Free Loving Tessa (January Cove) by Rachel Hanna Page B

what he was pretending to do. It wasn't long after that when he asked me out on our first date and we started being known as a couple around town.
     
    Things moved really quickly for us, but the abuse didn't start immediately. Looking back now, I can see he was grooming me for what was to come. He always had a problem with anger, but it wasn't directed at me until much later. After we had dated for two years, he proposed to me. By that time, I knew he wasn’t who I wanted to spend my life with, but I was afraid to tell him. His anger was getting worse and worse, and he had this power trip thing going on.
     
    I finally agreed to his proposal, but we never set a wedding date. Instead, I found out that I was pregnant and things went downhill quickly. The abuse actually started while I was pregnant with Tyler. He didn't care that I was pregnant, but he didn't really want us to have a baby. He pushed me down the stairs a couple of times in an effort to try to make me miscarry, but thankfully it didn't work."
     
    Aaron’s face crinkled up as he listened her story. He didn't interrupt, but instead allowed her to keep talking no matter how hard it was for him not to reach over and comfort her or scream or yell about the idiot that she’d been with for all those years.
     
    "When I was pregnant with Tyler, he started holding me captive. He told everyone that I left him and left town. But that wasn't true. I was actually locked in our basement. He'd set it up so that I couldn't get out, couldn't have access to the outside world and I didn't even have medical care for Tyler. He wanted me at his beck and call, and that included fulfilling any of his sexual needs at any time. He was very rough and violent with me, and because I didn't have any extended family left that I was in contact with, no one was ever looking for me.”
     
    Aaron couldn’t hold back anymore. “Dear God, Tessa, I’m so sorry. Why on Earth would he have become so angry with you?”
     
    “Around that time, an old friend from middle school, a guy, found me on Facebook. We were chatting about old times, nothing major. In fact, my friend is admittedly gay. Ethan still got jealous. He said I wasn’t going to make a fool out of him. He was very impressed with what he perceived as his ‘place’ in the community, and he was sure that I had slept with this old friend of mine and gotten myself knocked up. I offered a DNA test, but he said no way, he didn’t want his name dragged through the small town mud. So, instead, he concocted this plan to punish me and keep me locked away from being ‘social’ with other men.”
     
    “This is just so unbelievable to me…” Aaron stammered. She kept talking for fear of chickening out.
     
    “As I got closer to delivering Tyler, it became apparent that he was going to have to allow me to have the baby. But again, he didn't want any of his police buddies or anyone else knowing that I was still around and he certainly didn’t want anyone to know that I was having a baby. So, I gave birth in a bathtub in our basement and had to take care of Tyler by myself. I had a very difficult delivery, but he didn't even come downstairs. I felt like I was in some kind of a third world country where a woman is forced to give birth on her own. Thankfully, my body cooperated with me and I didn't bleed to death, but I never did get any medical care that I needed for Tyler.”
     
    Unable to contain himself, Aaron spoke. “I can't believe what you're telling me. Why would this man want to hurt you so badly? Why wouldn't he love his child? Surely he knew it was his if you offered a DNA test…”
     
    “Aaron, you're thinking like a normal man. He's not a normal man. In fact, I believe he’s sociopathic. He seemed to take great joy in keeping us captive there, and watching me go from an outgoing woman to a shell of my former self. It was awful, but I tried to get away so many times when I was pregnant. Once Tyler was born, my options