Installment number 23 48,051

OMG I'm ALMOST THERE!!!!!

It didn’t take Jon very long at all to arrive at the dojo, but to Amy and to Brad it was an eternity. They had not spoken a word, nor moved a muscle since Brad had hung up the phone. Amy just about jumped thru the roof when Jon knocked on the door of the office. She had been so deep into her morass of despair that she had lost track of anything outside of her mind. Brad immediately got up and went to open the door. He and Jon shared a few words in low voices and then Jon went over to Amy, knelt down in front of her chair and reached out to her. Amy shrunk back as far as the chair would allow, looking at him with wide stricken eyes. He did not back off, just knelt there with his hand outstretched. Finally Amy started to relax a little and she reached out one hand and laid it into his. He stayed just like that for what seemed forever to Brad, not saying anything, not moving, not doing anything, but while he was there doing nothing Amy was visibly getting a grip on herself and her emotions. Her shoulders relaxed back down a few inches, her head came up and she actually looked at Jon, instead of flitting glances. Brad breathed a silent sigh of relief and sent up a prayer of thanks for Jon and his ability to do just the right thing at the just right time. After a couple of minutes, Amy gave a small smile to her friends and said “I think I’ll be ok now. Please sit down, you both look so uncomfortable.” With an exaggerated sigh of relief for his poor knees, Jon rose and walked to a chair by the desk. Brad stayed where he was as he asked Amy, “Do you want me to stay? Or to leave? I will do what ever you need me to do.” She asked him to stay, “If you want to, I do not think that it is vital for you to hear me blatting on about my silly reactions, but if you want to stay, I would love your support.” He immediately went to the chair next to her and sat down, he tentatively reached for her hand and she clasped his without a seconds hesitation.

“Wonderful,” exclaimed Jon “The first hurdle has successfully been conquered!” Amy and Brad just looked at him uncomprehendingly. “I walked in here to a completely frightened woman, who was afraid to even look at me, and once I was here she found the courage to overcome that fear and start on the steps to banish it. THAT is a triumph!” “But Jon, you don’t even know what it was all about! How can you believe that I won something?” “Easily,” he replied “any time that you can overcome your fears and move from abject terror to the ability to deal with the issue, it is a winning situation.” She smiled, “Ok, I’ll give you that one. But, now what do I do?” she asked him. Jon looked at her for a couple of minutes, assessing his next move, then he said “Amy, the first thing you need to do is tell me what happened and then we can go from there.” So Amy began to hesitantly relate the mornings events. “And when it sunk in that they were really still here, had not jumped off the side of the world or just disappeared into nothingness, both kind of silly thoughts, I’ll grant you, my mind took me right back to that day and the fear and terror and horror of what happened.” She shook her head ruefully “nothing like putting one’s head in the sand and ignoring reality is there?” “Now you just stop that right now!” Jon rebuked her gently “You went thru something that night that few people ever do, and you managed to not only survive, you escaped and made it home and are doing your best to make a new life for yourself, AND trying to create a method to help prevent this from happening to anyone else. THAT is nothing to sneeze at young lady!” Amy hung her head and Brad continued. “Have you contacted the police about this? Do you know if these are the same men?” She raised her eyes and looked at him with disbelief. “You think it could be someone else? That there are TWO teams of horrible men going around in this area and abducting young girls?” Jon slowly shook his head, “No, I do not really believe that Amy, but what I do believe is that until you know for sure, you cannot put these fears to rest. We need to call the police and ask them a few questions.” Amy shook her head ‘no’, “I do not think that I can go down there and identify them, I cannot look at them, I cannot allow them to SEE ME!” she started crying and covering her face with her hands she once again began to curl up in the chair. As Brad reached for her, Jon waved him back and said gently, “Amy, I know you cannot do those things, right now.” She stopped crying but didn’t move “I am not asking you to do them. What I am saying is that we need to know. We need to know positively, without a shadow of a doubt that these are the men who attacked you. Once we know this then the next step will be easier.” Slowly she raised her head and looked at him. “How do we find out” she asked “without me going there?” Brad broke in then, “I call the police department and see if I can get any information.” Jon nodded. “That would be a good place to start. If they tell you, then we are one step closer to getting you better,” he continued, looking at Amy. “Do you want to be here when I call?” Brad asked Amy? She thought about that for a moment, then nodded her head. “Yes, I think it would be best if I were, if they need any information from me to allow them to answer you, I need to be here.” Then she visibly took control of herself again, and sitting up straight in her chair, she said “Please call them for me Brad.” Then she paused and said “Brad promised my folks that he would let them know what was going on as soon as he knew, Jon do you think he should call them now or wait?” she asked. “Call now Brad” Jon replied “let’s not leave them hanging any longer then we have to.”

