When did you risk your life helping a friend?

The Price of Safety

Tom following them with exactly two cars between like he’s some kind of professional tracker makes me wonder what his actual plan was here. That level of control while supposedly being in a rage doesn’t quite add up.

My car sat there looking sad with its broken lights and dangling mirror, pieces of red plastic scattered all around it like confetti from the world’s worst party. He was younger than I expected, maybe 30, with kind eyes that made me feel a little less like I was going to throw up.

“We got multiple calls about someone with a bat threatening people”. He said, “Are you folks okay?”. I unhook the chain and opened the door the rest of the way, my whole body still shaking.

Behind him, I could see two more police cars and cops talking to the woman from the balcony who’d been filming. Officer Law asked if we needed medical attention while his partner walked around my car taking pictures and writing stuff down on a clipboard.

Sadi tried to tell him what happened, but she kept mixing up the order of things and crying harder every time she said Tom’s name. Her words slurring together from all the tequila she’d had at the bar.

I had to keep filling in the gaps while Law wrote everything in his little notebook, asking us to slow down and repeat parts because Sadie would start one story, then jumped to something that happened 3 years ago when they were still together.

The cop kept looking between us trying to piece together the timeline while Sadie hiccuped and swayed on her feet. His partner came back shaking his head and showed Law photos on his phone of my smashed bumper and the dents where Tom had rammed us, plus all the broken glass and plastic pieces scattered across the parking lot.

Miam came down the stairs from her apartment carrying her phone and walked straight up to Officer Law, telling him she’d filmed the whole thing from her balcony, including Tom swinging that bat at my car.

She played the video for him right there, the sound of metal hitting glass making me flinch all over again. And you could hear her voice on the recording saying she was calling 911.

Law took down her name and phone number, asking if she’d be willing to give a statement, and she said, “Absolutely”. She saw everything from when we pulled in until Tom took off.

She pointed out exactly where he’d been standing and which direction his truck went, even remembering it was a black Chevy with a cracked left tail light. Officer Law explained they’d put out an alert for Tom’s truck, but without him actually here, they couldn’t make an arrest, which made my stomach drop because what good was calling the cops if they couldn’t do anything.

He gave us a case number written on a little card and said a detective would follow up in a day or two. But standing there looking at my wrecked car, it felt like we were on our own.

Sadi started crying harder, saying Tom would come back to finish what he started. And the officer said, “We should consider staying somewhere else tonight just to be safe”.

I pulled out my phone to call a tow truck while Law finished taking Marryiam’s statement. My hands still shaking so bad I could barely type the number. The tow driver said he’d be there in 30 minutes.

And when he showed up, he took one look at my car and whistled, saying the whole rear end was smashed and the frame might be bent. He hooked it up to his truck while telling me it wasn’t safe to drive and I’d need serious body work, probably looking at least at my $500 deductible, which I definitely didn’t have sitting in my bank account.

Miam went back upstairs and came down with a bag of frozen peas for my neck, which was killing me from when Tom rammed us and my head snapped back. She also had a first aid kit with gauze for my tongue, which was still bleeding from where I’d bitten it during the impact.

And when I spit into a tissue, it came out pink. The cops left after giving us more cards with victim services numbers and telling us to call if Tom showed up again.

Their cars pulling away and leaving us standing in the parking lot at 2:00 in the morning. Sadi turned on me suddenly, saying this was my fault for bringing her here instead of driving straight to the police station like she’d wanted.

I snapped back that she could have mentioned her psycho ex was in town before I picked her up and we went back and forth getting louder until Mariam stepped between us. We both stopped and looked at each other realizing we were just scared and taking it out on the wrong person and Sadie grabbed my hand squeezing it while we both said sorry at the same time.

Miam said we should document our injuries for the police report and offered to drive us to the urgent care place that was open all night. We piled into her Honda, me in the back holding the bag of peas against my neck while Sadi sat up front still sniffling.

The urgent care waiting room had that gross hospital smell and fluorescent lights that made everything look green. The nurse called us back one at a time, taking photos of the bruising already showing up purple on my neck and writing notes about my swollen tongue.

She gave me papers about concussion symptoms to watch for and said I was lucky it wasn’t worse, which didn’t make me feel very lucky at all. Sadie got checked, too. The nurse documenting some bruises on her arms from when she’d braced herself during the chase, plus checking her blood alcohol level for the report.

