And like a floodgate, the words come back to me. I’m really excited about this re-opening….perhaps
it will lead to the book I’ve been conceptualizing….no promises.
My mind keeps playing the events over and over. Could I have found out sooner? Would it have helped anything? I just remember….she messaged me on the day
of the party telling me that it was cancelled.
That she had been in an accident.
She couldn’t call anyone, her phone was lost in the accident. She would tell me details later, she
promised. Naturally, I thought she meant
she got in a car accident. I asked if
she was okay. She said she would
be. I thought that meant that her nerves
were frazzled, she needed to figure out the logistics from the car
accident. Because it was a car accident,
right?
So I left her alone.
I did what I promised and called our mutual friend. I ended up going to the friend’s house and
spending the afternoon/evening with her family.
It was lovely.
Then Monday came. A
phone call. “Melanie, I just heard April’s
voice on the radio! Phillip beat her up! The cops are looking for him!”
What?
You’ve got to be kidding. She….she
was in a car accident….oh my god.
Bryan
wasn’t kidding. I immediately looked it
up online, it was everywhere all of a sudden.
All over the news. Top
story. One of my dearest and closest
friends, right there on my TV screen.
Slashed. Stitches. Blood.
Tears. And yet, she was still my
friend, relaying the details of the attack in the exact way she speaks. Factual and well-stated. Alive.
She made it out ALIVE. Angel made
it out ALIVE. The children made it out
ALIVE, and didn’t get taken.
He broke into her house.
He attacked her and her boyfriend.
He left them with fatal injuries, yet they didn’t die. He tried to take the children. One of them boldly stood up to him, and I am
so, so proud of her. She’s five. A five-year-old made him flee the scene.
To this day I have still only heard bits and pieces of what
really happened, slivers of how angels saved her, Angel, and the kids. How God protected them. But everything that I’ve heard is enough for
me to be sick, so sick, every time I think of the horrendous act that her
ex-husband did. I was in shock for two
days after hearing the news. I was
numb. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t react. I was just sick. Numb.
I knew this guy, at one time. He
was my friend’s husband. He was the
father of her kids. And now he is a
monster to me. I mean, his image had already
been turning into a monster in the last year, throughout the divorce. But this, this just separates him even more
from the man I thought I knew. It’s just
so sickening to me.
Part of me really wants to play the person who can see the
good in him. Explain away his issues,
why he acted in such a way. He must be
suffering from PTSD. He’s sick. He has mental problems. All that is probably true, actually. But it is no excuse. I cannot excuse his behavior, no matter how
much I long to see both sides of everything.
Because what he did is just truly inexcusable.
It has now been six weeks since the attack and the police
are still looking for Phillip. For a few
weeks there, I was terrified he’d show up at my house and attack me, even
though he really has no reason to. It
doesn’t help that I was living alone. I just
hate the fact that he’s still out there somewhere, anywhere. He could be gearing up for another
attack. I’m terrified he will try
again. And my friend has to live in fear
until he’s caught.
I’m posting the link to her story here. If you see him, anywhere, CALL THE
POLICE. He is dangerous.
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