Water Ch. 244 - No Hail Mary Will Save Me

 

Her pain was almost too much to take. From the physical abuse she had just suffered through, at the hands of her ex Dalton and through the emotional mess that she is now, it's being made worse by her muscle tension and her shivering. 

Looking at the phone on the edge of the table, she knows that she has to call the cops and she knows that she has to call Jon.  Oh my god, why now?  Why me?  Jon will never touch me again.  She sobs and sobs.  Jon never called.

 

Wiping her face on the sleeve of her bathrobe, she picks up the cordless receiver and dials Jon's cell phone number.  It only took 2 rings for him to answer.  As soon as she hears "Hello beautiful." she breaks down and cries uncontrollably.  Jon can hear her cries.

 

"Beth what's wrong?  Babe, what happened?" he asks her with a growing urgency in his voice.  She doesn't answer, all he can hear is that she a mess.  "Beth, talk to me."  He waits for a minute, maybe he can pick something up in the background.  "Babe, you're scaring me.  Please tell me what's going on!"

 

She sniffs and swallows hard, trying to find the courage to tell him what happened.  All she could do was cry harder and mumble, "He raped me." and she cries even harder, to the point that she can't catch her breath and her diaphragm makes her gasp for air. 

 

Jon, on the other end had his heart fall to his knees and his anger was the most intense it has ever been.  "Are you hurt? Is he still there?"  He asks, hoping that he's not keeping her against her will and making her call. 

 

She whimpers, "No."  He feels a smidge better to know that he's not still there.

 

"Babe, I'm on my way.  Did you call the police?"

 

"No." she just keeps crying, reliving it in her mind.  Thinking to herself, there had to be something I could have done

 

He's pacing his office, planning what he's going to do.  "Will you be okay until I get there?  It will be 5 hours at the most?" he wishes he could teleport to her, but the fastest way he was going to get there was to charter a plane - his was laid over on the west coast.

 

She mouses out a "yes" and tries to take a deep breathe.

 

"Are you hurt?  Do  you need an ambulance?" he wonders, praying that he didn't physically hurt her.

 

"No, I don't want anyone to know.   No lights and sirens."

 

"I wish I could get to you faster.  I love you babe.  I'll be there as soon as I can." he tells her, not wanting to break the connection but he needed to make some phone calls to put his plan into action.  He needed to get to her and he needed to get there fast.  "I'm going to get going, call me on my cell phone, okay.  I need to get a plane and mom over here, baby, I'll be right there."

 

A whisper of "Okay" and she hangs up the phone. 

 

Jon puts his plan into action and within 45 minutes he was in the air and on his way to her.  He made a call to his best friend, "Hey, I need a favor."

 

"Richie says, "Name it."

 

"Please go to Beth's and sit with her until I get there.  Please!" Jon begs his best buddy.

 

Richie having no idea what's going on says, "Ok, yeah sure.  What's going on?"

 

Jon breaks down and starts to cry because he's now forced to think about it and talk about it.  Richie can her Jon's heartbreak and asks again, "Jon, what's going on?"  Richie had slipped on shoes, had his wallet in his hand with his car keys, he was out the door.  He was just hoping to know what he was walking into.

 

Jon can hear that Richie was in his car and he says, "Please just go be with her, I'm on my way but I don't want her alone."

 

"What's the matter?  Did she flip out on you again?"  Richie tries to make a little light of the situation, but then starts to feel like an ass.

 

"Dalton raped her.  Please get to her as fast as you can."  Jon begs.

 

"Oh my God.  Is she okay?" he asks

 

"She doesn't need an ambulance and she doesn't want light and sirens in front of her house.  I'll take her to the hospital when I get there and then we'll call the cops." Jon fills him in and hopes that Richie will be there soon.

 

"I'll be there in less than 5 minutes.  Do you want me to call you or anything?" Richie's never been in a situation like this, he has no idea what to do or how to act.

 

Jon, thankful that Richie dropped all that he was doing to go be with her, says "Please just be there for her, I don't want her alone."

 

"Ill see you when you get here." Richie assures his friend that he will take care of her until he can make it.  The call ends.

 

Richie drove to Beth's as fast as he physically could.  Pulling into her driveway, throwing the car in park, he jumps out of the car and runs to the door.  Ringing the door bell, he waits.  Nothing.  He rings it again and bangs on it, "Hey Beth, it's Richie.  Come open the door."

 

The doorbell and the banging terrified Beth.  She was in a trance and didn't hear Richie at first. 

