The weight of protection

“You’re more than suffocating me,” I stated, my voice laced with undeniable frustration and anger. "Look, I appreciate the concern, but I need you to understand something. I've remained level-headed this entire time and I'm not freaking out. I am actively moving on, and I'm trying to reclaim my life, but you’re making it beyond difficult."

He stood there, visibly stunned, his hands dropping from my shoulders as if burned. "But after everything..."

"Exactly, after everything," I cut him off, my patience thinning. "I need to process this on my own. Do you remember that night at the restaurant? The night my ex-husband showed up?"

Vince’s face clouded, a grim memory. "Of course. Darnell warned us he was close, drunk, and had a gun."

"And if Darnell hadn't warned us, Vince, if he hadn't reacted in that split second, I would most likely be dead." The words hung in the air, cold and stark, forcing him to fully grasp the gravity.

Vince’s jaw tightened. "I know. And you still went straight out the door to talk to him. I still don't understand that."

"He needed to finally let me go, Vince. He was a desperate man making a desperate move, and I felt I had to face it, to try and end it then and there. It was my decision, and it was the only way I saw forward. I tried to explain that to him."

That’s when I told Vince what happened that night.

The cool night air of the parking lot was a stark contrast to the warmth and light inside the restaurant. Xavier was slumped on the curb, hunched over, clutching a liquor bottle in one hand. The moonlight glinted off the cold metal of a gun in his other, barely held, yet its presence was terrifying. I immediately noticed the safety was off. He looked pathetic, broken, and dangerously unstable.

"Xavier," I said, my voice steady, trying to project a calmness I didn't entirely feel. "Xavier, please. Hand me the gun."

He barely registered my presence at first, muttering incoherently to himself. Then his head snapped up, his eyes bloodshot and swollen, fixing on me with a chilling intensity. "Deppgrl," he slurred, a broken, bitter laugh escaping him. He raised the bottle, taking a long swig. "You... you hurt me. With the divorce. Never meant to hurt you, though. Not really. But you... you took everything. And now... now it's revenge."

His hand trembled violently, and the bottle slipped from his grasp, shattering on the asphalt with a surprisingly loud crash. The sharp sound seemed to jolt him, his eyes widening in a sudden, violent realization. In that split second, his focus sharpened, and with a sickening motion, he raised the gun, pointing it directly at me.

As Xavier’s finger was pulling the trigger back, time began to distort. From the corner of my eye, I saw Darnell—he had positioned himself a few feet away, a silent sentinel watching my back. He lunged, and I felt a tremendous impact, a body slamming into me, sending us both sprawling with brutal force onto the blacktop of the parking lot. My head hit the concrete step with a sickening thud, and then darkness swallowed me.

"That's what happened," I finished, the memory still vivid, the phantom ache in my skull a cruel reminder. "I'm telling you all of this, Vince, because this isn't just affecting you. It's affecting me. It’s affecting Darnell—he’s still not cleared for duty because of that dive and being hit in the bicep with the bullet meant to kill me. His mother is absolutely petrified about losing Darnell. She’s a widow, Vince. Her husband died on the job saving someone quite similarly to how Darnell saved me.”

I paused, letting the implications sink in. "It's affecting my brother, my parents, and the rest of my family. They're all concerned, but they aren’t suffocating me. They are giving me my space because that's how I deal best with things. Babying me does not help me, Vince. It hurts me instead, because it’s showing me that you believe that I’m capable to deal with this on my own terms."

Vince stood there, speechless, the color draining from his face as the full weight of my words and the unvarnished truth of that night settled over him. His shoulders slumped, the tension slowly leaving his body as he finally seemed to comprehend the depth of my experience and my need for autonomy.

"I understand," he mumbled, his gaze falling to his hands. "I've been so scared for you, Deppgrl. I don't want to lose you."

"I know," I said. "And I appreciate that, truly. But you can't protect me by caging me. You protect me by trusting me to tell you what I need, and right now, I need space to breathe. I need you to understand that my way of coping isn't to be coddled."

