Searching for Moore (12 page)

When the dry heaves finally ended, the doctor was waiting with a cup of water. She led him out to the chairs again and they sat down. “Are you ok?” She asked and he nodded.

“Mia doesn’t want to bring in the authorities.”

“I know. I wanted her to go to the police, but she refused.”

“Do you think you can change her mind? I wouldn’t pressure her about it tonight, but maybe over the next few days. These animals need to be off the street.”

“I agree, Doctor.” He felt his anger rising again and consciously told himself to check it.

“She’s got some pretty significant bruising, but x-rays didn’t show any fractures. I’m going to be giving her some high dosage hormones that we typically use in rape cases. They basically make the uterus an inhospitable environment for egg implantation and we can help mitigate the odds of pregnancy.”

Schooner felt the warm rush of tears coursing down his cheeks. This was a fucking nightmare.

The doctor continued, “The biggest side effect we see with this type of treatment is nausea and vomiting, so don’t be alarmed if that happens. If it appears she’s dehydrating, I want you to call me. I’m also going to prescribe pain killers and some anti-anxiety medication that will help her sleep.” She handed Schooner her card. “I’m going to sew up her lip now and she asked if you’d come back and be with her while I do it.”

He followed the doctor back into the authorized area passed small curtain partitioned rooms, until they got to Mia’s.

“Hey you…” he smiled at her. He knew he had to keep it together for her and had collected himself quickly walking through the ER to her room. “So, you want me back here for the gory stuff, huh.”

“Stitches seemed like a guy thing,” he was so happy to see her bantering.

The doctor was loading a syringe of Lidocaine to numb the area. “I think I can do this in about 4 stitches, Mia and I’m going to make them as small as I can so that you won’t have any significant scarring.” Maybe not of her lip, Schooner thought and was hoping Mia was not thinking the same thing.

“Ok, I’m going to numb the area and we’ll let it sit for a few minutes to take full effect.” Mia grabbed Schooner’s hand tightly as the doctor injected the numbing agent around her mouth. He rubbed her knuckles with his thumb to calm her down.

“You’re doing great, Baby Girl,” he encouraged, squeezing her hand.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” the doctor left Mia’s room to attend to one of the other patients.

Schooner sat on the side of the bed facing Mia, still holding her hand. “You are so brave,” he whispered, “I have always been in awe of you.”

Two fat tears rolled slowly down her cheeks. “I wanted you to be my first,” her voice was choked.

He felt hot tears splashing down his face and leaned his forehead against hers. “I will be, Baby Girl. When you are ready, I will be the first guy to make love to you. I’ll be your first.” Schooner didn’t know if his face was wet from his tears or hers, but cheek to cheek they sat and cried together. Cried for the loss of a dream that had been savagely ripped from them.

Your first and your last, Baby Girl, Schooner vowed to himself. Your first and your last.

Mia fell asleep laying in the back seat of the cab with her head in Schooner’s lap.

“Baby Girl, we’re here.” Gently waking her as they pulled up in front of the dorm, he paid the cab driver and they walked up the front steps. Schooner took Mia’s keys from her and opened the door. He felt the little dangling silver camera and smiled. It was past 4 A.M. and the lobby was dark and empty. They walked down the hall and up the staircase, Schooner with his arm around Mia who was still wearing his suit jacket.

He unlocked the door to her room and flipped the light on. Thankfully her roommate Caroline was staying at the Sheraton in Pasadena with her boyfriend, Dennis. He tossed the keys onto Mia’s desk and turned to her.

She looked up at him and sighed, “What a fucking night.”

He cocked his head to the side and with a sad look just held out his open arms to her. She went to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and he held her tight.

“You got really skinny,” she observed, looking up at him with a wry smile.

He wanted to tell her that it was called “The Misery Diet,” but he didn’t want to say anything that would make her feel bad or upset her.

“Let’s get you in bed, Mia. You need to rest.” He opened their mini-fridge and pulled out a bottle of water and poured her a cup. Taking the prescription bottles out of his suit pants pocket, he got Mia the pills she needed. She had changed into an oversized tee-shirt while his back was turned and he suspected there were probably some bruises she didn’t want him to see. She sat down cross-legged in the center of her bed and he sat on the edge and handed her the water and medication.

