Twelve Days The Beginning

Chapter Thirteen

She watched the range of emotions playing across Vaughn’s face as her words sank in.

Dimly, she was aware of activity in the background; the University crowd packing up and leaving, the clinking of cups being cleared away, merry chatter coming from the kitchen and she found herself focusing on the cheerful decorations adorning the interior of the restaurant.

Christmas. In all the recent events she had almost forgotten that they were in the midst of the time of frivolity and cheer, goodwill to all men and so on. Goodwill – when on earth had she ever been the recipient of goodwill?

Christmas with Dale was always the same; there would be the usual bottle of perfume, wrapped haphazardly with last year’s paper, the television blaring achingly dull re-runs all day long and a growing mountain of empty bottles.

One year, she had decided to invite her parents over for Christmas Day, thinking that they could do the whole traditional shebang. She had bought a turkey and all the trimmings and had spent ages cooped up with Delia’s finest trying to work out how to cook everything to perfection.

The day had started out well; Dale was sober and on good form. The meal had been OK, not a roaring success but edible at least, and all had been going swimmingly – until her Dad had suggested a round of poker.

Not being a particularly good card player, she had opted to sit it out but watched from the sidelines, as her parents took on Dale in the traditional battle of poker face and wills. At first Dale was winning and although they were only betting small amounts, he was beginning to clean her parents out. Just as he was about to finish them off though his luck changed, and, before long, he had lost all of his money. Never one to be a good loser, he started calling both her parents cheats before slamming out of the room and then out of the front door. He hadn’t returned for several hours by which time he was well and truly drunk.

Her parents had left shortly after Dale, both trying hard to hide their concern for their daughter’s wellbeing. In the end, her Dad had opted for patting her on the shoulder and telling her that there was always a home for her with them. She had smiled weakly, reassuring them that all was fine and that Dale was just highly strung sometimes.

Since that day her parents had never been back to her house and Dale had restricted her visits, only allowing her to go to them once a month. The whole thing was ridiculous and, to start with, she had argued with him – telling him that he had absolutely no right to tell her when she could see her own parents. Dale did not see his parents, and failed to see why she needed to have contact with hers.

After she had defied him and managed to fit in three visits one month, he had taken her up to their room and proceeded to force himself upon her in a way that only a man can – that had been the very first time that he had raped her.



Unfortunately that day had been just the beginning and since then he had used his physical strength to overcome her on a regular basis, teaching her ‘lessons’ until she started to behave in a way that he saw fit. It was becoming increasingly difficult to please him as time went on; the rules changed on a daily basis and as a result, she became more a product of Dale than of herself. He had broken her spirit over the years, changed part of who she was and now she was just too tired to fight.

A plate smashing in the background snapped her out of her reverie and she almost flinched as the full force of Vaughn’s angry glare connected with hers.

“Five years, Elise!” he nearly bellowed, “Five f*cking years! Jesus Christ!”

He took a moment to steady himself; no doubt becoming aware that they were still in a public place and whilst deserted, there were still plenty of ears around, taking in every word.

“Five years....” he said again, more calmly than before, “five bloody years....”

Elise sat silently; there was really nothing she could say. Vaughn was still staring at her, almost as if looking at her for the first time. She could see the cogs whirring but she had no idea what he was thinking. Did he despise her now that he knew the truth....think that she was weak? Maybe she was weak, but who was he or anyone else to judge? It was her life and until anyone else lived it exactly as she did, they were in no position to comment on her decisions.

“Why, Elise?” he asked softly, “Why would you put up with that for five years? God help me but I really don’t understand.” His gaze was imploring, calm now and she felt compelled to offer some kind of explanation.

“It hasn’t always been bad.” she said. Now was not the time to go into all of the sordid details but she didn’t want Vaughn to think that she had been a complete pushover all of the time.