He slowly looked up, his eyes still clouded, but with a flicker of understanding rather than just fear. "Okay," he said, taking a shaky breath. "Okay. I’ll try.”

"Thank you. That's all I'm asking for. And frankly, I need more than just you trying right now." I took a deep breath, the difficult words forming. "Vince, I need you to head home for a few days. I need real space. This isn't up for discussion. I'll call you when I'm ready."

He flinched, then nodded, his face etched with a fresh wave of hurt, but this time, it was mixed with acceptance. He turned and quietly left the room. The air in the house, thick with unspoken anxieties, slowly began to thin. The conversation had been brutal, but it felt necessary. Now, perhaps, I could finally begin to process everything without feeling constantly monitored.

A few days later, the notification for the sentencing hearing and I was needed at the sentencing hearing. The date was set, a stark reminder that this chapter, too, was coming to a close.

Kay called me a few minutes later and asked if I had privacy. I said that I did as Vince is finally home and I have some quiet. She sighed.

“Xavier…sorry. You’re ex-husband is on suicide watch,” she sighed. “He wants to talk to you.”

“It’s not happening and you know that,” I said. “I’m not Pope John Paul II…one visit won’t make me forgive him nor absolve him of what he’s done to me, to Darnell, nor the women who were underage at the time.”

“I just about said the same exact thing to his lawyer,” she sighed. “The judge’s clerk approved it while the judge was out on leave.”

I sighed. “What do you need me to do, Kay?”

“You’ll be escorted by the police in unmarked cars to the courthouse, spend five minutes with him, his lawyer and I and then you’ll be able to go home.”

“And under watch again?”

“Most likely,” she said. “The sooner this is over, the sooner your protection is over.”

I sighed. I gathered my stuff and there was Darnell at my front door.

“Ready, Deppgrl?” he asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said.

The few minute drive was quiet; he knew that sometimes I just need it to be quiet. As we were parking, he told me that I wouldn’t be an official visitor. I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“You could roll your eyes into the next dimension only if you rolled your eyes a little harder,” Darnell joked.

“Funny,” I said with sarcasm with dripping from my voice. “Let’s get this done with.”

We took so many twists and turns and we finally met up with Kay and my ex-husband’s lawyer. Kay grabbed my hand and asked if I was ready; I said that I was.

We were escorted into a very small room where there was two correctional officers, my ex-husband handcuffed to a table, Kay, his lawyer and myself. Darnell was invited in but he declined.

“What do you want, Xavier?” I nearly spat out. “I spent overy twenty years searching for you and now you want to spend time with me? Who do you think I am – a naïve child?”

“I want you,” he said. “It’s always been you.”

“Did you know that this was going to be the bull shit that would drag me here?” I turned to his lawyer.

“Yes. I tried to tell him that it would be best for the sentencing hearing that he wouldn’t talk to you but the clerk is new and signed off on this.”

“You don’t get to tell me how you feel about me anymore,” I said. “Did you forget that you have a restraining order against you? I am more than happy to have that expanded to anyone and everyone you know.”

Xavier didn’t say anything but slumped in his chair. Kay and I left that tiny room. I heard a secondary click then I looked at her.

“I recorded everything and will be submitting anonymously to the judge who let his new clerk sign off on everything and to the judge for the sentencing hearing.”

“Any news about that ER physician?” I asked.

“My colleagues and I reached out to a number of the patients to see if they would say anything,” she explained. “So many got back to us and we submitted typed complaints about him. There’s now an internal review of every order, test and prescription he has written.”

I sighed in relief.

“As for Vince?” Kay said. “He’s good for you and I am thankful that you told him to go home. He called me after he got home. I told him that I am the last person to talk about this with because I will always have your back.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Darnell and I left in silence. When we arrived to my house, there was a police presence. It was much bigger this time. I looked up at Darnell. “It’s going to be soon, right? With what Kay submitted?”

“Yeah, kid,” he sighed. “It will be.”