Love is...

“Gillian!”

Pushing through the crowded lobby of her coworkers, she stepped out into the early evening. She couldn’t wait to crash on the couch with John.

Love is take-out and a movie.

She turned at her name, but the familiar face triggered a slug of fear through her heart. It couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible. She spun to get away. This couldn’t be happening!

She knew this was where she was most exposed, the walk from her office building to the garage. Gillian risked a glance back at the crowd behind her. Could it be Gary? A jaw, clenched in anger, flashed into view, then gone.

He had caught up with her again, the day she had dreaded for months.

Sweat pricked at her temples. Stars glittered in the dark evening sky, it was too beautiful to be the last day of her life.

Looking back Gillian could recognize the signs, but at the time she didn’t care.

The gorgeous man towered over everyone in the gym, and she had seen him eye her for weeks before Gary finally asked her out. He took her to the best nightspots, and when the other woman sneered at her stepping out of his sleek black car, their jealousy lifted her higher than the purest cocaine.

Love is glamour.

Gary dropped Franklins for tips, and swept through the club like a thunderstorm, raining champagne, cash and gifts of jewels. His smile twirled ribbons of joy in her stomach. His passion erupted in magnetic laughs, and screaming violence to any waitress not up to his exacting standards.

Love is drama.

She stepped fast, her heels clicking across the street. At the stoplight she looked back again, her downtown office building framing her coworkers still pouring out into the evening. There, in a shadow! He stared at her, dark and menacing, his eyes pierced into her heart. How could she ever have loved that man? She had to call John! How did he find her? She had moved cities, changed her appearance, all to get away from Gary and his criminal life.

She fumbled in her purse, scuffling sideways to dig her arm deep into her Kate Spade tote to find her phone. How could it be lost! Her hand, blind, fumbled touching her wallet, her keys, her pepper spray. No phone! She took a moment to pause, to actually look in her purse. An image of her phone flicked in her memory, plugged in at her desk. She’d never be able to call for help. She was going to die.

An old woman stood on the sidewalk, staring at her phone, pressing precise buttons.

“An emergency, please! I need to borrow your phone.” Gillian snatched it up. She quickly dialed John’s number. He was her lifeline, an escape from this hell.

The woman squeaked in dismay, grasping with a thin arm.

“Gillian!” Gary had his hand up waving.

“No!” She began walking again, not risking a look back. A block more to the garage, to her car. She could make it. “John pick up!”

It went to voicemail. He never answered her calls. She had asked him so many times. For just this reason, for just this emergency. “Please pick up.” She was so alone, in this city of hundreds of thousands, she was alone.

When he hit her the first time, it wasn't even his fault. She didn't know the work event would go so late, or the waiter would be so quick to refill the drinks. When she did get home, she didn’t think Gary would still want dinner. He apologized, and the pear-cut ruby ring lasted longer than the black eye. He demanded absolute obedience, but she loved it.

Her whole body buzzed when she held his heavy black gun. For the first time she had real power.

Love is danger.

She dialed again.

“Hello, who is this?” John answered.

“-He’s here, following me!” Gillian screamed.

“Gillian? Who’s ‘here’? Calm down, why are you yelling?”

“John, it’s Gary, he’s here!”

“Are you sure?” At John’s smooth, controlled voice she finally took a breath.

Love is answering the phone.

“Of course I’m sure!” Gillian sobbed. “He called my name, I saw him, and now he’s following me! I’m almost at my car, but I’m scared John!”

“I believe you.” John said. “I don’t know how he could have tracked you, we cleaned up every trace-“

“Gary is a monster! He has people in every city! He used the dark web, or his gambling contacts. He’s obsessed with me!”

“I know.” John said, gravel in his voice. “ I’m on my way.” A car engine started on the other end of the line.

“Stay on the phone with me, don’t get off until I get there?”

But when she found out about the other woman, a bomb went off inside her. He had stolen her money, he had beat her, but she couldn’t accept betrayal, she couldn’t accept sharing.

Love is loyalty.

Gary’s thick fingers circled her throat and hate blazed in his eyes. His hands turned into two wrecking balls, destroying her life. “You can’t leave me, I’ll fucking kill you!”

But she did, and has been running ever since.

Love is escape.

It had been four months here in California, working in San Francisco, so far from her old life in Dallas. First, she had escaped to Seattle, meeting John there, finally a man who was solid, and dependable.

When Gary popped up, somehow tracked her down, they had to leave. In city after city they lasted only a few months before she saw Gary again, felt his evil presence and they had to run.

John would do anything for her, she knew. That thought gave her the only hope she had. Gary found her again, but John would save her.

Love is salvation.

“I’m tracking your phone; I’m only eight minutes away. Can you hold out for eight minutes?” John shouted.

“Yes, yes.” The phone to one ear, she slammed the crosswalk button, over and over. The light stayed red, the traffic rumbled like wild beasts through the evening commute.

“Gillian?”

Gary’s voice pushed a button inside her, and she leapt forward into the maelstrom of traffic, horns blared as she lurched across the street, stumbling in her Jimmy Choo heels, heavy fenders missing her by inches.

“Gillian, hold up, I just want to -” Gary called out.

“John, he’s right behind me.” She huffed into the cell phone in her ear. She pulled on her purse, falling down her arm. “He’s going to kill me!”

“You’re OK, I’m almost there. You need to get to a public place, he can’t do anything to you with people around-”

“He’s a maniac! I need to get to my car and get away. He chased me across the country. Do you think he cares about other people!” Then Gillian looked into the dark maw of the garage. If she stepped inside, she would never leave alive.

“There is a strip mall on the next block.” John spoke cool and controlled. “Get there. I’ll pick you up, and stop Gary.”

“Yes.” Gillian’s heart thundered, deep thumps as loud as kettledrums. Her legs burned with exhaustion.

John’s truck screeched into the far side of the parking lot.

He jumped out, a small man, thick across the shoulders and chest.

Love is rescue.

Gillian stepped into the bushes dividing the small lot to cut across to him. In the soft dirt she fell, dropping the phone and her purse in the brush.

“Gillian! Why are you running?” Gary’s voice behind her, his favorite caring voice, the fake persona he put on so easily.

“You left-”

“-No!” Gillian screamed. “Stay away from me!” She pulled on scraggly branches to scramble to her feet.

On the edge of the lot, Gary stood in shadow, in his hand dark metal glittered, reflecting the parking lot lights.

“He’s got a gun!” Gillian shouted

“A gun?” Gary’s hands went up to his shoulders.

“Oh god! John pulled a Sig Sauer from a soft holster. He squared up. “Drop the gun asshole!”

“What gun?” Gary stepped forward, fearless and brazen.

Boom! The pistol jerked up once, and then again. Boom!

Love is killing.

Gary flew backwards, two red holes in his chest.

A phone clattered to the ground next to him.

“Oh God thank you!” Gillian ran to John, hugging him. “You saved me!”

John squeezed her tight and then walked over to the sprawled body.

“This is Gary. It’s finally over?” John bent down. “He looks so young.” He pulled up the employee card dangling from his belt. “This says his name is Doug, and he works for your company.” John toed the phone with his boot and then picked it up. “Gillian, why was he holding your phone?”

“It is Gary, I saw him, he was after me!”

“This isn’t Gary, Gillian. You did it again. I killed another innocent-” John breathed out. “God, we’re going to have to move.”

“-It could have been! You saved me, John. I love you!”

John squeezed Gillian tight. “I know.”

He holstered his pistol.

“We need to go. I love you too.”

Love is protection.