“Don’t Leese,” he said pushing the safety back on with his other hand, “He’s not worth it, is he?”
“He’s worth every breath left in my body. Take his life and you’ve ended mine, too.”
I could hear as the key was turning in the lock. Micah was up and away from me in an instant, the gun still gripped in his hand. The scream strangled in my throat as Ryan opened the door and Micah jerked him inside and slammed him against the wall so hard I thought he would knock him out.
Ryan’s eyes blinked a couple times, not really understanding what had just happened. The gun went against his head as Micah spewed out the two most bitter words I’d ever heard in my life.
“Your turn,” he growled, then slammed his shoulder into Ryan’s chest, knocking the air out of him and then letting him fall to the floor. Micah was out the door. A car cranked and I heard it screech away from the house.
“Leese?” he coughed and gasped out my name.
I was so relieved that Micah hadn’t killed him that I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move from where I’d been drilled to the floor; my body beginning to cramp and burn and ache.
Ryan rose, shaking his head as if he was trying to bring his brain back to life. He looked toward the couch and he saw me. I think he thought at the moment I was dead, because the look on his face was horror struck. He rushed to my side as the ability to sob returned to me. I didn’t want him to see me stripped down naked, but there was nothing left of my clothes to cover me.
“Oh, God, baby girl, oh, God-what the hell did he do to you?” he said reaching under me as gently as possible and picking me up from the floor. He carried me to the bedroom, tears pouring down his face as he laid me down and used the corner of the sheet to cover my body.
“That son-of-a-bitch is going to jail,” he snarled, grabbing his cell and flipping it open.
“No,” I choked, reaching out and stopping him, “No cops-please, I don’t want anyone to know,”
“You’ve… God, Leese, you’ve got to go to the hospital. You’re bleeding, baby girl, pretty bad. I-I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll be okay-I just need-”
“Leese, I’m freaking out here-I don’t know what to do to help you.”
“I-I-need to wash off and get some clothes. Can you help me to the bathroom?” I pleaded, the pain growing stronger and I was starting to double over.
He removed the sheet and reached underneath me as I wrapped my arms feebly around his neck. He lowered me into the tub and turned on the warm water, allowing the tub to fill as he used a washcloth to clean my face and neck. He was crying his eyes out as he washed each cut, bruise, and bite mark. He worked lower, but I took the washcloth away from his trembling hand and I washed my most private area. It stung so badly to clean the tear. He drained the pink water and helped me stand as he wrapped me in a towel and carried me back to the bed, placing me on the opposite side to avoid the stained sheets and then went to the dresser.
He returned with a button up the front top and a pair of underwear.
“I need a-a pad. Would you get me one from under the bathroom sink?”
He returned and helped me swing my legs over the side of the bed as I slipped on the underwear and placed the pad inside and pulled them up. He took the bloody sheet away and came back with a fresh blanket and covered me up, crawling in behind me and trying to find a way to hold me that wouldn’t cause me any further pain.
“You can’t let him just get away with this,” he whispered, smoothing my hair away from my temple. “You’ve got to turn him in.”
“No-I know you won’t understand this, but something was wrong. He wasn’t himself.”
“Leese, I think you’re wrong-I think you just met the real Micah.”
“No,” I sobbed, refusing to believe him. “I know him well enough, he didn’t intend for this to happen.”
“Don’t say another word. Don’t cover for what he did. I want to kill him bad enough at the moment; we’ve got to stop talking about him.”
He held me for a while and I began to drift. When I woke up, I was alone and I heard voices. All I could hope and pray was that he hadn’t called the police.
“Ryan?” I called out.
He entered the room with Candace, “I had to have someone, Leese. I can’t handle this.”
Candace sat gently on the edge of the bed and by the expression on her face I must have looked pretty bad.
She pulled back the covers to see the rest of me and I could see her flinch. “He’s got to go to jail,” she stated matter-of-factly.
I touched her hand as I shook my head, no.
“Leese, this was worse than a beating, he-he raped you.”
“No,” I whispered. “No one except the three of us is going to know anything about this-I couldn’t take it if this got to the press. My mom…” I choked up, but stopped before the tears spilt over my lashes.
“We can’t leave you here like this.”
“I’m staying,” Ryan stated with a hard edge. “I won’t be coming home until she’s-”
“Bring her to our house,” Candace said gently. “You said the crazy son-of-a-bitch pulled a gun on you, and I don’t want the two of you here and have him show back up.”