 

"Beth, it's me, come on open the door."  he waits for a few moments.  Banging again, "Beth!!"  He then hears the door unlock.  She turns the knob for the door to open and then she walks away.  Richie walks in, closes the door behind him.  He follows her to the kitchen where she grabs her bottle of wine and takes a gulp.  Richie walks up to her and takes the bottle from her.  She looks up at him and the water works start again.  Richie takes her in his arms and just let's her cry.  She melts into him and feels safe, even if it was only a little safety.

 

Stroking her hair, hesitant to touch her at all, he tells her, "We'll get you through this, babe.  We'll get the fucker and we'll get you through this.  No one does this to one of us and gets away with it."

 

Beth continues to cry and asks, "Is Jon on his way?"

 

"Yeah, when I talked to him he was already in the air."

 

"How did he sound?" she wants to know that he's okay.  As okay as he can be 3000  miles away from her.

 

"He's pretty shaken up, but he's on his way.  He'll be here before you know it."  He holds her and squeezes her tight.  His heart is breaking for her and for his best friend. 

"I don't know what to do."  She says below her breath.  "I'm so scared he's going to come back.  He told me that he would kill me if I told anyone."

"Babe, he's never gonna lay a hand on you ever again.  You're safe now. I'm here until Jon gets here and then we'll figure out where to go from here." Richie tries to comfort her, but in all the craziness that he's had in his life; he's never had to deal with anything this heavy.  "Let's sit down."

He leads her into the living room and sets her on the couch.  Grabbing the throw off the ottoman, he covers her up and tucks her in.  "Can I get you anything?"

She shakes her head no.  Her tears are still rolling down her cheek and she changes her mind, "Could you get me some Tylenol? And a glass of water?"

"Absolutely, where is the Tylenol?"
 

"Medicine chest in my bathroom, right hand side."  Richie takes his leave and goes into her bedroom.  He sees her bed is a mess covered with several spots of blood and he starts to feel anger.  He can almost picture the terror that went on.  In the bathroom he sees the mess that was made when she fell onto the counter and Dalton took her off.  Richie's blood is boiling.  He grabs the Tylenol and a wash cloth, getting it wet with warm water.  He's going to wipe the blood off of her lip and her eye.

In the living room he hands her two Tylenol and a glass of water.  "Thank you.  I can feel the muscle aches getting worse." 

"Here, let me wipe your face a little." Richie reaches up with the wash rag and gently touches her lip. She winces and pulls away.  He tries again, a little more gently and wipes away some dried blood.  
 

"How bad do I look?" She asks, feeling the pain in her lip and face.  Richie says nothing. He tenderly grabs her face and kisses her forehead.

"You're gorgeous, as always!" He then tries to wipe some of the blood off of her eye.  Again, she winces but doesn't pull away.  Richie's heart that's full of gold is starting to run over and he can't help but cry.  A tear rolls down his cheek.

"Do we have to call the cops?" She asks, hoping he can make sense of telling her no. But he doesn't.

"This asshole needs to be caught and thrown in jail.  But we don't need to worry about that right now.  We'll wait for Jon to get here."

She thinks of Jon and her tears start to flow a little harder.  "He's never going to touch me again."  Her heart breaks, she feels dirty now and not worthy of his love.

"Hey, hey - don't talk like that, you know that's not true.  Jon loves you and will always love you."  Richie aches for her and would do anything to take THIS pain away for her.  Realizing the best thing that he can do for her now is be right where he is.

"Thanks for coming over.  I assume Jon called you." she is thankful Richie is there with her.  "I'm sorry if you were in the middle of something, Richie."

"There is no where I would rather be."   He sits next to her on the couch and she leans on him, resting her head on his shoulder.  His arm goes around her neck and he tells her, "I'm here as long as it takes."

Beth sits with Richie in silence.  She can't get the events of the evening out of her head.  She can't figure out what would make Dalton do something so horrific and so out of character.  That makes her question her judgment of him.  When he caught Jon and Beth in Greece together, the only communication that they had with him was the flowers in Jon's room.  While she was on tour with him, he never called her or emailed her - they assumed that he had moved on and was fine.  Beth says out loud, "Boy we were wrong."

"What?" Richie inquires.

"Jon and I thought he had moved on and would never bother us again." she explains to Richie.  "Did Jon tell you about the flowers?"

"Yeah, I thought that was odd, but never thought that he meant anything by it."

"Did you meet him too?"  Beth asks, wondering if he was at the same fundraiser with Jon.

"I did.  I thought he was an ass then, now I'm even more convinced."

Beth can't believe what has just happened to her and what's even more shocking to her is that she was attacked by a man that claimed to love her.  He was her night in shining armor after Jon broke her heart.  "How does one even move on from this?" she asks Richie, not even expecting an answer.

