Chapter 7 - He Made Me Act Crazy
“I should have left before.”
“Yes.”
Selah flinched.
Then nodded.
“I keep replaying it.”
“The throw?”
“No. Your face when I told him not to break a nail.”
Reese said nothing.
Selah swallowed.
“I wanted him to make you smaller because I felt small around him and didn’t want to admit it.”
That was more honest than Reese expected.
“And?”
“And when he grabbed you, I laughed because everyone else did and because if I didn’t laugh, I’d have to admit I knew what his hand felt like.”
Reese’s expression shifted.
Just slightly.
There it was.
The bruise beneath the smirk.
Not an excuse.
A pattern.
“Did he hurt you?”
Selah looked toward the street.
“Not like that.”
Reese waited.
Selah breathed out.
“He held my wrists. Blocked doors. Took my keys once. Said I made him act crazy.”
Reese nodded once.
“Then yes.”
Selah’s eyes filled.
“I don’t want to be dramatic.”
Reese leaned against the porch rail.
“That word keeps a lot of women quiet.”
Selah cried then.
No audience.
No performance.
Just a woman realizing the joke she laughed at had been pointed at herself too.
Reese did not hug her.
But she took the muffin bag.
“Come back tomorrow,” she said.
Selah looked up.
“Why?”
“We’ll talk about safety planning.”
Selah blinked.
“You’d help me?”
Reese held her gaze.
“I said no to Briggs. Not to you.”
The next day, Harlan joined them at Reese’s request.
Not as savior.
As witness.
They built a plan.
Passwords changed.
Locks checked.
Screenshots saved.
Shared friends warned carefully.
No dramatic threats.
No showdown.
No rematch.
No ego management.
Safety first.
Briggs showed up once at Selah’s apartment.
She did not open the door.
He pounded twice.
Then left after seeing Harlan’s truck pull into the lot.
Harlan did not confront him.
He simply parked.
Sometimes presence is enough when it carries consequences.
Briggs eventually stopped contacting Selah directly after his veterans’ group leader called him in for a private conversation.
Harlan had made one phone call.
Only one.
Not to expose Reese.
To tell an old network that one of their own was using training and status to intimidate civilians.
Good communities correct their dangerous men before courts have to.
Bad ones protect them.
This one, thankfully, did not entirely fail.
Briggs apologized publicly in the backyard group chat.
It was stiff.
Probably drafted with help.
I grabbed Reese after she clearly declined to participate. I escalated a situation I framed as a joke. Her response was defensive and controlled. I was wrong.
Reese read it twice.
Then put the phone down.
Lily, doing homework at the table, looked up.
“Bad text?”
“Complicated text.”
“From shoe guy?”
Reese almost choked on her coffee.
“Shoe guy?”
“The man who fell.”
“Yes. From him.”
“Did he tie them this time?”
Reese laughed so hard she had to sit down.
That laugh became one of the first good memories attached to the barbecue.
Not the throw.
Not the fear.
May you like
Lily naming Briggs accurately enough to remove his power.
Shoe guy.
