“I’m here, babe. I’m right here.” Avery hugged me close and petted my hair. She just stayed in place while I cried. “It’s okay. I’m here.” Avery’s hand slunk into my pocket, and while I didn’t look up to see what she was doing, a few seconds later, I heard. “Yeah, hey. It’s Avery. If I send you an address, can you come get Cherri?”
14
Deon
Cherri dropped her keys in my hands before pulling her seatbelt on. She still had puffy red eyes and was sniffling. I shut the door and then walked over to where Avery was standing. I handed Cherri’s keys to her and took a deep breath to keep from losing my cool.
“What did he do to her?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“Deon, look. I am not one to defend Nathan, but he has never—”
“What,” I cut her off, “did he do?”
“He grabbed her face and arm. Pretty forcefully,” Avery said. “It was terrifying.”
I turned around and started toward the outlet mall to find Nathan, but a hand grabbed my arm. I was expecting it to be Avery, but when I whipped my head around, Cherri was holding onto me.
“Can we just get out of here?” she asked with a shake to her voice, and my heart broke. I never wanted to see that look on her face. “Please?”
“Okay,” I replied, tapping her hand on my arm. “We can leave.”
Cherri turned to face Avery, but Avery held up a hand. “Go. Ali’s meeting me at your house. I’ll drop your car and give your mom your bags. It’s fine.”
“Thanks,” Cherri replied, then she looked at me briefly before turning around and heading back to my car to climb back in.
I gave Avery a quick nod of thanks, made my way around to the driver’s side of the car, and climbed in. For the fact that Cherri normally had a fighter’s energy wafting all around her, she seemed completely deflated. Before I even started the car, I reached over and grabbed her hand. She looked up at me, and I stared directly into her eyes.
“If this ever happens again, just call me. I won’t let him hurt you,” I said.
She nodded. “Thanks. I’ll be okay.”
I didn’t want to press the issue. Instead, I gave Cherri’s hand a gentle squeeze and let it go so that I could drive. There was a spot about forty-five minutes outside of Postings where my mom had brought me to a brunch when I was younger. The excitement of the city could always have someone’s anxiety blazing, but this spot was up in the woods surrounding Postings and looked out over the city. With the sun beginning to set, it cast a beautiful orange glow through the spaces in the trees and was quiet and calm.
I parked the car in one of the few makeshift spots that visitors to the lookout point had made and got out so I could walk around to Cherri’s door and open it for her. Once she was out, I grabbed the couple of blankets I’d snagged on the way out of my house and led her over to the plateau at the top of the point. One blanket I laid out for us to sit on, and the other I slung over her shoulders to keep her warm. We sat down, not too close to each other, but not too far, and I didn’t prod Cherri to tell me what happened. I waited and gave her a chance to calm down.
“He’s never done that before,” Cherri said quietly. “He’s grabbed me a little, I guess, but never forcefully like that. Never so hard that I felt like I couldn’t snatch away if I wanted to. Something is wrong with him.”
“Yeah, something’s wrong with him if he would put his hands on you,” I replied. “There’s a first time for everyone, Cherri.” I had one leg kicked up so that I could rest my arm on my knee and had the other leg outstretched. I pulled at the fraying threads of the sweatpants I was wearing. “Are you planning on leaving him now?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to make him any worse.”
“If it’s a fear thing, I’ll protect you,” I said quickly. “You shouldn’t stay with someone like that.”
“Nathan isn’t abusive. He had this look in his eyes that was just… I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like that.” She was staring off into the distance with this thousand-yard look in her eyes like she was replaying it in her head. “Afterward, he became the most remorseful I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, let a therapist sort that out. It’s not your responsibility to fix an abusive person.”
It wasn’t a rare story. A woman is planning on leaving a guy, knows that she should, and then he gets abusive and backtracks. I should have known better than to get so close to Cherri while at Nathan’s party. That was likely the switch that flipped in him, leading him to hurt Cherri. I would never forgive myself for that.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This is my fault.”
Cherri looked over at me for the first time since we arrived. “How do you figure?”
“I mean, I nearly kissed you at his party. If I hadn’t been there—”
“If anything, that was my fault, but I don’t think that’s what this was. He’s been getting more obsessive since the summer. I don’t really know what happened, but I think whatever triggered him then is the same thing that triggered him now. He’s just a jealous guy.” She must have noticed the look on my face because she looked embarrassed and averted her gaze. “I know I sound like one of those women who make excuses for a bad guy.”
“You do,” I replied. “If he’s hurting you, you should leave him.”
“He won’t do that again. Besides, what I said yesterday hasn’t changed. I’m not really in it
