“Honestly, I don’t know. I wasn’t paying much attention to any of them. It was my senior year. I was more worried about what my friends were doing after school that day than what I would be doing years from then.” She chuckled softly, recalling how ridiculous she’d thought career day was. “I didn’t meet Harrison at the presentation, but I remember seeing him. He smiled at me, and my friends said something about how hot he was. They were joking about how he was my chance to hook up with an older guy. Since I hadn’t actuallyhooked up”—she used air quotes for emphasis—“with anyone at the time, I laughed it off.”
Dr. Briggs continued to watch her, so Ava continued.
“I worked at a grocery store part-time after school and on weekends. I was trying to help my mother out. She worked—mostly odd jobs like cleaning houses or billing for small independent clients—but they never lasted long. She usually got fired after a few weeks. Her … uh … mental state didn’t allow her to be prompt or consistent.”
Dr. Briggs acknowledged her with a nod but didn’t ask another question, so Ava continued.
“After my stepdad bailed, we moved into a one-bedroom apartment. It was the only thing we could afford and barely that.” Realizing she’d gotten off track, she shifted back to Harrison. “A few days after the career thing, Harrison came through my line at the grocery store.”
“Did he live in the area?”
“No.” Ava glanced down at her hands because she knew which direction Dr. Briggs was headed, and she was right. “He was stalking me.”
Dr. Briggs nodded. “And this is something you came to realize at the time? Or later?”
“Much later. In the beginning, I was flattered.” Ava recalled how he’d flirted with her that day and how it had made her feel. She’d been walking on a cloud from his obvious appreciation. “Here was this sophisticated, wealthy older man who liked me. He took me on dates to fancy restaurants, gave me wine, bought me nice clothes and other gifts, told me he loved me. I fell hard and fast for him because it felt real to me.”
“It wasn’t real?”
Ava lifted her gaze to the doctor. “None of it was real. Harrison Rivers was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and I was the idiot who fell for his lies.”
“First of all, I don’t think you’re an idiot, Ava. I think you were a young girl who got caught up in the romance. He did all the right things, said all the right things. Whywouldn’tyou take him at face value? After all, as you said, he was an older man, a state senator. Someone you were supposed to be able to trust.”
Ava nodded her head as the tears dripped onto her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them. “Whenever I think about how we met, I feel sick,” she admitted. “I was so stupid. So naive. If only I’d been smart enough to see through his bullshit, none of this would’ve ever happened.”
“None of what, Ava?”
“Everything.” Ava grabbed two tissues, wiped her nose, and then clutched them in her hand.
“You mentioned your mother lived with you? Are you two close?”
Ava sobbed as she thought about her mom. Although Renee March had been sick for so long and Ava had been stressed from taking care of her, she missed her so much.
“My dad left when I was little. Then my mom met my stepfather. She seemed happy with him—at first—so I tried to be nice. He wasn’t so bad, but I don’t think he wanted kids. I got good grades, stayed outta trouble. He would go out a lot, so I kept her company. Eventually, he got tired of the long drive to work, so he moved us out of the house I’d grown up in. I had to change schools and move away from my friends.
“My mom pretended to like living in the city, but I could tell she didn’t. I took care of her, made sure she took her medication and went to regular appointments. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She’d be sullen or angry for days, and then suddenly, she’d be so excited she couldn’t contain herself. She’d insist we go shopping and spend money we didn’t have, or she’d call up old friends she hadn’t talked to in years.” Ava met Dr. Briggs’s gaze. “I won’t lie; I liked my mother during those … episodes, but I’d read up on the disease, so I knew it wasn’t right.
“But the bad times outweighed the good. She tried to kill herself many times, starting when I was a little kid. My stepdad didn’t last long. She would get mean when she was depressed. They fought all the time. Finally, he left. Said he wasn’t cut out for family life. My mom fell into a deep depression. It lasted about a month, then one day, I came home to find everything in the apartment smashed to pieces. She’d graduated to anger. I tricked her into seeing a counselor. I told her it was for me. It helped a little. She was just coming around when I met Harrison.”
“What happened to your mother, Ava?”
Ava looked up and met the doctor’s kind eyes. “She killed herself. But not untilaftershe killed the man who tried to kill me.”
Dr. Briggs’s expression remained unchanged. “Harrison Rivers?”
Ava wiped her nose. “Yes. I was lying in a hospital at the time, so I don’t know what led up to that, but I figure she had stopped taking her medication. She told me she hated it, told me that Harrison was trying to kill her.”
“Do you think he was?”
“No.” Ava shook her head in emphasis. “Killing her would’ve removed his leverage over me. But he did have her medication changed to something that kept her out of it most of the time. Harrison didn’t like my mother because she was an obstacle he couldn’t eliminate. I refused to marry him unless my mother could live with us. He agreed but a week after we got married, he had her put in a hospital. Three months that time. She seemed better each time she came home, but then he would drug her again. He used her against me. Whenever I did something he didn’t approve of, he would send her away. Always threatened to have her committed forever.”
“What sort of things didn’t he approve of?”
Ava smiled, but it lacked any humor. “It would be easier to tell you what hedidapprove. Nothing was good enough for Harrison. How I ate, how I spoke, what I wore. He didn’t like that I slept on my stomach or the shampoo I used. He didn’t want me talking to anyone because it would take time away from him. I wasn’t allowed to go shopping unless he went with me, and he was too busy for that.”
“He was controlling.”
“He was a monster,” Ava retorted, a violent rage coursing through her veins as she thought about him. “He told me what to do, where to sit, what to watch on TV. As soon as I graduated, he alienated me from all my friends. I got fired from my job at the grocery store because he stalked me all the time. One time he confronted a male customer in the parking lot. Accused him of flirting with me.”