“No!” Ryan snapped back at her. “I don’t want to take a chance of him showing up with you around. I want you to go stay at your dad’s for a few-”
“No, Ryan, I-”
“Please, Candace. This is bad enough. I couldn’t take it if something happened to you, too.”
I could see his concern for her safety washed over her like a wave of love, and then the tough exterior peeled away and she began to cry, “I don’t want anything to happen to you either.”
He dried her tears and held her close, “Don’t worry, please. I’ll turn on the alarm and I’ll call the police if I even suspect that he’s around. Stay at your dad’s-for me-Candace, please.”
She finally left and he went around and locked every door and window, set the alarm and crawled in beside me. I had drawn my knees up which made it difficult for him to hold me the way he normally did, so he let his hand rest on my shoulder as I fell back asleep.
The next day the cramping was worse and I was still incredibly sore. My body looked hideous like I’d been tossed over a mountainside and had rolled all the way to the bottom. Ryan tried to get me to eat, but I honestly didn’t want anything. By noon he said he was going to go get me something for the pain, but he would be back as quickly as possible. Within thirty minutes, he sat beside the bed with a glass of dark amber liquid.
“Sit up, baby girl,” he was trying to help me up from under the covers.
“No, wait. I don’t have my shirt on,” I said looking for wherever it went. It felt like it was cutting into my bruises last night and I had pulled it off, now all I had was a bra that Candace helped me get on before she left the day before.
“Leese, you were absolutely naked yesterday. I can handle your bra and underwear. Drink some of this.”
I was in so much pain that I was cringing as he propped the pillows behind me. He brought the glass to my face; the strong aroma of alcohol hit me. I pushed his hand away, “No-what is that?”
“Brandy. Drink it.”
“No,” I refused.
“Leese, when I was little I’d get terrible stomach aches and my dad would give me sips of brandy to ease the pain. It always worked. Please, drink it-I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
I knew that as I allowed him to bring it back to my mouth. It was strong, yet had a strange, smooth quality that warmed my throat and stomach immediately. “I can’t drink all of this,” I protested.
“It’s like seven or eight ounces; it’s not that much and it will help.”
He encouraged me to continue as I sipped until nothing remained in the glass. I was warm all over, but not the same as when David doped me with ecstasy. This was a different kind of warm. The cramps seemed to blend away in the heat and my eyelids drooped heavily as I realized I had consumed enough to pass out. The last thing I remembered was moaning softly that I wanted to sleep as he slid me down in the bed.
“I’m sorry,” I heard him whisper as he kissed my forehead, but I was too sleepy to care what he was apologizing for as I drifted away.
I woke eight hours later to the sound of my cell phone going off. “Who is it?” I asked weakly.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Ryan, who is it?”
“It’s Don-at least I think it’s Don unless Micah is using his phone.”
I put out my hand.
“No.”
“Give it to me. He’s calling about Wednesday.”
Reluctantly he handed it to me as I caught it before it had gone to voicemail.
“Leese,” came Don’s panicked voice, “you were supposed to be back in L.A. last night. We’ve got-”
“I can’t-I can’t get back for the special Wednesday. I’ve-”
“Can’t! We’re talking the finale, here! What do you mean can’t?!”
“I was in a-a-car accident,” I began. The line was silent so I continued, “I’m really banged up and I can’t go on stage looking like this. I can barely stand up for that matter.”
“I’m sorry, Leese, I didn’t know. What happened? Was anyone else hurt?”
“No-no-it was a deer in the road,” I lied. “It went right through the windshield. I’ve got cuts and bruises everywhere.”
“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll either get the network to run a Christmas special or Remake reruns. I’ll let you know as soon as I work it out.”
The next day, he was standing at my bedside, “Geez, a deer did this? It looks more like a grizzly. Are those bite marks?” he said looking at my shoulder.
I pulled the blanket up to cover the mark, “No, just lots of glass.”
“Well, you’re lucky it didn’t take your head off. That little Aero must be tougher than it looks.”
“It was a rental car,” I stated quickly. My Aero was in the garage without a scratch on it.
“I just wanted you to know you’ve got two weeks to recoup. The network is doing a Christmas special and then the next week they’re doing a top 100 music count down. I tell you if our show hadn’t been so popular they would have cut our throats for-”
“Don, I‘ve got to know something about Remake. Is there anyway someone could have tampered with the voting results?”
