Words on Wednesday ~ 10/13

This Writing Challenge was started by Delores a long time ago. Computer issues led her to bow out for a while, and now Words for/on Wednesday is provided by a number of people around the world and has become a movable feast, with [Elephant's Child in Australia] acting both as moderator, and this month providing the prompts.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write. Each Tuesday or Wednesday (depending on time zones and hemispheres) we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music, or an image. What we do with those prompts is up to us: a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or ignoring them. We can use some or all of the prompts.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month and my Words on Wednesday this month will center around that theme.  DV is not always visible, and often the unseen bruises and scars are the deepest.  

If you or someone you love is experiencing any type of domestic violence, there is help.  Please visit the [National Coalition Against Domestic Violence resources page].

~*~*~

   The voice from her answering machine startled her.  How many years had it been since she'd heard from him?  Enough to have relaxed and forgotten that he was still out there.  When she had moved this last time, she had forgotten to keep her telephone number unlisted.

   There were times when she thought about her past as if it was a fiction novel.  A woman meets a handsome man who seems delightfully charming and attentive, unlike other men she had met.  He was more interested in getting to know her, than getting inside her pants.  But his words and charms had just been a trap he had laid to lure her into trusting him.  Skulduggery had worked on her for nearly six months before she realized he had been lying to her all along.

   She groaned with the realization that she would once again have to move, and go back to just using an unlisted cell phone service and number.  Glancing at the television before clicking it off, she saw that rain was in the forecast and grabbed her umbrella from the stand by the door before stepping out on the deck shared by three other upstairs apartments.

   Work today was going to be difficult now because her mind was fertile with old fears and insecurities.  Naturally, it was the end of the month, when she most needed to be able to focus on the reports she had to run and create for the project manager and home office.  Watching her feet as she walked down the stairs, she didn't see him right away.  When she finally looked up, he was there, leaning on the corner of her car, and she had nowhere to run.

   "Hello, Cindi.  It's been a long time."

   "Gary.  Not long enough actually."   

   As she stood there, waiting for him to move, he told her he had taken a job on the construction site right next door and was looking forward to seeing her every day now.  He proceeded to tell her everything he had learned about her in the years since he had last seen her.  Every job.  Every move.  Every boyfriend, even that she had tried to join the Army Reserves and why she had not been successful.  Everything, and yet nothing that one single person would have been able to tell him.  He would have had to speak to friends, co-workers, even her father and she knew her father would not have told him anything.

   She remembered what an off-duty police officer had told her years before when he first began stalking her.  There had been no stalker laws on the books in Florida then, and he would have had to have physically harmed her in order for her to even call the police on him.  Until then, he had every right to sit on the curb across the street from her father's house or follow her around her job where she first met Gary.

  "Don't let him see your fear.  Be brave, act bold, even when you don't feel it.  Don't watch your feet when you walk.  Be aware of your surroundings.  Park under lights if you are working nights.  Look under your car before you get close, and in it before you open the door.  If there is a larger vehicle blocking your view, walk to where you can see your car before you get close.  Ask someone to walk with you at night.  Always be aware of your surroundings.  Keep your keys pointed out in your fist as you walk and don't be afraid to strike him in the face or eyes.  Drive your knee into his groin if you get a chance.  This is not the time to fight like a little girl with slaps and pulled hair.  Be an Amazon Warrior."

    Deftly she stepped around him and proceeded to unlock her car and get in.  It was time to make new selection on where and how she was going to live.  Was it going to always be in fear?  Or was she going to put on her armor and live the life she wanted for herself?