Chapter 5 - Providence
It was a beautiful autumn morning. Jane stopped for a moment, to marvel at the scene: brown, green, blue and white... all colors were shining brightly through the early-morning fog. Though it was a pretty sight, Jane hurried back home. She never liked leaving her mother to watch Nate for longer than necessary. Even now, three years after she had escaped David, Jane felt paranoid about his return.
Jane remembered the day her friend Lara had rescued her. Jane cried the whole way, begging Lara to take her back to David. It was not because Jane wanted to go back, but because she was convinced that David would do something horrible if she escaped. He had promised to not only hurt her, but to hurt her family and friends as well.
Lara had done as she had promised. But instead of Connecticut, Lara had driven Jane and her mom to Montana, where the two had started new lives, with new identities. Jane could barely recognize herself back then, when she had looked into the mirror. Her usually brown hair had been dyed blonde. Her face looked... off. She had lash-extensions and fillers; neither of which did she remember getting. It was not herself that she saw, when she looked into the mirror. It wasn't Jane. It was David's version of Jane. A cheap imitation, a copy, that lacked all the heart and soul of the real deal.
After Jane found her new home, she never left. Lara and Jane's mom had both been instrumental to Jane's recovery. It had taken months, even a year, for Jane to get used to her normal routine. Still, Jane felt she would never truly, fully heal. There was still a part of her that recited David's words, and believed his lies. Even now.
Despite the trauma Jane still carried with her, she had been able to maintain a relatively normal life. She had a family, friends, and a job. She'd enrolled back in medical school a year late, and finished her degree last year. Now she worked part-time, weekends and nights mostly. Jane made sure to be around her son as much as possible, but with the responsibilities of life, she could not protect him every single moment.
David had disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again. Jane never learned his last name, and could only give a vague description of him to the police. His true identity was never revealed. Lara thought that by now, David would be on the other side of the world, sipping cocktails in Cuba or running a human trafficking ring in Malaysia. There was one thing that Jane was sure of, though. He would be back one day; if not for her, then for their son.
Jane knew the day would come. But still, when she saw him standing there, in the small park outside her house, Jane froze. All the things she had been preparing to do escaped Jane's mind. She was frozen in fear, unable to do anything but to stand in place, and wait for David to walk up to her.
"Hi," David said casually, as if they were old friends.
Jane opened her lips to scream, but no sound came out. Jane felt herself getting woozy, struggling to keep her balance. When she stumbled to the ground, David caught her, and brought her to a park bench to sit down.
"How are you?" he asked.
"How am I? How dare you ask me that?" Jane wanted to say... But still, even as she tried, no words came out.
David leaned forward, and took Jane into his arms. First it was a warm hug, then kisses were raining down, on her forehead, neck, and lips. Jane tried to turn away, to get away, but was unable to. Jane hated herself for it, but she still wanted him.
The dreams of David finding her and taking her back were part nightmare, part wet dream. In her dreams, Jane would fight back. But David would always overpower her. The dreams ended with him fucking her, and her loving it. Jane would wake up aroused, and ashamed of her body's reactions.
Jane had always told herself that those dreams were just that... dreams. They were just her mind's attempt to process her trauma, nothing more. They had nothing to do with reality, or with her true desires. But now David was here, doing all the things he did to her in her dreams, and she was aroused by it. She had been wet, even from just seeing him.
"I love you, baby," David whispered, as he kissed her.
That sentence... Jane had never heard him say something like it before. It was enough to snap Jane out of her daydream, and back into reality.
"Fuck you, David! You're not capable of love!" Jane shouted, and pushed David off her.
"Baby... please, just stay and talk?"
David did not attempt to prevent Jane from leaving, or pull her back into his arms. He seemed... different than what Jane remembered. It almost seemed like it wasn't David at all, but just a lookalike. His looks and mannerisms were the same, but his actions were so different, that he seemed almost alien.
"We don't have anything to talk about," said Jane, coldly. "Now, you have one minute to get out of my sight, or I'll call the cops."
Jane struggled, speaking those words. Part of her wanted to see David rotting in hell, while the other part of her wanted to be in his arms.
"I know you love me too," David said, disregarding Jane's threats.
"No I don't!"
