It took me more than ten minutes to step out of the bedroom, the phone still ringing from the living room. My legs simply refused to work, and in the end, I crawled to the living room to get my phone which by now had gone silent. It was Anna and Erik. Between them, they had called a total of ten times.

The sound of wheels crunching against the gravel of my driveway made me jump and for a moment I thought that David had returned. I scrambled back to the bedroom, not wanting to risk looking out the window. Maybe that's how the mind worked, I thought then. Self-preservation always came first.

"Sam? Are you in here?"

Anna.

I scrambled towards the door, opened it and rushed towards her. That movement - running into her arms - brought me back to a time when I was a little girl. It flashed before my eyes and stayed there as Anna let go of Michael's hand and caught me in her arms, holding me for a few moments. Then she pulled away and looked at me, her hand wiping the blood that flowed from a cut on my lip.

"Jesus H. Christ, Sam. Did David do this to you? I've been trying to call you but your phone just kept on ringing - oh, here's your phone."

She bent down to pick up my phone from the floor, its screen lighting up from an incoming call. "It's Erik."

In my rush to run back into the bedroom when she drove in, I'd dropped the phone back on the floor instead of taking it with me. I could have called the police by now, I thought then. It had simply never occurred to me.

As she answered the phone, she pulled me down to the couch, her hand stroking my hair. "Erik, it's me, Anna. Yes, she's fine. Shaken up with a few bruises, but...she's fine." Anna looked at me, a steely resolve in her eyes as she hung up.

"He and Josh are at the airport," she said. "They landed but have been stuck on the tarmac for the last half hour. Don't show your face to Michael, Sam. You're a mess."

Anna let go of me and bent down to talk to Michael. "Baby cakes, why don't you go to your room and check out the trains? James and Gordon must be lonely!"

At the mention of his other trains, Michael marched into his room and within seconds, we heard the sound of toys being laid out on the floor from his toy bin. "That should get him preoccupied for awhile," Anna said. She led me to the bathroom and helped me freshen up the best I could.

David had hit me right under my left cheekbone and it was already puffy. The time he hit me had split my lip. "Shit, let me get some ice for you." Anna said and left the bathroom.

Alone in the bathroom, I dared to look at my bruises up close, tears welling in my eyes again. I thought of Erik and why he'd gone to New Mexico to investigate David, and why he hadn't bothered to tell me. I wondered then if it would have made a difference? I'd had still gone home to pick up my mail even though Erik usually did it while I was in the middle of my therapy sessions.

Anna returned to the bathroom with an ice bag and gently pressed it against my face. "Let's get you out in the living room, Sam. You need to sit down."

"Erik's on his way here," she said. "You and him can go together to the police station and file a report while I take Michael back home."

"I want to go home," I whispered.

"What?"

"I want to go home," I repeated, this time more forcefully. I set down the ice bag on the couch and went into Michael's room. I grabbed whatever was left of Michael's clothes in his dresser and stuffed them into the first bag I could find in the closet. Then I tossed in two brand new toothbrushes and a handful of my own clothes. Two pairs of jeans, underwear and four t-shirts.

"What are you doing, Sam?" Anna asked as I took another bag and began tossing Michael's toys in it, ignoring his protests as he was in the middle of setting up some tracks on the floor.

"I'm going home," I said, loudly this time.

"Okay," Anna said slowly, perplexed. "But you don't have to pack anything. You already have most of your stuff at Erik's-"

"I'm not going home to Erik! And I don't want to hear any more about Erik, mom. As if David needed one more reason to come after me, this time he did this -" I pointed to the bruises on my face. "- because Erik went to New Mexico to snoop on David without telling me."

"Oh, honey-"

"I'm tired of everyone else deciding my life for me, deciding what I'm supposed to know and what I'm not supposed to know - for my own good, or whatever reason they have it in their heads to do whatever it is they do to help me."

"Okay," Anna said slowly. "But if Erik's house isn't home, then you already are home, Sam. There's no need to pack your things-"

"This home belongs to Eunice," I began to babble now. "Erik's home is Erik's, and I'm not going to go back there, not after he decided I wasn't good enough, or smart enough to know the reason why he and Josh were flying to New Mexico. He couldn't even trust me enough to tell me why, mom. Why? Am I so stupid-?"

"The last thing I want to do is drive you back to that old house where you don't belong," Anna said. "You're in shock, Sam-"

"There!" I said, fighting the urge to scream at her. "See what you just did? You know more about me and what I'm going through than I do. Just like everyone else. You're not well, Sam. You need rest, Sam. You're such a delicate flower, Sam. Screw him silly, Sam. Well, if you're not going to take me home, mom, then I'm going to drive myself there."

"But your hand- "

"I don't care about my hand," I wailed and from the corner of my eye, I could see Michael stand by the door of his room, clutching a toy train to his chest. "I just want to get out of this damn place already and away from all the damn perfect people who like to run my life and tell me what to do! Can't you just listen to what I'm trying to tell you?"

