Pieces of Your Heart

Welcome Home

"Elodie, you pathetic piece of shit, you thought it would be that easy to get away from me? You might think you're safe now, you'll never know for sure. In the mean time, I sent you a little gift for you to remember me by. Until next time."

The nausea was almost unbearable. She hadn't heard from him in two months, two peaceful, blissfully quiet months; and despite the change of email, change of house number, change of cell number and the year -long restraining order the judge had granted her, he'd still found a way to get to her. An email through her Amazon account accompanied by an mp3 album he'd sent as a gift. It was just like him: clever, thoughtful, and manipulative to the core.

The rage, fear, anxiety all came together in her body at once, making her shake violently from the inside out. She got out of bed, grabbed the dark green whiskey bottle from her closest and took a generous swig. The burning in her throat and chest calmed her momentarily.

She'd have to wait until morning to file a police report. She hated the thought of going to the police station and talking to some uniform about her personal problems and bad choices. But she knew that if she let the ball drop on this and didn't do anything about it, she might be in for a much longer ride on this particular rollercoaster before he got it through his head that she was finally done with him for good.

She got back in bed and turned out the light. The sickness was still with her, deeply rooted in her gut. She turned the light back on and dialed the Amazon customer service line. "The only thing we can do if you don't want to accept the download or exchange it for a gift card is to send it back to the sender," the far away voice on the other line said.

If only you knew what a fucked up person he was, she thought. "Ok," she said, "Send it back to him."

Elodie took a deep breath and set her cell phone on the nightstand next to the stack of books that now lived there. She took another hit of the whiskey bottle and closed her eyes. Despite the tremendous exhaustion that occupied her heart, sleep never found her that night.

The next morning, she called the police station and explained her situation to a slightly annoyed woman on the other end of the line. "What sort of protection order do you have?"

"It's a no-contact order"

"Well, is it a TPO?"

"No, I told you once already, I got a temporary order at first, but after the first thirty days, I went to court and got an extension."

"For how long?"

"One year."

"Ok, so what you have is an EPO, an extended protection order. If you want to file a violation of an EPO, you need to come down to the station, or we can have an officer come to your place of residence."

She rolled her eyes as she visualized a squad car parked in front of her parents' house.

"That's not necessary, I'll come by the station."

Elodie sat down in front of her full-length mirror and stared at herself. She carefully applied a coat of lipstick and a heavy-handed application of black eyeliner. Her life wasn't turning out at all like she'd imagined; and once again she found herself wondering where it had all gone wrong. How had she ended up back in this town, worse off than when she'd left it? How had her plan of escape backfired? Of course she knew most of the answers to these questions; but honestly, the answers didn't make it any easier to deal with.

She got in her Jeep and backed out of the driveway quickly, Bad Religion blasting from the speakers as she made her way to the police station.