He looked confused and a little upset at the question, “No-we have an independent accounting firm that takes care of the tallies. We aren’t allowed to have anything to do with that part.”
“Good,” I sighed.
“Why? Did you think we were cheating?”
“I just wanted to be sure that I earned my spot and it wasn’t the result of-of ownership.”
“Absolutely not. The owner doesn’t-”
“Micah Gavarreen,” I stated. I could see it shocked him that I knew who owned the show. “He’s my ex-husband and I had no idea-”
“Ah, shit! You’re kidding, right? But, you’re a Winslett.”
“You honestly didn’t know who he was to her?” Ryan asked, butting into the conversation.
“Is that why I didn’t have to audition like the other contestants?”
“He insisted you were going to have a slot, without an audition, but I didn’t know he was… If the press gets wind of this we’re sunk. We can kiss next year goodbye.”
“Well, there are only five people that know and three of us are in this room. The other two are Micah and Ryan’s girlfriend.”
“I thought you were Ryan’s girlfriend.”
“No, that was a ruse. We’re only friends.”
“Good grief, are there any other secrets I should know about, like you’re secretly a man or something?”
I laughed in spite of the pain. It was the only humor I’d felt in days.
“Where is he, by the way?” Ryan asked.
“He’s at the studio. I mean he has spent most of his days and evening in his office, but just in the last two days he’s actually started walking around the studio and meeting the crew.”
“So he is in L.A.?” Ryan continued to press.
“Yeah, he practically lives in studio. Why?”
“Just curious.”
When Don left, I told Ryan to call Candace and go home. Micah wasn’t going to show back up at my house. I was able to move around and I didn’t need him to be my mother-hen. We argued for another hour and he finally relented and called Candace and told her he was coming home.
Christmas Eve and Christmas passed quietly. Ryan and Candace visited for a while both nights, but we had sworn off of gift giving. I tended to go overboard and they said they couldn’t compete, so we skipped it. Mom called and said she and Kimmy would like to come out for Christmas, but I turned her down with the excuse that the show was keeping me busy-even if they did move the finale.
I was healing on the outside slowly, but mentally I was crumbling. The more I considered what he had done, the more I thought about endings, the deeper and darker my mood became. I was refusing Ryan’s assistance at every available opportunity, telling him I was sleeping fine and I needed private time to get my life back together. He couldn’t make out the dark circles under my eyes for the bruises that were already in place.
I was like a hermit now. All I wanted was nothingness. I sat in my bed most of the time just weeping and wishing something I’d never wished in my life; I wished I’d never met Micah. I was still in love with him, but what he had called my ‘innocence’ that had drawn him hopelessly to me had been completely destroyed. It was like everyday my soul was being stripped down to reveal a vacant person inside me, and I didn’t like that person.
I kept thinking about the fact that I had been so determined to finish the last show on Remake, but now I was dreading every minute it came closer. Micah would surely show himself this time and I couldn’t face him. I was starting to seriously doubt my sanity as I sat in the bed and discussed my life with myself. I wanted to fall in to a deep chasm where none of this existed and I could find some peace. I had made it to the one week mark; one week since I had been brutalized by someone I had sacrificed my hopes, my dreams, and my life for.
I cried out to God and asked Him why? I had tried my whole life to honor Him and to do what was right in His eyes. How could He have allowed it to come to this point? I’d always believed in Divine purpose, but now it felt as if that hope had also been stripped away from me. I sat there weeping and yearning for the rest that wouldn’t come.
I’d been awake for almost forty-eight hours since my last brief attempt at sleep and I knew if I didn’t sleep soon, my sanity wouldn’t matter because it would be gone. I dug in the medicine cabinet for my Unisom; the box was empty. Ryan’s tee-shirt didn’t comfort me anymore, and I was starting to think about jumping into my ice cold pool and just letting myself sink to the bottom, but it wasn’t the way I wanted to leave the world.
I was leaning back on my pillows when I remembered what I had tucked away inside my nightstand. There was something that could transport me to the void I was yearning to find. I pulled out the unlabeled bottle and opened it, pouring the blue capsules into my hand. One capsule and I would sleep for a day. Two capsules and I’d sleep for perhaps two days. Three capsules and I’d most likely sleep forever.
“Hey,” came a voice from my doorway. It frightened me so badly that I spilt the pills onto my bed.
I looked up to see Ryan standing there with a puzzled expression, “I didn’t mean to scare you-I thought you heard me come in. I called out your name, but…” He looked at my face and then he looked at the capsules on the bed. “What are you doing?” he asked with clear suspicion.