“You’ll tell Rosie and Henry?” She asked, eyes filling with tears again. Schooner nodded and reached out to stroke her cheek. She leaned her face into his hand, closing her eyes.

“Ok, under the covers, Baby Girl.” She slid underneath her bedspread and he tucked her in, smiling down at her.

Mia reached for Schooner’s hand and brought it up to her lips, kissing his palm and then held his hand in both of hers. “Thank you for everything tonight.”

“Shhhh,” he stroked her hair gently. After a few minutes, she drifted off to sleep, a combination of exhaustion, pain meds and anti-anxiety pills taking effect. He waited a few minutes to make sure she was in a deep sleep, leaned down and softly kissed her forehead.

Grabbing her keys, Schooner headed down the hall to Rosie’s room. Aware that it was now after 4:30, he knew this was not going to be a pleasant greeting when he knocked on her door.

Rosie opened the door, looked at Schooner and sneered, “What the fuck?”

“Good morning to you, too. Throw on a robe Rosie, we need to go grab Henry and talk.”

“What are you high?”

“I wish I was. Get your robe on.” And he leveled her a “Do what I say now” glance. He was beyond taking her shit tonight.

Schooner was three steps in front of Rosie when she started following him down the hall, into the stairwell and downstairs to Henry’s room.

He began the process again. Although Henry was a little more civil. “Hey, sorry to wake you. Throw on your robe. We need to talk.”

Henry emerged from his room and Rosie just shrugged her shoulders at him as Schooner started walking toward the study lounge, the room where they had spent many hours together laughing and creating their masterpiece. They just followed him silently.

Flipping on the lights, they entered the room and Schooner motioned for them to sit, before closing the door.

“Nice outfit.” Rosie snarked. His blue bow tie was still hanging open around his neck, but now the top few buttons of his shirt were open.

“Yeah, well it’s been a long night,” he ignored the snark. “Mia is upstairs in her room and she’s asleep. She’s ok, she’s safe in bed, but she wanted me to talk to you guys.” He could see the immediate alarm on Henry’s face. Rosie was too pissed off to register any emotion other than, well, pissed off.

“I ran into Mia a few hours ago walking on The Quad and she had been attacked.” They both screamed “What?” and “Oh my God!”.

“What do you mean attacked?” Rosie was yelling and Henry put a hand on her shoulder to calm her.

Schooner sighed, “She was roughed up pretty bad. And she was raped.”

Rosie burst into tears, her tough resolve evaporating at the mention of the word rape, “No. No. No,” she moaned. Henry put his arms around her and Schooner could see the anguish in his eyes and the pulsing tension in his strong jaw.

“I took her to the hospital and she received medical attention. She needed a few stitches because they busted her lip.”

“They?” Henry’s eyes flew open wide.

Schooner just nodded, the sick feeling rising up again, tears springing from his eyes. He took the heels of his palms and wiped away his tears. When he could get control of his voice, he continued. “There were two,” his voice cracked, despite his best efforts to hold it together.

“The doctor gave her some hormones to help mitigate the chances of pregnancy,” his voice broke on the word pregnancy, “and pain killers and anti-anxiety medicine.” He sat down and put his head in his hands.

“She doesn’t want to bring in the authorities, because she’s afraid she’ll get sent home. She was adamant about it. And I understand her not wanting to go through all that shit, but those fucking animals are out there,” his anger was flaring, “And I just want to kill them.”

“What can we do to help her?” Henry asked, softly.

“She doesn’t want anyone to know about this,” they nodded and agreed. “If you can bring her meals to the dorm and get class assignments and stuff. I don’t think she’s going to want anyone to see her just yet.”

“Are you going to stay with her?” Henry asked.

Schooner nodded, yes.

Rosie flashed him a look filled with venom. “And what are you? The fucking white knight? You blow in playing big man savior and then you break her heart to pieces again. Don’t you fuck with my girl.” She was out of her chair and wagging a finger in Schooner’s face.

He surprised her by taking her finger and kissing it. Her big brown eyes wide and confused.