Bob and Wanda were very concerned about their little girl. This morning had shown them very dramatically that she was not magically cured. Her self defense program was not a ‘heal all’ as they had hoped it would be. They really didn’t have a clue how to help her at this point, and with her running out like that they were at a loss. So after Bob left for work Wanda called Edna and asked her if Amy had come over to see Jennie. Edna knew as soon as she heard her friends voice that something was wrong. “Wanda, what happened?” she asked. “Amy left the house this morning in a very distraught frame of mind, and I needed to find out if she had come over there or called Jennie today” Edna called up the stairs “Jennie, have you heard from Amy today?” “No, mom, late yesterday, but not so far this morning, Why, is something wrong?” Jennie replied as she bounded down the stairs. “I don’t know what’s going on yet, but Wanda is really worried about her.” Her mother told her, then turning back to the receiver she reported what Jennie had just told her. “Do you need me to come over there? Do you want someone to stay with you?” she asked. Wanda’s reply was quick “Oh. That would be wonderful, could you please?” “Certainly, I’ll be there in just a few minutes and then you can tell me everything. We can work this out.” With that Edna hung up and turning to Jennie told her that she was going to Wanda’s house and if she heard from Amy to let them know immediately. Jennie nodded as she tried to think where Amy might have gone. Her first thought would be Brad, but if Wanda was still looking for her she couldn’t be with him, he would have let her know…so where else could she have gone? Jennie didn’t know, but figured that if she and Brad talked about it they could come up with an answer, the two of them knew Amy better than anyone else and they were her friends. So she grabbed her purse and ran out the front door.

Brad hung up the phone after talking to Wanda and looking at Amy said “She asked me to tell you that she loves you and that she is waiting to give you a hug as soon as you get home.” Amy made a little hic uppy sound and did her best not to burst into tears. “How had her mom known the perfect thing to say at a time like this? Was there a Mom school that Amy didn’t know about? If so, her mom must have graduated top of her class.” Were her thoughts at that pronouncement? Then she took a deep breath and said “Now Brad, if you could please make that other call for me?” Brad nodded and picked up that phone receiver again, then set it back down. “Do either of you happen to know the phone number? I don’t want to call the operator since it’s not really an emergency.” Neither of them did, so opening the bottom drawer of the desk he pulled out the phone book and opened it to the front cover, where all the important community numbers were printed. He once again picked up the receiver and this time he dialed a number. After a moment he said “Hello, My name is Brad Hendrixson and I need to speak to the office in charge of the attempted abduction from last night please.” He was silent for a couple of endless minutes, then he said “Yes sir” waited a second then “I am a very good friend of Amy Johnson and she asked me to call to see if you thought that the two men arrested last night might be the same two that attacked her on the beach almost two years ago.” Again he was silent, listening, then he was nodding his head and said “I see, yes I will tell her, thank you for your time Detective Monroe. Good-bye” Slowly he hung up the phone and looking first at Jon and then at Amy he said “Detective Monroe is pretty sure that they are the same men Amy.” She again shrank into herself “He would like to speak with you when you are able to do so.” Amy opened her mouth to say ‘no’ again, and then snapped it shut again. Turning to Jon she asked him what they needed to do to make it possible for her to do what the police wanted her to do. Jon took a minute before he answered her and then his reply surprised her. “Nothing” She stared at him, as did Brad. “What do you mean ‘nothing’?” She asked incredulously “Exactly what I said, we do not have to do anything. You are more than ready to go down to the police station and do what ever they may need you to do right now.” She was shaking her head as he said that “No, Jon, I am not, I cannot even Think about going without breaking into a sweat and wanting to run and hide!” “This may all be true Amy” he replied “BUT you are here now asking me for help and you have decided that you can help the police with this investigation, if they need you to, and you have faced your fears. All of that tells me that you are ready. You are NOT hiding, you are NOT running away, you are NOT falling apart, you ARE gathering up your courage and working towards your goal. There is nothing at all that I can do for you, except hold your hand while you pull that courage up from your toes and then the three of us can go to the station together, because I know that Brad will have your other hand.”

There was a quick knock at the door and then it burst open! “Brad” Jennie said quickly “We need to…..oh,” she looked around and seeing Amy and Jon with Brad she stopped speaking and her face became a really vivid shade of red as she realized that she had just burst into a private conversation. “I am SO sorry! I’ll just um, leave now, um. Sorry” she said as she started backing out of the room, her hand still on the door knob. “No, stay,” said Amy quickly, “I would like for you to stay with me for a few minutes please.” Jennie stopped again, and looking hard at her friend she said “Amy, everyone is very worried about you right now, are you okay?” “No,” Amy said slowly, “I am not okay, but I think that with the help of my very good friends and my excellent family, I will be.”