He’d gone“overboard,”stopping a man from dragging me into the trees?
Maybe he had hit him too many times.
Maybe he saw something in that man that reminded him of someone else.
Maybe once you start fighting, it’s hard to stop.
But I knew what would’ve happened if he hadn’t appeared.
My body knew.
My instincts knew.
That prickling, crawling terror under my skin knew.
“You don’t understand,” I told the officer, voice trembling now for a completely different reason. “He saved me.”
“Maybe so,” the voice on the line said, flat and tired, the kind of tired that sounded like it had seen every horrible thing the world could toss at it and was just… done. “But that’s not what it looks like in the report. We have to work with the evidence we’ve got.”
The evidence. Blood on Jaxon’s hands. The other man on the ground. No, me in sight. No context. Just two men and a lot of damage.
“Will anyone… will anyone contact me?” I asked. “For a statement in person? Or—”
“They might,” he said. “I’ll flag your report. If the investigating officer needs more detail, they’ll be in touch.”
If. Might.
“It doesn’t feel like enough,” I whispered.
“I know,” he said, and maybe, for a second, he meant it. Then his tone shifted back. “Is there anything else you’d like to add?”
I thought of the way Jaxon had looked up once, just once, checking if I was okay. The way he’d stepped between the attacker and the path, making himself the barrier. The way he’d raised his hands for the officers before they even told him to.
“No,” I said finally. “That’s all.”
“Thank you for calling, Ms… Whitaker.” Paper rustled as he glanced at my file again. “If you feel unsafe or notice any suspicious activity near your home, call us back immediately. Okay?”
I hung up before I could say something unforgivable. Before I could tell him that the only thing that made me feel unsaferight now was the idea that the one person who’d helped me was sitting in a cell somewhere, alone.
The silence after the call felt thicker. Heavier. By afternoon, I was sitting on the floor of my apartment, back against the wall, staring at the tin star ornament in my hand.
I bought it at the Christmas market just last week. A little handmade thing from a stall run by an old woman with a knitted hat in the shape of a Christmas pudding. The tin was slightly dented, the silver paint flaking at the edges, but when the light caught it just right, it shimmered.
I was going to hang it by my window, like I always do. My little tradition. One star every year. A line of them now, dangling on thin ribbons, gently spinning whenever the radiator air stuttered to life. This one was supposed to be this year’s star. But now it just felt… empty.
I turned it over in my fingers, the edge biting lightly into my skin. The tiny, stamped pattern of snowflakes along one point caught on the pad of my thumb. Someone did something for me. Something brave. Something violent, yes, but necessary. He stopped that man. He gave me a chance to run.
He gave me the chance to be sitting here, on this floor, in my slightly shabby apartment with its rattling windows and secondhand cushions and half-dead plants, holding a stupid tin star and thinking about what might have happened if I’d chosen the other route home. And now he’s in jail because no one saw it the way I did.
Because I didn’t stay. I ran. I left him there. I know, logically, that I did what I had to do. Every instinct said get away, and I listened. That’s what all the advice says: if you can escape, escape. Don’t go back. Don’t put yourself in more danger.
But logic doesn’t make the guilt any softer. The guilt is sharp. Sharper than anything I’ve felt in years. Sharper even than thegrief that settled into me after my mom died, because at least with that I knew there was nothing I could’ve done. Here?
Here, there’s a man with blood on his hands and my safety on his conscience, and I climbed over that gift and ran home to lock my door. I press the star to my chest, feel the cold metal through the fabric of my jumper.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, though he’s not here to hear it.
I don’t know who Jaxon Ward is. Not really. To the officer, he’s a list of priors. A file. A problem. To the man he hit, he’s the enemy. To anyone reading tomorrow’s paper, he’ll be a headline.
