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Previous: 09 When Trust Breaks A Samantha Leary Short Story
By J.E. Nickerson
Sleep pressed against Samantha thick and heavy, holding her in warmth. Beside her, the slow rise and fall of Steven’s breathing filled the room. The faint buzz of something beyond her dreams pulled Samantha from the warmth of dreams.
Through half-lidded eyes she saw the display of her phone.
Greg Dickson.
Her mind started then reached for familiar surroundings. The faint sound of the fan above them. The steady sound of Steven. The feel of his arms around her. Then the phone buzzed again.
Her eyes narrowed. Gaze focusing. She reached for it. Blankets twisted around her arms, dragging, clinging. Her head felt thick, heavy. The world slammed in—light from the window across the room, sounds of the city beyond. The cold air pricking her bare arms as Steven shifted beside her.
Steven stirred, groaning, rolling toward her instinctively. “What…?” His voice was rough, half-sleep, eyes squinting at the bright hallway light.
Samantha rolled away from him. Fingers reaching for the phone. Barely holding onto it as she pressed it to her ear.
“Hello?” Her voice came out rough, slow, heavy with sleep.
“Samantha. We’ve got an assault. Apartment 4B, Cleary Complex” Greg said, clipped, urgent. “Woman says she’s been raped. I need you there now to steady her. I know it’s late…”
Samantha blinked, trying to focus. The words landed in her mind like stones. Each one sending ripples through the stillness around her.
Rape.
Assault.
Words that tugged at her. Pulling her from the safety the apartment offered.
She breathed a sigh and cursed. “Alright… I’ll… I’ll be there…” Her words stumbled. Her mind unable to focus. To wake, to pull together meaning from the chaos.
“I really need you here.” The urgency in Greg’s voice pulled at her more than the need to sleep or the desire to stay with Steven.
Her stomach twisted. The knowledge that a woman’s life had been violated and what that carried hit her like a wave. She felt her chest tighten as her eyes stared at a shadow under the bedroom door. “I… okay… yeah…okay.” She slurred, fumbling with the blankets, feeling them wrap around her like arms, holding her in place. She hung up and slid the phone back onto the night stand. Every movement was clumsy, weighted, disconnected from thought.
She slowly got up. Changing into the pants and top she had worn for the third time that week. Her hair hung in clumps in her face. She ran her fingers through it. Then a comb. Habit. Her face held lines that hadn’t been there five years ago. The weight of interviews she had given and articles written about the impact of assault on a person’s self worth and perception filled her mind. Her mind drifted to the cabin Trace and his father had. How close she had come to being like the women who had to carry that kind of violation. The scars on her arms from where Trace had cut her with the knife, were fading. Slowly. But the memory was still fresh in her mind after all these years.
She grabbed her keys then shrugged on her jacket. Her body dragged itself upright, legs stiff, mind still wrapped in the fog of sleep. She barely registered Steven stirring in the bed. He stood and moved to her. Wrapping his arms around her from behind. For a moment, she let him hold her. The familiar warmth anchoring her. A reminder of what she was leaving behind.
“Be safe.” He said. More like a plea instead of an order.
She let him hold her. Feeling her body struggling to embrace wakefulness. He let go after a moment and returned to bed. She wanted to stay. To forget that the situation she was about to step into, happened. But Samantha owed Greg her presence. Whomever this woman was needed her. She needed someone to witness. To understand. To document the survival.
She stepped outside the bedroom. Moving slowly through the apartment. It’s warmth felt alien as the weight of what awaited her settled in her chest. She moved forward, half-conscious, messy, caught between lingering sleep and urgent wakefulness. Greg’s words repeated in her head in fragments: Apartment… incident… need…
She didn’t know what she would find. Didn’t know what waited. Only that she had to get there. Step by step, groggy and chaotic, pulled into the night before her mind fully caught up.
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