He began softly, “I know I’m not your favorite person, Rosie. As a matter of fact, I haven’t been my favorite person either. Something happened, and it’s not what you think happened, but I didn’t want to hurt Mia and I didn’t want her to tell me goodbye, and I fucked everything up. I just fucked up.” He looked up at the ceiling, as if to stop a torrent of tears and then he looked Rosie straight in the eyes, “But I never stopped loving her for a single second. I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving her.” And the tears he tried so hard to stop, fell freely from his beautiful eyes.

“We’re going to need to tell Caroline when she gets back.”

“Caroline can stay with me, if she wants to, so that you can stay with Mia.” Rosie offered and Schooner nodded.

“Schooner,” Rosie began, “you look like shit.” He knew she was referring to his new “haunted” look.

“I think he looks hot!” Henry countered, putting his arms around Schooner and giving him a much needed hug, which Schooner gladly accepted.

They walked Schooner up to Mia’s room. “We’ll bring you guys breakfast.”

Schooner quietly opened the door and he knew they wanted to come in and see their friend and make sure she was really ok. Mia was on her back snoring loudly and that gave them all a relaxing chuckle. Seeing her pretty little face bruised up was heartbreaking.

Rosie took Schooner’s hand on the way out of the room and gave it a squeeze. No words were needed.

He sat down in the desk chair across from her bed and stretched out his long legs and tried to start processing everything, but his mind was just too jumbled. He knew he needed sleep and maybe things would be clearer after a few hours of rest, but he just wanted to look at her for a few minutes more. Watch her sleep. Know that she was safe.

He finally took off his dress shoes and socks, they had been on his feet way too long. Hanging his shirt (with the bow tie still dangling from the collar) and suit pants over the back of the chair, Schooner crawled into Caroline’s bed in his boxers. He hoped she didn’t mind.

Laying there, listening to Mia breathe for a while, he drifted into a fitful sleep, dreaming of the hospital and the Sheraton, searching hallways for Mia where hotel rooms had hospital beds with green curtains on tracks. He felt her climb into bed next to him, but wasn’t sure if it was a dream, until she rested her head on his chest and he pulled her close into him.

“You ok?” He asked, nuzzling his face into her curls.

“Mmm-hmm,” her arm tightened around him.

“It’s going to be ok, Baby Girl,” he kissed her forehead. He just had to believe it would be ok. There was no other option. They would get through this together. He would help her. He’d be her strength, her guide back from Hell. Her love. And when she was ready, her lover.

“Don’t let me go, Schooner.”

“I won’t, Mia.”

She nuzzled into his chest. “Promise?”

“I promise.” He tightened his hug around her and the irony did not elude him as to how easy this promise was to make.

“They really hurt me tonight. I wanted to die.” His heart ached. It ached for her, it ached for him and it ached for everything he’d never be able to change.

“I’m so sorry, Baby Girl. I am so sorry this happened to you. I wish I could change it for you.”

“Me too. It was horrible.”

“I’m here for you, Mia.” He threaded his fingers through hers and brought her hand to his lips. She was silent, so he went on. “I never stopped loving you, Baby Girl. Not for a minute.”

“Don’t make me smile, Schooner, it hurts.”

He laughed. “Ok. Sleep,” and she nuzzled back into his chest and fell back to sleep, while he gently stroked her hair.

As he held her tight, he knew that he would get her through this. He would get them both through this — together. This was the start. And this time, he was ready for it. She was his and he would do whatever he needed to protect her and to help her heal. He would always take care of what was his and that would start now.

He wondered if maybe he had been wrong earlier that evening. Maybe a restart could be a good thing after all.

He felt her stirring in his arms and looked at his watch. 8:45 A.M. His head ached from lack of sleep and tension. He closed his eyes and tightened his muscular arms around her.

“Schooner?”

“Yeah, Baby Girl?” He looked down at her on his chest, looking so sweet and so young.

“Nothing. I just felt like saying your name.” Schooner smiled and kissed her forehead.

“How are you feeling?” She looked up at him, as he pushed her hair from her face, and his heart brimmed at the sight of her ombre green eyes.

“I feel like I got hit by a Mack truck.” Mia moved off of his chest and up to the pillow, looking into his eyes, which were now a mere few inches away. “I dreamed you told me that you never stopped loving me. Not even for a minute.”