Jacob's Ladder by Z. A. Maxfield Read Free Book Online

college.”
    “Minored. I can"t stay, Yasha.” JT"s eyes were warm and sincere. “I"m on a break. I have to get back to the station. I only came to take you—” I went toward the door and opened it. “I can"t go. I"ll be a joke. I"ll be the only guy there, and I"ll…”
    JT"s eyes were beautiful and sad. “And I"m asking you to trust me .” Heaven help me. I did trust him. But more than that, at that moment, I was charmed by him, and I thought maybe…
    We left the motel room without speaking. After I opened the passenger door to his truck, he put his hand on the small of my back and took my elbow to brace me, ready to help me up if I needed a boost. I thought, yeah. I can trust him. I just can"t trust myself.
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    Z. A. Maxfield
    Chapter Five
    I held my coffee and gazed around at the women, all silent, all clenched within the small circle of chairs. I didn"t even know how I"d gotten here, really. One minute I was with JT, and the next I was walking into a high school classroom being used as a meeting place for a battered-women"s support group called “Stop Partnership in Violence”—SPiV. I swallowed hard and made myself amend my thinking right then and there. They were victims of domestic violence . I was here. I had a dick. Domestic violence wasn"t just for women. I knew enough to know it never had been.
    They were staring at me, and I shot a tight smile at the group"s leader, who happened to be the nurse, Alice, from the hospital.
    “First off I want to welcome Yasha.” All eyes turned toward me. It was far worse than I"d imagined. Those women gazed at me with varying levels of pity and mistrust and outright hostility. Only one had unreadable eyes. She watched me shyly, with a hint of curiosity, and then glanced away. She must have been in her midfifties, and she was pretty and fragile looking. She wore a lightweight cotton skirt and a T-shirt that read Miss Independence Pies under a soft pink cardigan.
    She had pearls around her neck. Her hair was trimmed in a pretty bob and held back with some sort of sparkly headband. When her eyes returned to mine, I smiled at her, and she smiled back timidly.
    “Yasha?” Alice asked, and I realized I had been watching the pie lady and not listening. “You want to tell us a little about why you"re here?” Technically that question was my number one reason for not wanting to be there in the first place. That Alice asked it right out of the gate was almost perfectly ironic. The only thing worse would have been if they"d given me a button that read, Beat me now, ask me how.
    “I—” My mouth went dry.
    “It"s all right if you don"t feel like sharing today.” I rose to my feet so fast that my chair tipped over. It clattered noisily to the floor, going off like a bomb in the quiet room, and I had to dive to pick it up. “I don"t belong here.”
    Alice rose, probably to forestall me. “At first it may seem like that, Yasha, but—”
    I took a deep breath. “The thing is, I"m not a victim, see? I knew what was going to happen. I picked the worst possible time to argue. I had the flu, and I couldn"t…” I decided it would have been a good thing if I"d stopped babbling a few St. Nacho’s 3: Jacob’s Ladder
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    minutes earlier. “I don"t belong here.” I took off out the door and headed toward the parking lot. I was making my way past the metal gates, when I heard the feminine sound of clackety heels tapping after me.
    “Hey, stop!”
    I turned, fully expecting to see Alice following me. Instead I was surprised to find my pie lady there, her sandals scrabbling along the pebbly blacktop as she chased after me. I slowed, afraid she"d hurt herself.
    “Yes?”
    She was chewing her lip. I could see that she"d come on a whim and now that she"d caught me she had no idea what to do with me.
    “I heard what you said. Back there. And I wanted to… I"m not a damned victim either.”
    I was surprised and ashamed. “I"m sorry if you think I meant… That is to say, I