Wait For Me

        "So, you coming tonight or what?"
        Uhm, I can't."
        It's not the guy again, is it?"
        Uhm, no."
        "You're lying to us."
        "Come on! It'll be fun! We haven't been bar hopping in ages. You never come out with us anymore. Stay at my place. He doesn't know where I live so it's not like he'll come looking for you there!"
        "Besides, have you seen her Dad? Dude could scare Satan."
        A faint smile crosses the pale and soft lips before they answer, "I just can't."
        The two other women sigh. They've been worried about their friend for over a month now. She hasn't so much as smiled in days. Her weight has been dropping for no reason. And she hasn't stopped looking over her shoulder for a solid three weeks.
        The woman with the short black hair releases a second sigh as she leans back into the couch. "Listen, Dad knows what's going on." She answers her friend's silent question without hesitation. "Yes. I told him, Aimee. I told him that I think your boyfriend is kicking the living shit out of you. I told him because I wanted to know if I could press charges."
        Aimee smiled just a little. It wasn't the attention. She hated the attention she received from the bruises. It was the concern. She'd thought that no one was asking because no one cared. "What did your Dad say?" The question was very soft, and very cautious.
        "He said I can't do a fucking thing until you decide to change things."
        Aimee sighed with visible relief.
        "How can you be relieved?"
        "How can I not, Kinsey?"
        "Aimee, he's going to keep hurting you no matter what you do." This was Aimee's other friend. Her deep brown eyes didn't even make an attempt to shade the fear in her voice.
        "He's going to stop, Kinsey. He will."
        "Damn it, Aimee! Stop thinking that you can change him. No matter how many times he tells you that he loves you, he'll turn around and beat the living shit out you! Stop thinking that you can change a monster! You can't. He's a fucking psycho, and he'll always be a fucking psycho!"
        Aimee frowned and forced her anger aside. "You have no right to make judgments about him, Lynn. You have no right--"
        "Bull shit! You're my friend and when I see you come to class with bruises and a fat lip, it becomes my business!" Lynn was on the point of screaming the words. Aimee may have been able to control her anger, but her friends were not.
        "Trust me," said Aimee with a very soft voice, and a gentle expression in her eyes. "It'll be okay. It'll stop in a couple of days. I promise."
        Her friends watched her carefully. A couple of days. She'd never said anything like that. It sounded as though she had something planned. Something that would end all of the beatings with the utmost simplicity.
        Lynn looked over at Kinsey. The latter never once took her eyes from Aimee's as she spoke, "Are you going to...You're not going to do something, are you?" It sounded like she was asking if her friend was going to kill her boyfriend. She hadn't thought it was going to come out that way. Her intention was a similar notion, only a self-inflicted one.
        "Oh gods, Kinsey," said Aimee, sitting up suddenly and looking rather shocked. "No. No. I wouldn't ever do that!"
        Kinsey blushed with embarrassment. Apparently, her unspoken murder had been the exchange. "I didn't mean kill him." She looked to Lynn, and then back to Aimee. "I meant, you're...Well, you're not going to...Or thinking of..." She hesitated. She and Lynn had both talked about the changes in their friend's behaviour. They'd spoken of that taboo subject. But they'd been avoiding a direct confrontation for reasons they didn't understand. "Well, I just mean..."
        Lynn stepped in and abruptly cut her friend's words short. "Are you planning on killing yourself?"
        Aimee stared. She couldn't think of a reply. Lynn's voice was harsh and direct. Her eyes were anything but. She'd asked the question while looking at the wall directly behind her friend's head. Her hands were stuffed deep into her pockets. She was biting the inside of her mouth. Kinsey's reaction was something of the same. Her hands were clenched into small fists, and her eyes were directed to the floor.
        Aimee realized she would have to tell them. She would have to tell them everything.
        "Aimee?" Kinsey's voice was quiet.
        "I'm not going to kill myself," answered the girl with the chestnut hair and the green eyes. "Though, I'll be honest, I've thought about it a lot lately. Hell, I tried to do it."
        Neither Lynn nor Kinsey made any reply. This was turning into some cheesy teen soap opera. And they both had a feeling they knew what was coming out next.
        Aimee hadn't been going out to the parties at all. She'd been avoiding the bars as though they carried the plague. She drank nothing but water and milk.
        "You're pregnant." Lynn and Kinsey spoke together.
        Aimee nodded her head softly. "Yeah."
        "And he's still beating you."
        "Yeah."
        "So you haven't told him."
        "No."
        "When?"
        "Tomorrow night. After class."
        "What's he going to say?"
        Aimee fell silent. It was her turn to stare at the floor. "No idea."
        Lynn sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "So, are we supposed to congratulate you?"
        Aimee shrugged.
        "Are you keeping it?" asked Kinsey.
        Aimee shrugged again.
        "You're going to base that on his reaction, aren't you," said Lynn, a deep resentment in her voice.
        Aimee just shrugged again.
        "Well, we're for you either way," she added after a minute of silence had passed.
        Kinsey smiled a bit. "So, what do you mean by that 'Couple of days' thing?"
        Aimee answered softly, "Well, either he stops, or I walk out."
        Lynn and Kinsey looked to one another with skepticism.
        "I'm serious about this one," said Aimee, a definite anger in her tone. "I can't risk anything this time around."
        "This time around?" asked Kinsey.
        Aimee looked to both her friends in turn, and spoke with a slight tremor to her voice. "Uhm, think you guys can wait outside for me tomorrow night?"
        Kinsey looked over to Lynn with an inquisitive expression. "Why?"
        Aimee hesitated to answer. "Uhm, because last time I told him I was pregnant, he pushed me down the stairs and threw me out the door."