Free Finding You by Kaydee Scott

exaggerated my nervousness but I wasn’t here to discuss how I felt about him, I was there to tell him my truth, the truth that I knew would make him run from me.  Maybe that was the main reason I felt so scared.  I knew he wouldn’t want me anymore.
    “When I left home to come to Harvard, I was running.” 
    Just saying those words somehow lessened the anxiety.  It was almost cathartic to say it out loud. 
    “What were you running from?”
    “A monster.”
    He ran his hands down the front of his jeans.  She knew then he realized there was much worse to her secret than just the black eye.  He looked like he was ready to get up and walk out but she couldn’t let him, not until he heard her out. 
    “I know you don’t owe me anything but before I finish I need to ask you something?”
    He was already withdrawing from her, she could see it in his eyes. 
    “Ask me.”
    “Will you promise not to judge me?”
    “I will never judge you Nova.  That I promise.”
    Shaking her head, she sat back down.  “My mother died when I was sixteen years old.  It was a heroin overdose but nobody knows that really.  Everyone thinks she died from an undiagnosed heart condition.  I don’t have any other family besides my step father so after she died I stayed with him.”
    When he didn’t speak, she continued.  “About three months after she died, my step father started drinking more and starting pushing me around.  I couldn’t leave because I didn’t have anywhere to go.  See, my step father isn’t the type of person to be defiant against but I knew I had to get away from him.  The abuse had gotten a lot worse I went behind his back and applied to Harvard.  When he found out he was furious with me.” 
    His eyes softened just slightly but still he said nothing.
    “The day he found out I had been accepted to Harvard he called me to his office after school.  He was in a meeting when I got there.  I knew he wouldn’t let me go so I did the only thing I could think of to try and get away from him.  I told one of his colleagues I had been accepted to Harvard.    When I got home that night he…punished me.”
    “Stop.”  He got up and walked a few feet from the couch.
    “Look, he has left me alone for years.”
    “Do you really expect me to believe that Nova?  Abusers don’t just stop.”
    “It is the truth.  He called me just before this semester started to tell me about a job that he wanted me to take after graduation.  He wanted me to come back to Georgia and I told him no.”
    “And?”
    “He sent me a ticket to fly home and when I didn’t go he emptied out my bank account and refused to pay for my tuition and my apartment.”
    “What does Hartsen have to do with all of this?”
    She knew he still didn’t trust her about what she had said about Hartsen but she hadn’t lied to him.  “I went to see the Dean to let him know that I was going to withdraw.  The Dean never came to his office so I went home, sent out some resumes and went to a bar a friend of mine owns.  Hartsen overheard the conversation about me having to drop out of school.  He came up to me and I tried to blow him off but he was persistent.  He gave me the card for X. ”
    He cursed under his breath and sat back down.
    “I took the job as a last resort.  I have told you all of this already.  If I don’t graduate I have nothing.  I have already been offered a job and they won’t hold it for me if I don’t graduate.”
    “You swear to me that you have no other involvement with Hartsen?”
    “I swear to you.”   
    “How did you get the black eye?”
    “When my step dad cut me off, I threatened him.”
    “Threatened him how?”
    “I had a camera hid in my bedroom when I lived at home.  I have a video of him… hitting me.”  I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what else he had done to me that was on the tape.  “I called him the afternoon I started working at X.  I told him if he ever bothered me