Anna stared at me for a few seconds, her lips set in a straight line. "I know exactly what you're trying to tell me-"

"I don't want to hear about what you think I'm trying to tell you, mom," I said, scooping a protesting Michael with my injured arm, the bag of toys hanging precariously on one handle from my other arm. "All I want to know is - are you or are you not going to help me get the hell out of here?"

Anna stared at me for a few moments, frowning. Then her shoulders slumped as she sighed, picking up her keys from the coffee table. "You're my daughter, Sam. Of course I'm going to help you."

"That's all I ask of you-"

"-even if it's to help you run away," she continued. "Like you always do."

"What?" I asked, my face burning with the realization of what Anna had just said.

"Don't pretend you didn't hear what I said, Sam," Anna replied, her green eyes flashing defiantly. "Your knight in shining armor finally makes a mistake, and here you are, running away. That's true love for you, Sam. Bravo! I'm really happy for you."

I put the bags down onto the floor as Michael squirmed away from my other arm and rushed towards her. I must scare him, I thought, but my mind was too intent on other things at that moment.

"But he couldn't even trust me-"

"Oh! So now that he's made this one mistake, you won't even give him a chance to explain himself?" Anna said. "You, of all people suddenly cannot give the one man who's accepted you just the way you are the same chance he's given you time and time again? Was that the way you were with me, Sam? Was that why you pretended not to even know me when you saw me at Erik's office - because I made a huge mistake when I chose smack over you?"

"No-"

"That's a way bigger mistake, by the way, than Erik flying off to New Mexico and not telling you why," she added. "Your hero fell, Sam. He's human. He makes mistakes. Why the hell do you think you can solve this by running away?"

Anna lifted Michael up, smiling at him before turning serious again as she looked at me. "Newsflash, Sam. We all make mistakes. You with David. Erik with Serena. Me and my whole fucking life until you came back and made everything better. They're called mistakes and we all make them - no exceptions."

She stroked Michael's thick hair, forcing a smile towards him as he laughed back at her. "But we also make the right decisions - no matter how small they may seem. Us and every damn accomplishment is a win. Hell, every morning that I wake up alive is win. Me having you. This little guy here, my pride and joy - thanks to you - is one of the biggest, if not the biggest win in my life."

"Win! Win!" Michael laughed.

"And then there's you and Erik, Sam," she continued. " You and Erik. What you two have gone through together so far - that's one hell of an accomplishment. Everyone knows it, Sam. Except you."

She shook her head, laughing drily. "And now you're going to use Erik flying off to New Mexico without telling you why as an excuse to run away. And you know why that is? Because you can't accept the fact that you're actually happy, really happy with him. You're so damn stuck on how you believe you're supposed to feel - worthless, useless - that you can't see what's right in front of you. Maybe it's how I made you feel when I was too strung out on dope, I don't know. But I bet it's how David made you feel, too, so you think it must be how things should be. But it's time to wake up, Sam, because things don't have to be that way."

"But I can't let Erik do things like this behind my back and believe it's okay," I said. "It's my life, too."

"So you talk to him, Sam! You don't just call it quits just because he made one mistake. If you walk out that door right now, you just let David win. And I hate to say this, Sam, but if that's the case, then you don't deserve him and he'll never be able to make this relationship work all by himself. You've got to fight for it, too - that is, if that is what you want."

Before I could say anything, Erik arrived, tires screeching to a stop as he parked the car in front of the house. He ran into the living room and rushed towards me, his face turning pale as he saw the bruises on my face. I was still carrying the bag with Michael's toys but I dropped it to the floor when he gathered me in his arms.

I was suddenly tired. The adrenaline rush had somehow dissipated and in Erik's arms, all I could see behind my closed lids, were words - as if they were spelling themselves inside my head. Maybe it was the shock of it all, and the shame that I had allowed it to happen. And the guilt of knowing I had to find someone to blame for what had happened. Whatever it was, the words comforted me like a blanket, the way Erik's arms felt at that moment.

I'd always believed I was alone. Even when Eunice was there to guide me and show me that there was another world available to me, opening my eyes to the art that lay inside of me, I still felt alone. Even with Rosie and Chuck, and their kids calling me auntie and treating me like I was family, I'd always still felt alone. And just minutes earlier, just before Anna dispensed her wisdom to me, colored by her guilt and her pain that I just now realized she never spoke about, I was still convincing myself that I was alone.

But I wasn't alone. I was never alone. For if I was, it was only inside myself, as I hid behind the walls I'd built so I wouldn't be hurt anymore.

As hot tears fell down my cheeks, Michael began to cry. My nose began to run. Anna told us that she was going to take Michael home and get him away from the mess for awhile. She told Erik to take me to the police station, and he agreed, saying that Josh was already there, waiting for us. This was going to be reported, he said, and I had no choice about it.

