Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
So, Josie spent the daylight hours slowly and cautiously going over her time spent in bondage. It was necessary, she knew that, though her mind resisted, urged her to turn away as she’d done so often over the years. But…in some ways, it felt safer in that remote, unfamiliar location to probe those memories. She didn’t have any distractions, only the birds and the trees and the flowing water, and it allowed her to clear her mind and go through each terrible recollection she pulled forward, questioning things she’d never questioned before.
And as she did, she also finally began to grieve. Not for her child—she had grieved—suffered—for his loss, and still did. Perhaps she always would, and some part of her was okay with that. But even after the sharpest agony of the loss of her baby had faded, Josie had never grieved the loss of her own life, her own view of the world, the future she’d envisioned for herself, so many things she had never explored. She’d learned to function again; she’d moved past the worst of the trauma; every day she put one foot in front of the other and lived the new life she’d been given—but she’d never let her mind go back over the time she’d spent imprisoned, used and abused. She’d never sat with the pain of it, the loneliness, the debilitating horror, and the fear. But she did then. She didn’t push the memories away as she had been doing for so long. She sat alone with every single one and let each in turn be her companion.
She closed her eyes and walked back into that room where she’d spent ten agonizing months. She saw herself as she’d first been—desperate and terrorized. She relived the rapes, the hunger, the dwindling hope, the realization that she’d conceived. She recalled her conversations with Marshall, the things he’d done, his responses. She collected the bits and pieces she thought might be important, the things she’d stuffed down so far she hadn’t even known if they were accessible anymore.
And she felt Zach’s presence as she did the work, not infringing on her privacy, but never far away. If she called for him, he’d be there in a moment, she knew. My guardian. The knowledge of his presence close by gave her the courage to explore her own grief. He gave her the courage to break down the memories, to observe them not as a victim, but as a survivor.
But it hurt. Oh God, how it hurt.
She felt the hopelessness, the terror, the complete and utter aloneness of the time she’d spent chained to the wall and left to suffer alone. She remembered the days leading up to Caleb’s birth and the days following. She allowed the long-suppressed emotions to well up inside her, to burst and dissipate as she gasped and sobbed at the power of the emotional bomb that she’d detonated. And yet, when the dust cleared, there was a quiet peace, the fragments of her soul still left intact, washed clean by a torrent of tears. Her scars could not be erased, but maybe, maybe, she could grow around them. Move forward despite them.
Josie sat at the edge of the stream and took off her shoes, dipping her feet in the water, feeling it glide over her skin like wet silk. Tears continued to roll down her cheeks as she sat in the cleansing aftermath of having released a portion of her pent-up anguish, her soft cries mixing with the sound of the flowing water. The pain of her memories engulfed her, not a tsunami anymore, but the gentle lapping of waves, and she let it hurt, bringing her legs up and wrapping her arms around them, placing her head on her knees as she wept. It was a familiar position, one she’d spent many hours in once, a hand shackled behind her back.
She sensed Zach’s approach before she heard him and was unsurprised at the soft crunch of sand behind her. He sat down next to her on the shore and quietly took her in his arms. Josie turned to him, accepting his comfort, his solidity, the tender care with which he held her. After exploring her traumatic memories, to be touched in tenderness by a man was exactly what her heart needed, and she couldn’t have known until he arrived. They sat on the riverbank that way for a long time, Josie’s tears drying as Zach continued to stroke her hair and whisper words of comfort, his arms wrapped tightly around her as though he’d never let go.
* * *
The savory scent of pasta sauce filled the air, the quiet strains of country music drifting from the radio on the kitchen counter. Zach hadn’t seen a handheld radio in a long time and rarely listened to country music, but when in Rome… And he couldn’t deny that the emotional crooning of the man with the twang in his voice seemed to fit not only the setting of the rustic cabin in the Tennessee mountains but also Josie’s quiet, introspective mood.