Love Will Always Find A Way | Jopper

6

Joyce's POV

I walk up where Lonnie is standing outside my front door. He turns round and sees me with that disgusting look on his face. To be honest it's not just a disgusting look, his face in general is horrible.

"What the fuck do you want" I say going over to him and standing right in front of him.
"Nice to see you too"
"Why are you here. How did you find me?"
"Well, if you didn't know I moved out of Hawkins for about a year and now I'm back. So I decided to see if Joyce Horowitz was in town. And here you are"
"That doesn't explain how the fuck you found me!" I shout
"Geez Joyce relax. Karen was driving into the centre of town. She still has the same car from when we were sixteen. It's yellow. I remembered it. So I went and spoke to her. She told me everything"
"Karen wouldn't just tell you stuff"
"Seems like your best friend isn't that great after all"
"No. No, no no. That's not it. What did you do to her Lonnie!?" I start to panic, he's definitely done something to Karen and I don't know what it is.
"I swear to god Joyce. I'm did nothing to her"
"You know what Lonnie, I am so close to calling the police on you right know. So tell me why your here and what happened!"
"Look Joyce, I've told you everything"
"No you haven't"
"Well maybe just one more thing"
"What"
"I'd like to see my son"
"How the hell do you know that you have a son!?"
"Karen. Have you even been listening? She told me everything!"
"Well there is no way that you are going anyway near him!"
"He's in the house isn't he, I'm going in"

I go and try to block the doorway. Lonnie presses his body up against mine. The sell of alcohol is overwhelming. He leans down and whispers in my ear.

"Come on Joyce, let me in. You know you want to"

I try to push him away, but he's a lot stronger than I am. He takes me by the waist and pushes me up against the door. He takes my head and kisses me. The most disgusting kiss ever. But he's holding me so tightly that I can't push away. His hand reaches up to my back and unhooks my bra. He holds me even closer than I thought was possible and slides his hand down into my underwear. I'm biting my lip to stop myself from crying.

And suddenly it comes over me, I can't take this any more. I scream, I scream as loud as I possibly can.

"Hopper! Please! Come out here! Now! Hopper!"

It startles Lonnie and he backs away from me, I struggle with the door handle but I can hear Hopper trying to open it on the other side. I let go and the door swings open, I run in and stand behind Hopper. He closes the door and started shouting at Lonnie. I'm so scared, I've been sexually assaulted and now my boyfriend is going to fight the guy who just tried to rape me on my front door step.

I sink to the floor and get ready to cry my eyes out. But then, Elliot comes up behind me.

"Mommy, What happened? Are you ok? Where is Hopper?"
"I'm fine baby. Hopper's just sorting something out with someone. How about we go to your room and play with your train set, yeah"
"Ok!"

He tries to come and hug me but I flinch. I can't have anyone touching me at the moment. And I know it sounds weird. But not even my own son.

"I can't really hug you at the moment baby, I'm just going to come and help you build the train track, ok. But now touching mommy"
"Why not?"
"I'm going to try and explain it all later, alright?"
"Alwight"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ok" Hopper says "The police have arrested Lonnie. Karen's at the hospital, and they want you at the station tomorrow morning at 8am"
"Yeah, sure that's fine" I reply not really listening.

I look at Hopper instead, a bruise on his face and a cut just below his lip are the only injuries he got. The cut looks pretty bad but he won't go to hospital because he says that I'm more important than he is.

Until today, I didn't realise what had actually happened in my relationship with Lonnie when I was 16. I must have been raped 6 times at least and then I got pregnant, got kicked out my house and moved in with Karen.

I can still feel his beer smelling hands sliding down my back and under my jeans. The thought makes me shudder. But somehow, I can't stop thinking about it. It's like the memory has fixed itself and there. And it just won't go away.