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"It happened in college."
Garrison had to keep his head together and not scare her away. Then, maybe she'd get through the whole story. He wanted to get nearer to her, but perhaps she needed the distance.
"There was this guy. Chandler."
He refrained from commenting on the name, just barely.
"We met in one of my business courses. He was sweet and charming."
Charming Chandler. Garrison hated him already.
"I was a freshman." Her voice was flat, like she was reading numbers out of the phone book. "He was a sophomore. We were together for a long time. My junior year, I moved in with him. My parents didn't approve, but I thought we were in love. I was, anyway."
She stared out the window for a long time.
"I got pregnant. It's such a stupid story. Such a familiar story. Mundane, even."
"It wasn't stupid or familiar or mundane to you."
Her gaze met his. "It wasn't. You're right. I was thrilled. An idiot, apparently, because Chandler..."
Obviously wasn't thrilled.
"He told me to get rid of it." A short pause. Then, "It."
"What a..." She was a Christian. She probably wouldn't appreciate any of the words that were on his tongue. He settled on "...turd."
Nearly a smile. "I just knew he'd come around. I stayed with him. I waited, thinking when I started to show that he'd fall in love with the baby, too. When he could feel the baby moving, when he really understood there was a child, his child. I could imagine him, the baby. Pink cheeks, soft skin..." Her words trailed off a moment. Then she said, "I kept going to classes. The baby was due in the summer. I figured I'd find childcare—my parents would help me. By summer, he'd have graduated and gotten a job. I could finish college. We'd get married. It would be perfect."
He hated to think where the story was going, almost didn't want to hear it.
"We went to a party one night. Everybody was drinking, except me, of course. I wasn't going to risk my baby. But Chandler was drinking. I thought he was having fun. And he was—for a while. Then, when it was time to go..."
Garrison resisted the urge to cross the room and sit with her, to hold her hand and offer his support.
"I wanted to drive. He wouldn't let me. I thought he'd had too much to drink, but we were way out in the country, and I could tell he was getting agitated. He kept yelling at me to get in the car. He was so loud, and there were a lot of people outside, and they were looking at us. So I just...I got in." She paused, added, "It's not what you think. We weren't in an accident. He just started driving in the wrong direction, away from campus. I asked him where he was going. He ignored me. Told me to shut the...whatever up. I started to get nervous. Not scared, though. Not like...I didn't think he'd hurt me."
Her voice returned to the monotone she'd started with. "We went to school at Plymouth State. It's up north. In the mountains. I loved it up there. It was so pretty, and we used to go hiking and biking. Skiing in the winter. I had friends who had four-wheelers, and we'd take them out.
"Chandler kept driving north, away from campus. Away from any place I'd ever been before. Away from the main roads and highways. He was so angry, the way he was gripping the steering wheel. He wouldn't talk to me. Wouldn't answer me when I talked to him. And then he made a few turns, which felt random, but I don't know. Maybe he knew exactly where he was going. Maybe he'd planned the whole thing.
"He stopped on this narrow single-lane dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but a drainage ditch, and behind that, thick forest on both sides of the road. He came around the car, opened my door, and yanked me out."
The image was so clear in Garrison's head.
"I had my phone in my hand. I'd been thinking about calling someone or texting or something. I didn't, though. I believed...I never thought. Even that far north. Away from everything. I was so stupid."
"You trusted him." Garrison spit the words out, then immediately wanted them back. He had to shut up and let her talk.
A moment passed. Then another. Then, "I did. I trusted him. I felt safe with him. He took my phone, shoved it in his pocket, and got in my face. 'This is your fault. If you'd ended it like I said, everything could have gone back to normal.'
"I didn't know what to say, and I was afraid I'd make it worse. I thought maybe he was going to hurt me. Maybe try to...to end my pregnancy himself. But he didn't. He yanked me to the edge of the gravel road and shoved me. I stumbled. Fell into the ditch. There was a little stream there. The top of it was covered with a thin layer of ice, and I remember the tinny sound it made when I cracked it, the way the icy water seeped into my clothes.
"I had to protect the baby. I lay there, my arms wrapped around my middle, waiting for him to hurt me. To kick me or something. And then I heard the car start. He drove away."
"He left you there?"
She nodded.
"What did you do?"
"I thought he'd come back. Even then, I was still so stupid. I thought he loved me. I thought he'd come to his senses and come back for me. And then I was so sad. I lay there in the icy stream. I had on a jacket, but..."
Garrison couldn't stand it any longer. He crossed the room, stood in front of her, and offered his hands.
She stood, and he folded her into his arms. He held her against him, felt her shivering despite the heat, and wanted nothing more than to go back in time and rescue her from that monster. He didn't ask her for more of the story. She'd tell him when she was ready. Right now, he wanted to hold her, protect her forever.
They stood there like that for a long time.
Finally, her shivering stopped, and she leaned back. He looked into her eyes. They were red-rimmed, moist.
"Thank you," she said.
"For what?"
"For this." She leaned against his chest, and he held her close, ran his hand over her silky hair, enjoyed how perfectly her tiny frame fit against his oversize one.
"I need to get through it." She sat, and he took the chair beside her.
"I was so cold, shivering uncontrollably, and then I wasn't. I felt fine. Perfectly comfortable. I sat up, saw the forest, and wanted to walk into it. I'd always loved the woods. The trees seemed to call me."
Hypothermia. The thought had him swallowing hard. He could have lost her before he'd even met her. "Did someone find you?"
"No. Not...really. But yeah, someone did."