"If anyone can get passed and through this, it's you Beth.  You are a strong women, and with our help you will come out the other side.  I promise you."  She knows that the band and their families will support her and Jon through anything, but she doesn't want anyone to know.

"Richie, no one can know about this.  Please don't tell anyone." She looks up at him.

Winking at her, he tells her, "I will tell no one, you know that.  I'll take it to the grave."  He hugs her tighter.  "No one needs to know about it hon."

"I want to take a shower." she admits.  "I feel dirty, I want him off of me."

"Go take a shower, you're safe now." he tells her with his lips buried in her hair.  "I'm here, I'll stand outside the door if you want me to."

Beth moves to get off the couch and is stating to feel the after effects of being attacked.  Every muscle in her body hurts.  Richie sees her wince and pain and slow her movements, "Do you want something stronger than Tylenol?"

Beth shakes her head  no.  "I think a hot shower will help. Will you sit watch while I shower?"  Richie gets up and helps her to stand.  He drapes the blankets over her shoulders and guides her toward her bedroom.  She stops short of walking through the doorway, "I can't go in there."  And she turns around. 

"Okay." he says, not knowing what else to say.  He follows her to the guest bedroom.  When he figures out what she's doing, he sits on the bed and waits for further instructions or calls for help.  Beth readies the water and takes off her robe.  With the door closed, she looks at herself in the mirror.  He lip is split and swollen, she has dried blood that had run toward her ear at one time and some than ran down her chin.  She sees herself and starts to cry.  She has a black eye and upon further examination of the rest of her body, she can see bruises coming to the surface all over her body.  Her skin is red from the scalding shower that Dalton forced her to take.

She's had enough of looking at her beaten and bruised body, so she climbs into the shower and slides the door closed.  Closing her eyes to get her face and hair wet, she has a flashback from her attack.  "RICHIE!" she screams.

Richie flies into the bathroom, "Yeah?"

"Will you sit in here and talk to me?  When I close my eyes, I see him." she asks, already knowing his answer.

Richie was there to be the shoulder and the helper that she may need during this tragic time, until Jon could get to her.  And rising to the occasion like a best friend does, he tells her, "I'm here till the end babe."  And he sit on the toilet while she showers. 

There wasn't much for small talk, neither wanted to talk about the elephant in the room.  Richie just started to talk, to try to ease her anxiety.  They talked about Ava and what he was doing when Jon called.  Beth thanked him again for coming and told him how thankful she was that she had a friend like him. 

Richie, looking at her through the frosted glass shower door can make out some dark spots on her legs and arms and can see that her skin is a little red.  He can only imagine the terror that she went through and he won't ask her a word about it.   He's there to listen and do whatever she asks. 

"Hey Beth, are you hungry?  Do you want a little something to eat?" he questions, maybe eating would help her feel a little better?  Maybe take her mind off of the night for a little while.

"Maybe something small.  What did you have in mind?" she asks him.  "I could eat some fruit.  I need something in my stomach, I'm taking a Xanax when I get out of here."

"Do you think that's a great idea?"

"What?  The fruit or the Xanax?" she laughs a little.

"The Xanax."

"Can you think of a better one?"

"Nope." he laughs, knowing that she could probably benefit from a Xanax. 

She finishes her shower and Richie hands her a towel.  Wrapping it around herself, she steps out and asks Richie, "Will you go in my room and get me some clothes?"

"What do you want me to get?  And where is it?"

"In the tall dresser, top drawer is my underwear.  Third drawer tall dresser is my tshirts.  In the right side walk in is my jeans.  I need panties, a shirt and pants."

"You're getting dressed?  Don't you want to put something comfy on?"

"Not if I'm going to the police station."

"What else do you need from your bedroom or your bathroom?"

Remembering falling onto the bathroom counter when Dalton knocked her off her feet, she recalls the sound of everything breaking.  She assumes that her toothbrush is on the floor along with her hair brush.  The only other thing that she needed from in there was her Xanax.  "Just my Xanax."

Richie got her what she needed and waited outside the bathroom door while she dried and dressed.  When she was done, they went into the kitchen and Richie cut her some fruit.  She had a peach and an apple and followed it with dessert.  One Xanax tablet, with a gulp of wine.  Her belly full and her medicine kicking in, she went back into the living room and  laid on the couch.  It didn't take long for the pill to take full affect and she dozed off.

Richie sits there and watches her sleep.  He can tell that she's reliving her attack in her dreams and that breaks his heart.  He moves closer to her and caresses her hair and silently says, "Sshh.  I'm here.  You're safe."

Richie is settling in on the floor next to her, when he hears the door open.