"So you kept my baby, and named him after my dad, just because?"
Another woozy feeling took over Jane, and she struggled to keep herself upright. She fell back onto the bench, gasping for air. Was that really true? She didn't remember ever even learning David's dad's name. The name "Nate" had just been in the back of her mind, and she had picked it because she loved the sound of it.
"No... no, I didn't. I didn't name him after that!" Jane cried hysterically.
"Jane. I know you didn't really want to leave me. It was that friend of yours... she just pulled you out of that store, and into her car, right? You didn't know what to do. You were afraid..."
David was twisting the facts, telling himself a version of the past that he wanted to believe. Jane wanted to correct him, to say that she had wanted to leave...but she wasn't sure she did. But back then, David had brainwashed her so much, that even her thoughts and feelings weren't her own.
"I... I wanted..." Jane started, before David cut her off.
"You wanted a family. You begged me to put a baby in you."
All those memories of the time in David's cottage were still hazy. Bits and pieces had come to Jane, in her dreams. But it was always hard to say, which dreams were memories, and which ones were just nightmares.
Jane remembered one dream that kept coming back to her. It was one of the dreams that always made her equally aroused, and ashamed. In the dream, she had been lying in David's bed. David had come back from some errand, and wasted no time. He had taken off his clothes, and started fucking Jane's pussy, calling her names while he did. Jane had encouraged him, calling herself a "worthless cunt", and begged him to cum in her. Jane would tell him that she needed to carry his child, so she could finally have some value.
Thinking off that dream made Jane ridiculously aroused. If David wanted to take her now, Jane doubted she would even fight back.
"You want me to fuck you."
It was like David could read Jane's mind. She did want David to fuck her... just like he used to. Jane wanted him...no, needed him to fuck her. Right there, on the park bench. Jane didn't even care who saw.
"I know you haven't been with anyone else, since me."
How did David know these things? Had he been spying on her, or was she just so easy to read? David was right about everything. It had always been like that, and always would.
Jane had tried dating, about a year after her separation from David. She had tried sleeping with other men, but had never been able to. Being with anyone besides David just felt wrong. And even though Jane knew it was just her brainwashing talking, she still couldn't help it.
"I haven't been with anyone else, either."
Why did it make Jane happy to hear that? When she had imagined David with someone else... taking another girl, as he had taken her... she felt jealous. Jealous of whoever got to share his bed, and be his whore.
"I never told you why I took you home with me. Remember? You asked why, and I said it was fate?"
Jane did remember. David had said something about her "being brought to him for a reason", and claimed it was fate that brought them together. Jane had always wondered what he'd meant by it.
"Three years ago, just a month before we met at the lake, I was on a road-trip, driving through the east coast. I don't remember why, but I just felt like I needed to stop by in Rhode Island. Providence, to be exact. I mean, who wants to take a trip through Rhode Island, right? So that's strange enough already."
Jane's whole body tensed. She knew where the story was going, even though she hadn't heard it before.
"I saw the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was... straight out of my daydreams. Athletic, sexy, but still innocent. It was love at first sight."
Recalling her trip to Providence all those years ago, Jane struggled to remember the details. She had been there with someone... an ex-lover.
"Then she runs into the arms of some pathetic stoner, and starts making out with him. So I just had to know, why the fuck a girl like her would choose a loser like that."
Josh! That was his name. Josh... something.
"I followed them around, heard enough details to find the girl on social media. Learned her name was Jane, that she went to Brown, and was originally from Middlefield, Connecticut."
So that's why David had always known when she lied. He'd already known everything about her, before she even stepped foot in the woods near Lake Superior.
"The more I followed them, the more intrigued I was. She was smart, and beautiful... and still dating that loser. It just didn't make any sense. The only option was that he just had a huge cock, and she was with him for the sex."
"That's not true!" Jane interjected, when she listened to the story.
"Whatever it was, I just let it go. Didn't want to be involved with some slut."
"I'm not a slut!" Jane interrupted again, wanting to set the record straight. It should not have mattered to her, if David thought she was a slut, or not... but still, it did. She wanted to yell at him, plead with him: anything to make him stop calling her that.
"I know, baby. I'm just telling you what I thought back then."