“We met at University and at the start it was brilliant - everything I had ever wanted. Dale had a career lined up here and I was more than happy to take on a supporting role. A few years into our marriage, things ....changed.” She hesitated “And since then, Dale has struggled with some aspects of our life. Unfortunately when he drinks, he can take it out on me.”

She said the last sentence really quietly – it was so hard talking about this stuff, particularly with someone who was a virtual stranger and she felt ashamed to admit to what her life had become.

Vaughn was still silent; considering, weighing things up and for a moment she saw the shadow of pain cross his features again, as if reliving an unpleasant memory. It was fleeting though and when he turned his eyes onto her again, she saw sympathy in their dark depths.

He reached across the table again and took her hand.

“I am really struggling here, Elise; - I just don’t know what to say. Part of me wants to go to that hospital and beat the shit out of your husband – again – and part of me just wants to wrap you up in cotton wool and shower you with roses to show you how you should really be treated.”

At that Elise burst out laughing surprising both herself and Vaughn.

“What?? What did I say?”

“It was the cotton wool and roses thing, that’s pretty much exactly the same thing that Cole said! What it is about men and cotton wool and roses?”

As if Vaughn had just said the funniest thing on earth, she continued to laugh until she became hysterical and tears were pouring down her cheeks. At first they were tears of laughter but in no time at all they had turned into tears of sorrow and before she knew it, she was sobbing uncontrollably.

In a coffee shop. In the middle of the night. In front of her boss. Crap.

Vaughn obviously realised the moment that the tears changed and jumped out of his seat, going around to her side of the booth and sliding in next to her putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her tightly against him.

She continued to sob into Vaughn’s shirt with endless wracking sobs. She knew she was making a fool of herself but it was like the floodgates had opened and she was powerless to stop it. Clearly opening up to Vaughn, even the few small facts that she had done, must have had some cathartic effect and whilst she had done her fair share of crying in the past, it had never been like this. She felt totally and utterly drained and she had no clue as to how she was ever going to get back to normal again.

Eventually, the sobs began to ease and Elise became aware of the fact that Vaughn’s shirt was completely soaked. He didn’t appear to notice though and kept her tight to his side, rubbing his hand soothingly up and down her arms and her back, letting her cry it all out.

She was vaguely aware of him signalling to the waitress and then a warm flannel was pressed onto her face; soothing her, wiping away her tears and she found herself unbelievably grateful for the thoughtfulness of the gesture. In the back of her mind she registered that Dale would never do anything like that for her but she pushed the thought away. Now was not the time for negative contemplations, she wanted to enjoy these last few moments with this man until he sent her on her way and moved onto someone with a lot less baggage – the way that she knew he undoubtedly would.

Subconsciously she frowned, and Vaughn lifted her chin up and looked deep into her eyes.

“Hey...” he said soothingly “It’s OK. Look, if it’s OK with you – let’s get out of here.”

Dully, she nodded – this was it, the moment that he took her back to her car and walked out of her life. He would be kind - of course he would - but he would make his feelings clear and insist that their relationship remain purely professional from now on. Not that she could blame him of course, they had only known each other a matter of days but he had already broken up a fight on her account, been shouted at by her and now she had soaked his shirt with endless pent-up tears. She didn’t know any man that would put up with that type of behaviour - let alone someone as striking and wealthy as this man. He didn’t need her crap in his life and she had no doubt that her little performance just now had cemented that fact for him.

She dropped her head as they left the coffee shop, unwilling to meet his eyes. Even though she was certain she would see sympathy, that wasn’t what she wanted to see from him. Cole gave her sympathy; he gave her enough sympathy to last a lifetime and for that she was endlessly grateful. That was his role in her life – not necessarily the role that either of them would have chosen, but nonetheless the role that he had taken on.

This man, this huge powerful man beside her – she didn’t know what she wanted from him but she knew that it wasn’t sympathy. Indeed, she had no right wanting anything from him when she knew she could never give him anything back. But she knew with absolute certainty that she definitely didn’t want him to leave her life just yet. Absolutely not.