Lead the Way (8 page)

              “How are you not like most people?”

              “Every night, a nightmare reminds me or what happened.  Everyday, a smell reminds me, or something someone says on the television reminds me.  There isn’t a day that goes by, that I am not reminded what that asshole took from me.  Some days, I’m so scared I can’t get out of bed.  Did you Aunt Rosa tell you that?  Did she tell you how she has to help me?”

              “Listen, Eva, I’m not trying to make you upset.  I just want to get to know you a little better.”

              “Don’t worry about it.  You know what, I’m just going to finish eating this in my office.”

              “Okay, I’m sorry that I upset you.”

              “Don’t worry about it.”

              Once Eva is inside her office with the door closed, she starts to cry.  She doesn’t understand why the pain is still so raw after five years.  She is embarrassed more than anything.  Gabriel has become the newest person in a long line of people that pity her.  The attack has become the defining thing in her life and she hates it.  She hates what her life has become. 

              She throws the grill cheese in the garbage.  It was perfectly cooked, but she’s lost her appetite.  The only thing to make things better is to write.  She decides that she’s just going to stay in her office for a while.  She decides to do what she does best - hide.

* * * * *

              Eva has been in her office for an hour and a half.  Gabriel keeps looking at the door.  He wants to knock and apologize, but he decides it’s probably best if he just leaves her alone. 

He’s really kicking himself for making her upset.  He knows that he pushed her too hard.  It didn’t take long into the conversation at the kitchen table, before he realized that bringing up her situation was a mistake, but it was too late to take it back.

He tries to put himself in her shoes.  He probably would’ve reacted in the exact same manner that she did.  He probably wouldn’t have been as nice as she was.  He probably would’ve went into his office and slammed the door, leaving some not so nice expletives hanging in the air.

He ponders how he would react if he were attacked on the street.  Would he hole up in his apartment for five years afterwards?  He can’t be sure, but he doubts it.  He saw a lot of horrible things in the Navy and it never stopped him from carrying on.  He continued pushing forward with his life, despite being witness to some purely horrific things.  He decides what he would do, doesn’t matter.  Each person is allowed to act in the way that is best for them to cope, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, in his opinion.

He cleans the living room and then mops himself into the guest room.  When he’s inside the room, he looks around.  Eva has some interesting knick-knacks on the dresser that he picks up and examines.  He puts one down and is drawn to a photo album.  He picks up the album and sits down on the bed.  He begins to look through it.  There are photographs of Eva when she was a young girl. 
She was cute
, he thinks.

He is halfway through the album, when Eva comes in.  “Shit, I hope that you don’t mind me looking at these,” he says, shutting the photo album.  He feels like he’s been caught doing something that’s he’s not supposed to.

She sits next to him on the bed.  She takes the photo album from him and opens it.  “Oh my gosh, I haven’t looked at these in so long,” she says, looking closer at a picture of herself in on a swing set.

“You were a cute kid,” he says, happy to see a smile on her face.

“I suppose I was,” she replies, flipping through the pages.  “Oh my gosh, I haven’t seen a picture of my grandmother in so long!”

“You look like her,” Gabriel says, bending down to take a closer look at the picture.

“I wish that she was still here.  There are so many things I would love to say to her.”  Eva runs her fingers over her grandmother’s picture.

“What do you think that you’re grandma would say about your life now?”

Eva turns and looks at him.  “Honestly, I think that she would be very upset to see what my life has turned out like.”

“Eva, what would it take for you to step out of this apartment again?”

“I really don’t know.  If I ever step out of this apartment again, I will need to feel completely safe.”

“What if I can provide you with a feeling of safety?”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“Look at me, Eva.  I was a Navy Seal.  I was trained to be one of the toughest men on the planet.  What if, you decide to take a step out of this apartment, I was there, right by your side.  What if I was there to protect you?”

“Gabriel, I don’t know.  I don’t know if having you there would be enough.”

“Well, you won’t know if you don’t try.”

“So, what you’re saying is that, if I’m willing, you’ll help me take steps out of the apartment?”

“Absolutely.  Have you ever watched those shows where people are afraid of something, and then once slowly exposed to their fear, they overcome it.”

“Gabriel, you’re forgetting that I’ve gone through therapy.  I’ve tried almost everything with a psychiatrist at some point in time.”

“When you were with your therapist, did you feel safe?  Did you feel protected?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’m offering you something different.  I’m offering you safety, Eva.  I can and I will protect you.  If you step out of this apartment, I promise that I won’t let anything hurt you.”

“I believe you, Gabriel.  I just don’t know.  It’s something I have to think about.  It sounds simple, but it’s not.”

“Just think about it, Eva.  At least allow yourself to try something.  Don’t settle for this life.  Remember what you told me earlier?  You said that you used to be willing to try something at least once.  Well give this a try, Eva.”

“Thank you for the offer.  I promise I will think about it.”

“Good.  That’s all I ask.”

“You know what, it’s been a long day.  You can go home now.”

“Sure.  I just have to put some of the cleaning supplies away and then I will be out of your hair.”

Gabriel leaves Eva sitting on the bed, looking at the photo album.  He has a good feeling about their conversation.  Eva seemed softer.  He wonders what has changed.  He thinks that it has something to do with her grandmother.  He thinks that he may have gotten through to her somehow.  He really hopes so.  He hates to see someone so beautiful and young be so locked up in such chains.  He thinks it would be extraordinary if he were able to help set her free.

