Chapter 43 Closer to You

“Anna, what’s going on?”
“I was just thinking about my childhood.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry honey. You know I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I knew it would make you sad.
“I know, It was almost like I was back there again for a minute. Weird right?”
“Not at all, it seems like we can’t get a break lately.”
“You? I thought you were never stressed?.”
“Hey, I’ll have you know that the night of our anniversary party was one of the most stressful nights of my life.”
“Really and why is that?”
“Seriously Anna, I almost lost you that night. I have a strange feeling that if I’d not managed to explain that night that I might not have seen you again.”
Anna felt a sick trickle of fear as she realized just how close John was to being right.
“You wouldn’t have let me run away, you like to save people, even from themselves.”
“Anna.,” John said softly as he reached for her hand and they both remembered the night that changed everything.
***
“Anna opens the window,” John hissed as he knocked on the pane.
The window slid open and Anna’s head stuck out. “What are you doing here? You are going to get me in trouble.”
John climbed over the window sill and breathed heavily “man I’m just out of shape.” He wheezed.
“John, why are you here?” Anna whispered again.
John’s eyes met hers in the semidarkness, “You weren’t at school and I was worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” Anna said as she rubbed her arms in the cool air. John couldn’t help notice the action..
“You’re not, I can see it.”
“There is nothing to see, I have to get to work early tomorrow, I need to get to bed.”
“Anna, let me help you.” John whispered back as he closed the space between them and put his hands on her arms, “you never miss school unless something happened. I was scared out of my mind all day.”

Anna pulled away with a gasp of pain. He jerked up her shirt sleeves and revealed the bruises and cigarette burns.
“Anna…”
“Just go please.”
“I’m not going to stand by and let your uncle abuse you.”
Just then the door slammed open and a bulky man filled the doorway. Her uncle Mark was tall and thick, with bad breath and a mean fist. He tended to take out his frustrations on others, Anna just happened to be his favorite target.
“Well what do we have here?” He asked in a drunken slur. “A late-night booty call, don’t a rich boy like you have someone better to do?
“Shut up,” John said with a hiss as he stepped toward Mark.
“Boy, you don’t talk to me that way in my own home.” As he pushed the door open and it slammed against the wall, cracking the cheap drywall. He clamped his hand down on Anna’s arm and squeezed as hard as he could right on the burns.
“Please stop, you’re hurting me.”
John didn’t waste any time, he pulled back and slugged her uncle in the jaw. Her uncle’s head snapped back and he staggered away. “You little pri ^%.! I ought to kill you.”
“Come on, I’ve been looking for a reason to beat your a&* since middle school.” John panted.
The two slammed together. They crashed against the wall and cracked more drywall. Anna saw her aunt standing in the doorway with a vacant look in her eyes. The only time she did anything was when she was hitting Anna herself. Mark got John around the neck and squeezed. John gasped and tried to unlock her uncle’s meaty hands but wasn’t succeeding.
“Get off him,” Anna said in a harsh scream as she jumped on Mark’s back. Anna’s hand connected with his temple and he screamed as he reached behind himself and wrapped his hand in her hair pulling hard.’
“You stupid Bi%%h! you could have killed me!” Mark roared as he pulled hard and slammed her against the wall. Anna slumped down and John growled and jumped on top of him. His head slammed into the floor until he lay still. John ran to Anna’s side and picked her up in his arms.
“Anna are you arlright?” He asked checking her head where it was bleeding.
“I think I’m okay, are you alright?”
“Yes, I’m alright.”
“Get out of my house,” Anna’s aunt Cam said in a cold tone as she stood watching it all before going over and checking to see if Mark was breathing. “I can’t have the police called again. Leave now and don’t come back.”
“Aunt Cam, how could you side with him? He hurt me.”
Cam’s eyes closed and then opened, a cold bright blue just like those she had shared with Anna’s mother. There was no love for her in those eyes. “Just get out.”
Anna and John had stumbled away and jumped in his car. They rushed to the only place Anna felt safe, Jo and Sid’s house.
***
“I could have died that night you know.” Anna said softly as she came back to the present, “but thanks to you my life has been totally different.
“You’ve paid me back a hundred times over.”
“How so?”
“By making my life and lots of other people’s lives better with the good you do. I’m so sorry I brought it up.”
“It’s okay, I realize that I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it weren’t for those experiences. We might not have been together.”
“I think we always would have found each other.” John said as he kissed her softly “No matter what anyone does we always come back to each other and nothing is ever going to change that.”
Images of the video of Isabel and Erin and flashes of his mother and May’s treatment flashed in her head. She had a bad feeling that the worst was yet to come.