He told me then that whatever we needed to discuss, whether I was leaving or I was staying with him, we could talk about after the police report was filed.

"You heard everything?" I asked, pulling away from him. "Are you recording me?"

Erik looked around the room, as if searching for something. He took a step towards the couch, picked up my phone lying on the couch and showed it to me.

"One of you forgot to hang up the phone, Sam, so I heard what you said, about what you wanted to do. I couldn't listen anymore, so you don't have to worry about me having heard everything. I only heard what I needed to hear," he said, handing me my phone so I could end the call. I glanced at Anna, shame filling me for what I had said earlier, the cowardice behind my desire to run away. But Anna was no longer paying attention to us. She was busy calming Michael in the kitchen, away from the sight of me crying which had upset Michael.

"Erik, I was wrong-"

"No, Sam, I was wrong," Erik said. "I was wrong not to trust you enough to tell you what I was doing in Albuquerque. And I can't blame you for wanting to do what you need to do. So if you want to leave, I won't stop you at all."

Not wanting to intrude on our strained conversation, Anna said a quick good-bye as she slipped out of the house with Michael in her arms, with a reminder to put the ice on my face. I waited till she backed up the car from the driveway and turned the corner before I turned to face Erik.

"I was angry when I said that - angry and afraid that I'd ended up with another man who would run like my life the way David did," I said.

"I would not run your life for you, Sam," Erik said. "And that was not my intention when I went to Albuquerque."

"Whatever your intention was, Erik, was it worth it?"

Erik looked away, his jaw tensing. He shook his head. "Nothing is worth what you had to go through with David today, Sam."

The pain in Erik's eyes was unbearable. His eyes always told me so much, sometimes more than he was willing to say. I could always tell whether he was happy or sad, though there were so many other emotions that fit into the space between happiness and sadness. But this one, the look of regret and loss in his eyes now, I'd seen only once before. It was in Ojai, as we reached the ridge where Josh had left those two large stones in memory of his parents. It was the same look he had then when he told me about them, and how they'd died.

He thinks he's already lost me, I thought.

"Erik, it's my house, and I have every right to come home to my own house," I began, the need to bring him back to me, away from the feeling of loss and despair taking over any other feeling I felt then. "So how can this be your fault? If it didn't happen today, David waiting for me here, it would have happened some other time. You can't be with me all the time."

"And that's what I'm afraid of, Sam," Erik said, pulling me back into his arms and holding me there. "I wish I could protect you from him, and stop him from hurting you even when he's not nearby. I'm tired of feeling helpless, Sam, of knowing there's nothing I can do to stop him from hurting you."

"You already do so much for me, Erik," I said. I could feel his fingers gently stroking my hair, his breath fanning the top of my head.

"It's not enough," he said. "Not when all David has to do is say a word and you crumble. And then there's this, when he comes after you and hits you. And I'm helpless to stop him because I can't be everywhere."

He paused, and exhaled. "I just wanted to fix things and make things better. I know it's not what you expected, me flying off to Albuquerque to find out more about David and his past, but it's how I prefer to work - behind the scenes - and I didn't want you to worry-"

I pulled away, wanting to see his face. "What exactly do you mean behind the scenes?"

"I like to fix things as quietly as I can, Sam. That's the way I work," he replied. He'd let me go and stood to face the window. "But this time, I did it wrong. I was so determined to find something against David that I shut you out completely. Even when you asked me this morning, I still shut you out and I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you by not telling you what Josh and I were doing."

He sighed, turning to look at me. "Look, we need to get to the police station and file the report. You can't let him get away with this, Sam. Not anymore."

"And he won't, Erik. This is what I can use against David that will actually stand in court," I said, pointing to my face. "When he broke my hand two years ago, I was stupid enough to tell everyone that I fell in the garden because I was so afraid he'd use my past against me, and take Michael away-"

"I'll never let that happen, Sam. I promise. If I'd known he was going to go after you -" He shook his head, frustrated. "Hell, even if he wouldn't have gone after you, I shouldn't have kept anything from you, Sam. I should have just told you, and together, we could have figured out what to do. I mean, with everything else, I wanted you to come to that decision yourself without me telling you want to do. But this-"

"Well, it's done, Erik. There's nothing we can do to un-do it," I whispered, touching his grizzled jaw from four to five days of not shaving. I actually liked it, his beard hairs soft against my fingers. "I just wish I could take back the things I said, the things that you heard me say on the phone to Anna. I was just scared-"

"And I wish I could do over this whole day, and tell you the truth of what Josh and I were doing in New Mexico," Erik said, stroking my cheek gently. "I just wanted to make things right, Sam."

As I gazed at him, his blue eyes darker than I last remembered, the shadows falling upon his face, I remembered what Anna told me. Was I really going to run away from all this - from Erik - all because of one mistake? Hadn't I learned enough about his acceptance of me, despite my past? Wasn't I just scared to accept my new reality - this happy ending that I knew I deserved?

And didn't Erik deserve one, too?