* * * * *

Eva listens as Gabriel leaves.  She stares at the picture of her grandmother.  “I miss you so much,” she says out loud, hoping that her grandmother can hear her, wherever she is.  She takes one final glance at the picture, before putting the photo album back on the dresser.

She thinks about the things that Gabriel said to her.  She hasn’t even stuck a toe outside her apartment in five years.  She has no idea how she will react if she simply went out into the hallway.  The last time she did, she had such a severe panic attack that she passed out and collapsed.  She would hate for that to happen in front of Gabriel. 

However, maybe things have changed.  Maybe, because of the passage of time, her reaction will be different.  Maybe it won’t be so severe.  Maybe she could handle it.  Maybe having a strong tough man by her side would make a difference.  Like Gabriel said, the only way to find out would be to try. 

She doesn’t know if she is courageous enough.  She doesn’t know if she has the guts.  She thinks about the alternative.  If she does it, and she’s too scared, she’ll end up back in her apartment, having lost absolute nothing.  She’ll continue on doing exactly what she’s been doing for the past five years.  Absolutely nothing will have changed.  

If she goes along with Gabriel’s plan, she’ll actually be gaining something really, even if she’s too scared.  She’ll gain the knowledge of knowing what will happen if she steps beyond her front door.  Right now, she doesn’t know what will happen.  Maybe nothing will happen.  Maybe, she’ll be able to walk right outside and walk down the block. 

The fear of what happened last time, happening again, has paralyzed her into immobility.  She can remember the way the fear made her feel at the time.  It caused her both physical and psychological pain.  Is she willing to feel that again?  Is it worth it?  Is being able to walk outside in the hallway worth giving up her comfort zone? 

She wonders what her grandmother would say to her.  She’s sure that her grandmother would advise her to do whatever it takes to get well, but at the same time, her grandmother would support her decision.  If her grandmother was alive and was able to see her in the condition that she is in, she knows that her grandmother wouldn’t push her.  She would give her grandmotherly advice and encourage her to get out into the world, but if she didn’t want to, her grandmother would accept it.  Her grandmother was a very kind and compassionate woman.  She accepted people the way that they were.  Her grandmother would never try to change her or try to push her into something that she didn’t want or she wasn’t ready to do. 

All these thoughts roll around her mind.  She isn’t exactly sure what she wants to do.  She can’t pin down a definite decision yet.  She promised Gabriel that she would think about it and she will.  She will give his plan her utmost attention and when she does come to a decision, it will be after careful thought and consideration.  She’s not going to throw out his idea as quickly as she has done others in the past.     

The way she feels at the moment, is the most willing she has been to change in a long time.  If Gabriel had asked her a year ago to take a chance and step out of the apartment, she would have dismissed him outright.  She would have said “No” and that would have been the absolute end to the discussion.  You couldn’t have paid her a million dollars to step out of her apartment.  It wasn’t happening.

She feels like something inside of her has changed.  She’s not sure if it’s Gabriel that has caused this change, or if it’s been something that has been brewing for a while.  She’s just become tired of being sick.  She's become tired of being a prisoner in her own home.  Gabriel has given her a reason and an excuse, if she decides the go through with his plan.  He is also someone she can blame if things blow up in her face.  She would never blame him to his face, but inside her mind, she could always use him as a scapegoat.  It helps to know that she wouldn’t be doing anything completely alone.  She would have someone she could lean on that wasn’t being paid specifically for that purpose.  Gabriel seems pretty sturdy.  She thinks that he could probably hold her up.

She’s in a place in her life now, where she is willing to, at least, think about the idea of leaving her apartment.  It’s a strange turn of events and it makes her feel strange inside.  It is the first time in a long time that she feels like she might be able to take some power back in her life.  Everything she has done in the past five years of her life has been the result of, or in reaction to, what has happened to her.  The writing, the way in which her friends interact with her now, hiring Rosa, moving into a more secure building – all of it has been defensive.  If she goes along with Gabriel, it will be the first time she has attacked the problem.  It will be the first time she has acted offensively.

Chapter 6

Eva looks at the clock.  It’s nine-twenty in the morning.  Gabriel is late.  A feeling of panic starts to creep into her mind.  She hates to admit it, but she’s started to really rely on Gabriel.  She’s started to look forward to his arrival and feels sad when it’s time for him to go home.  It’s been nice having male company. 

Gabriel has been able to get her to open up, like no one else has been able to.  When she looks into eyes, it seems like he really cares about what she is saying.  There are times when she feels like she’s being desperate and will back off and leave him to do his work, but he comes and seeks her out.  It seems like he wants to speak to her, as much as she wants to speak to him. 

He’s been working for her for about three weeks now.  There are days that go by where it doesn’t seem like he’s doing much work.  She’s been slacking off with her writing, just as much.  The time that he should be spending cleaning and she writing, they spend talking and goofing around.  They sit and talk over coffee or play board games.  She’ll run story ideas by him and he talks about things going on in his life or about his time in the Navy.

She’s let Gabriel into parts of her life that no one has been allowed into for a very long time.  She’s tried to resist, but he has this magical way of drawing things out of her.  It fascinates her, how he is able to that.  She jokes with him that he must have been a psychiatrist in a past life.

The way that Gabriel looks at life is so positive and it has started to rub off on her.  He’s helped her to look at life through different eyes.  He has been able to get her to stop focusing on her view and try to see things with a different spin - a better spin.  He has definitely changed some of her negative thinking into positive thinking.