I began gathering them up as he approached me. “Nothing, I was just going to take something to help me sleep,” I breathed out unsteadily.
“What are these?” he asked as he picked one up and studied it. He took the bottle from my hand, “Where did you get these? There’s no label on the bottle.”
“I-a guy from-I… I don’t have to explain everything to you,” I snapped.
“Who gave these to you-and don’t duck the question.”
“A stage hand from Remake; he said they’d help me sleep.”
“Have you been taking these?” A look of deep concern crossed his face, “Answer me, Annalisa.”
He rarely used my full name.
“I-I-took one a couple months ago and then he sold me this bottle.”
“Were you able to sleep?” his questions were becoming gentle, but he was still very suspicious as to why I had them out now.
“Yeah,” I choked, “twenty-five hours worth.”
The eyes went huge and round. “What did you pay for these?” he asked as he removed them from my hand. “Answer me, damn it! What did this cost you?”
“Fiv-five hundred dollars,” I whispered.
“Shit! Leese, you bought dope! What is wrong with you?!”
“They’re not dope. They’re stamped,” I argued, trying to take one from him to point out the lettering. “They’re prescription. I just didn’t-didn’t go to a doctor.”
“You bought drugs. Don’t try to cover that up. I can’t believe you even took one of these. What if he knew you’d be knocked out and planned to break into your room? Did you ever think about that? And what were you planning to do with a handful?” Suddenly his face went two shades lighter, “No, don’t you even think about doing something stupid like that, baby girl-just how many were you going to take-enough to let me find you dead in here today?!”
“No,” I sobbed.
He sat down on the bed placing the capsules back in the bottle and took firm hold of my shoulders. I wouldn’t look at him as the tears fell down my cheeks. I felt his hand reach under my chin and tip my head back, “Tell me the God’s honest truth, were you thinking about taking more than one of these?”
I couldn’t answer. Yes, the thought was going through my mind, but he stopped me before I had a chance to make the decision.
His eyes welled with tears, “So that’s it then. You were planning a Marilyn Monroe on me! Damn it, Leese,” he yelled as he picked up the bottle and slammed it against the wall. The cap stayed in place as the bottle bounced to the middle of the floor. He ran his fingers into his hair as he grabbed a double-fistful, pacing a small circle on the floor. “Why?! Over him?” he shouted at me. “What about me? What about your mom and your sister and everyone that loves you? All right fine,” he said, picking up the bottle and opening it. “You want to do this then let’s do it together! Okay, how’s that?” He put a small pile of capsules in my hand as he held the others. “I changed my whole life for you. Why not change the ending, too.” And then he tossed the capsules into his mouth.
“NO! RYAN, NO! Please, please. God, please, spit them out!” My pills scattered to the floor as I lunged for him. He refused to open his mouth. “Please, baby,” I cried out. “I’ll do anything you want-anything. Just don’t do this, please.”
He opened his mouth letting the capsules spill out into his palm, “You’re going to take every one of these to the toilet and flush them down. You will never buy drugs again.”
I was nodding my head furiously, “Yes, okay,” I agreed as I pulled the wet mass from his palm. My hands were shaking uncontrollably as I dropped to the floor sobbing, trying to find all the ones that had scattered.
Then he was on the floor with me, holding me in his arms as I cried, “I love you, Leese-don’t ever do anything like this again.” He kissed me, it seemed every available place; temple, forehead, eyes, nose, ear, throat and then softly on the lips. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. You’ve got a piece of me and I’m never going to get it back. You’ve got to take care of it. Do you understand?” He kissed my lips again, slower this time, but he wasn’t seeking something sexual. This was sweet emotion from an exposed heart, “I’ll be your sleeping pill for as long as you need me. I knew I shouldn’t have believed you when you said you were okay. That crap about wanting to be alone isn’t going to fly with me anymore.”
He finished gathering the pills, “How many were there?” He was going to make sure nothing was left.
“Twenty, I think-yeah, I’m pretty sure it was twenty.”
He counted them and then placed them in my hand, “You’re flushing them, I’m watching.”
I was trembling so hard, I could barely hit the opening in the toilet.
“Have you been eating?” he asked as he tried to keep me from shaking.
I shook my head no.
“I’m making you something to eat. Then I’m calling Candace and you and I are going to bed.” He left no room for rebuttal.
A little while later, safe in his arms, I went gratefully into oblivion.