Chapter 167

I’m entirely frozen as fear floods my body. Despite everything I’ve accomplished since, every therapy session, every positive moment in my life that occurred after the moment of knowing this man, I’m still transported once again transported to being a young woman, not even yet a teenager, to the time I knew this man. And the horrors I experienced at his hands, and the hands of those around him.

Most of it is a blur, either through repression or other means, but it comes back to me in flashes now, at least in part.

Men’s sweaty bodies. Money changing hands. Edward’s vile commands. His smug smirk as he tells me, “You’ll like this, princess. My bank account thanks you.”

And I remember his name, only ever his first, never his last.

Edward.

My knees give out and I collapse down to the ground.

“Edward Zimmer is a rising star among his party,” the news anchor says. “Supporters are praising him for his community service. Always a pillar of the community, they say. Zimmer is reported to have run an orphanage for many years before moving into politics. Experts believe this selfless work helped give him a push among voters…”

I don’t know where the remote is but I search for it desperately now. Where the hell did it go?

My hands are shaking, sliding over the carpet floor this way and that.

Damn remote. Damn TV. Damn everything!

I can’t hear a minute more of this!

Edward is no hero. He’s so selfless man of the people.

He’s an actual monster from my past resurfacing as if to finally swallow me whole or finish me off.

This has to be a nightmare, I decide.

The reemergence of Edward. The disappearance of the remote. The harsh feel of the rough carpet against my naked skin.

Why am I naked?

Where is Miles?

“Esther?”

Who is calling for me?

I want to go home. I want to go home.

“Hey. Hey. It’s okay. It’s okay. I can take you home, just breathe for me, okay? In and out. Here.”

Someone takes my hand and presses it to their flat chest.

“Follow my breathing,” Miles says.

Miles.

His chest lifts, so I force mine to as well. When he exhales, I push the breath from my lungs.

“There. That’s good. Come on back to me, Esther.”

The warm male voice is so kind, so gentle. This is a man who gives me comfort. He’s safe.

Blinking, I slowly come back into myself and focus on Miles, kneeling on the ground in front of me. There’s a blanket wrapped around my shoulders that I didn’t put there, but I cling to it now, pulling it tighter around me.

My hand is still pressed flat to Miles’s chest. He’s still breathing with exaggerated chest movements, as if he already hasn’t helped guide me back from my panic attack.

“Miles…” saying his name is like a revelation.

“I won’t ask if you are okay. I can tell you aren’t,” he says. “Please just tell me what you need.”

“Please…” I start to say. “Turn off the television…”

Nodding, Miles grabs the remote from where it was only a foot or so away from me.

I realize now that I had tears in my eyes which made it very difficult to see.

He lifts the remote and turns off the television.

Edward’s face disappears into a flash of black, and the television finally goes quiet and dark.

The minute that face vanishes from my sight, I feel like I can breathe again.

Miles lowers the remote, then looks back at me with a mixture of concern and confusion on his face. “That helped,” he says. “Can you tell me why?”

I think of what to say, how much to reveal. “Did you know that man?” I ask.

Miles glances back at the screen as if he could still see the picture on it. “Zimmer?”

Yes. I prefer using that name, not the one I know him as. Zimmer feels like something different, unrelated to the pain I’ve experienced.

Edward is too close, too much, too overwhelming.

When I hear Edward, I’m that little girl again, trapped, frightened, alone, and in pain.

“Yes,” I say.

“I’ve never met him,” Miles says. “He’s a newcomer to the political world.” He pauses a moment, licks his lips as if he’s preparing himself.

I brace myself, anticipating what’s to come. There’s only one question Miles could possibly ask me now, and given my reaction and Miles’s having to help calm me down, he’s more than deserving of the answer.

“Do you know Zimmer?” Miles asks.

I sink into myself further. I didn’t think it was possible, given I’m already a crumpled up ball on the floor, but somehow, I find, there is still space to collapse in on myself.

I make myself as small as physically possible, just as I had done back then. Once I hid in a closet, hoping he wouldn’t find me. Hoping I could escape the day’s torture. I stayed as still and quiet as I had been able to.

But then, Edward still opened the door.

I shudder at the memory.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Miles says right away.

I shake my head slightly. I want him to know. He deserves to.

“I don’t remember everything,” I tell him. “Most of it is… flashes. But that man…” Even with only his last name, I still can’t address him. “I was one of the kids in the orphanage he ran. The things that went on there… When I was adopted, I escaped him… Or so I thought. How could he be here? How could anyone want to elect him after what he’s done?”

Miles listens critically to my words. He waits a moment after then before speaking. “Esther, to my knowledge, Zimmer has a clean record. The orphanage he ran… they use that as a point in his favor, talking about how selfless he was to dedicate so much of his time and personal fortune to helping disparaged children find loving homes.”

I shudder again, remembering. “Miles…”

“You don’t have to tell me,” he says.

But I want to. He needs to understand, not just as my partner, but as a candidate about to run against a monster. Everyone should know the kind of man Edward is. Maybe no one will believe me, but Miles will.

I have to believe that.

“When I was at the orphanage, he accepted money from strange men,” I said, swallowing thickly. “Then those men would drag me off… to be alone with them.”

Miles’s face reflects his shock for a moment, before pure hot anger fills it instead. His hands curl into fists.

“How old were you?” he asks.

“Too young,” I say. “Far too young.”

Miles wants to fight him, I can tell. His whole body is tense and there’s a promise of fury in the white of his knuckles and the furrow of his brow.

As much as I would love to see Miles beat that man into oblivions physically, it wouldn’t matter. No one believed me back then and I doubted even fewer people would believe me now, so long after the fact.

That Miles does, is enough.

“I need you near me,” I tell him. “Not in prison.”

Miles moves closer to me. “Can I hold you?” he asks.

I consider the question. After a moment, I give the answer I believe will satisfy me best. “Yes.”

Miles wraps his arms around me. Melting into him, I know I made the right choice.

“I hate to ask this, but as he’s about to run for president, I need to be 100% sure. This is the man who did those things to you?”

I can understand Miles’s desire for my absolutely certainty.

But I tell him the truth, “I will never forget his face.”