That was clear as string theory.
"There was this voice. Like...maybe I was crazy. But a voice told me to stand up."
"But nobody was there?"
She blew out a long breath. "I know you're not a Christian, but I am. This is why I am. This voice told me that he loved me. That I was worthy. That I was not meant to die there. He told me to get up and start walking. I stood and stared into the trees. I can't tell you how strong the pull was to walk deep into those woods and disappear. It was so irrational, so bizarre, but I wanted to be surrounded by that forest more than I'd ever wanted anything. I walked a few yards in, would have kept going that direction. But the voice told me to turn around. Go the other way."
She'd been hallucinating, obviously. Another symptom of hypothermia.
"The voice was commanding, filled with love. I staggered back to the road and started walking, not the direction I'd come from, but further down the road." She was quiet for a minute or two, which gave him time to picture the scene, her stumbling, hallucinating, all alone in the dark mountains. Had there been a moon? Had Sam been dressed for a hike in the woods? No. She'd been a college student. She'd probably have worn something pretty and totally impractical. Probably high heels—she wore those a lot. What had the temperature been? Cold enough that there was ice.
His heart hurt thinking about it.
"I know what you're thinking," she said. "You think I was hallucinating. That the voice was nothing. My subconscious or something. But I don't think so. Because it wasn't just a voice. It was a presence. He was with me. He was warm and comfortable. I could feel his love. Does that make sense?"
"Not really."
"Okay." She nodded slowly, deliberately. "The fact that it doesn't make sense to you—does that mean it's not true? Or is it possible that maybe I had an experience you've never had?"
"Obviously it's possible."
"But you don't believe it?"
He shrugged. Wished she'd get back to her story. "It's not that I don't believe there's a God. I mean, the world is pretty well designed, and I'm not somebody who believes it all just happened. But who is that God? What’s it like? I don't know."
"Maybe I do."
Maybe she did know something he didn't. Because here was a woman he knew to be intelligent and wise. There was obviously a whole bunch of stuff Garrison didn't understand in the world. Like how a man could do something as terrible as what Charming Chandler had done to Sam.
"I walked for a while," Sam said. "Maybe thirty minutes. Maybe an hour or more. I have no idea. But then I smelled smoke from a fireplace. And as I walked, I felt better. Cold again, and shivering, but that was good. I'm not sure I knew it at the time, or maybe I did. But anyway, it was good that I felt cold. It meant my body temperature was going back up. And then I saw a light."
Garrison's hands ached from clenching them, as if he were there, watching the scene unfold. As if her life were in danger at that very moment.
"It was a house, and I knocked on the door, and they took me to the emergency room and called my parents."
"Thank God."
"Exactly. He saved me. I just...I don't know why."
He grabbed her hand. "How can you say that?"
"I thought God wanted to save my baby. I was so sure of it. And then, a few days later, I miscarried."
"Oh, honey, I'm sorry."
"It was probably the hypothermia. No doctor has confirmed that, but that's my theory. So Chandler did manage to kill our child. Almost killed me."
"I hope you had his butt thrown in jail."
She didn't say anything.
"You did, right?"
"I quit school. Went home. My dad and my brother got all my things when I knew Chandler would be at class. I never saw him again. For all he knows, he has a child. Not that he ever cared enough to check."
Chandler. Garrison needed the guy's last name.
"I was wrong about everything."
"You trusted the wrong guy, Sam. All that says about you is that you're trustworthy, kind, gentle. Maybe a little naive, but this was a guy you'd been with for years. His cruelty was his fault."
"I know."
Her words were flat again.
"You don't really know, though, do you?"
"When I first moved back to Nutfield, I stayed in town to recuperate. Then, I don't know. I finished college online. I got a job with the town, moved into an apartment, and sort of avoided leaving. I didn't admit I was doing it at the time. I told myself I preferred the local market to the big grocery stores. I bought my clothes online or at the shops downtown. I'd always dreamed of owning my own business, so I bought the first little cabin on the lake. That's when I went to the mall. I was looking for curtains and stuff to decorate the new cabin. I could feel the anxiety rising even as I drove myself to Manchester, but I forced myself to go. And then I had the anxiety attack. And then, for a while, it was easier to stay home than fight it."
"But last night..."
"It was the darkness, and I was feeling...I don't know." Her gaze met his, flicked way. But he knew. He'd made her feel like a failure with his cruel remark, feel insignificant when he'd run off without her.
"I'm sorry."
"It wasn't you, Garrison. You acted like a father. I just...sometimes I don't think straight. And the woods. They still call to me like they did that night. It's crazy. I know it's crazy."
"It's different. But you're not crazy, Samantha. You're struggling. You're trying to work through it."
Silence filled the space. He waited for her to continue. When she didn't speak, he asked, "It's better than it was, right?"
"A few years ago, I found a good counselor and started seeing a shrink, who prescribes the medications."
He slid off his chair and knelt in front of her. "You've built this amazing life for yourself, Sam. And you're overcoming your fears."
A sob seemed to bubble up in her heart.
He wrapped her in his arms. "I think you're brave."
"I'm not. I'm afraid of everything."
"Bravery isn't not being afraid, Samantha." He leaned back so he could see her face. "Bravery is facing your fears. That's what you've been doing all these years, what you did with me when you went with us yesterday. And again last night, out in the woods. And I left you by yourself after all you'd done for me."
"It's fine. You were worried about your son."
"I was, but it's not fine. That anxiety attack last night was my fault. I'm sorry."
She rested against his chest again. He wanted to keep her there forever.