We finally got back to Satie’s apartment around 4:30 in the morning. Miam saying to call if we needed anything before heading back upstairs. I crashed on Sady’s couch, still wearing my clothes from earlier, too tired to even take my shoes off.

My phone buzzed with a voicemail notification. And when I played it, there was just heavy breathing and the sound of an engine revving over and over, making my whole body go cold because I knew it was Tom, and somehow he’d gotten my number.

I deleted it immediately, but couldn’t fall back asleep, just lying there staring at the ceiling and jumping at every sound outside. Officer Law called around 9:00 the next morning, asking how we were doing and giving us information about getting a protective order from the courthouse.

He gave me another number for someone named Pria Lockheart, who he said was a domestic violence advocate who could help us navigate all the legal stuff. When I told Sadi about it, she shook her head, saying she was too embarrassed and this whole mess was her fault for dating Tom in the first place.

She kept saying she should have known better, and she didn’t want some stranger judging her for staying with him as long as she did. Miam knocked on the door around noon with sandwiches, and when Sadi repeated what she’d said about being embarrassed, Miam sat down next to her on the couch.

She told Sadi that shame is what keeps people trapped in bad situations, and there’s no judgment in asking for help when you need it. That the only person who should be embarrassed is Tom for being such a piece of garbage.

The next morning, I had to call my supervisor and tell her I’d be late. And when she asked why I just said I had a personal emergency, she wasn’t happy and reminded me I’d already used my sick days this month, but I couldn’t exactly explain that I’d spent the night dealing with a stalker situation.

When I finally got to work around 10:00, everyone kept looking at me weird, probably because I looked like hell from not sleeping. I jumped when someone walked behind my desk to get to the printer, and my hands were shaking so bad I could barely type.

My coworker asked if I was okay and I just nodded and tried to focus on my computer screen, but I kept checking my phone every 5 minutes to make sure Sadi was all right. That afternoon, we drove to the domestic violence center to meet with Priya, who turned out to be this calm woman in her 40s who’d clearly done this a thousand times.

She sat us down in a small office with posters about safety planning on the walls and walked us through everything step by step. She told us to vary our routines, never take the same route twice, check under our cars before getting in, keep our phones charged at all times, and have three different people we could call if something happened.

She gave us these little cards with emergency numbers and showed Satie how to set up her phone so she could call 911 with just one button. Priya also helped us think through safe places we could go if Tom showed up, like stores with security cameras or the police station, and she made us practice what we’d say to 911 to get the fastest response.

The next day, we went to the courthouse to file for a temporary protective order, which meant sitting in a waiting room for 2 hours before someone called us back. The clerk gave us this huge stack of papers to fill out, asking for every detail about what Tom had done, when he’d done it, and who witnessed it.

Sadie had to write out everything that happened starting from when they were together and he’d hit her all the way through the car chase. And by the time she finished writing her statement, her hand was cramping and she was crying again.

We had to list Tom’s full name, address, workplace, car make, and model, and any weapons he might have, which made Satie remember he had a gun collection at his place. After another hour of waiting, we finally got called in to see the judge, who was this older guy who barely looked up from the papers, while Sadi explained why she needed protection.

The judge signed the order and told us it would be good for two weeks, but then he dropped the bomb, that it wasn’t valid until Tom was actually served with the papers. He explained that someone from the sheriff’s office would have to physically hand Tom the documents.

And until that happened, the order meant nothing. We asked how long that would take, and the clerk just shrugged and said it depended on whether they could find him.

3 days went by, and we kept calling the sheriff’s office to check if they’d served Tom yet. But every time they said they couldn’t find him at his last known address or his workplace.

The process server told us Tom’s apartment manager said he hadn’t been there in days and his boss at the construction site said he hadn’t shown up to work all week. They told us to stay alert and call 911 if we saw him, but I wanted to scream at them that the whole point was to keep him away from us, not wait until he showed up again.

Getting served protection papers sounds harder than getting served at a fancy restaurant.

Tom’s playing hide-and-seek while these two are stuck playing sitting ducks with kitchen knives.

On the fourth night, I was making dinner when my phone buzzed with a text from Miam saying she’d just seen a black truck circle our parking lot twice real slow. My stomach dropped and I ran to the window but couldn’t see anything, so I called 911 while Sadi grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer.

The dispatcher said they’d send someone to check it out, but by the time the cops showed up 20 minutes later, there was no sign of any truck. The officer said without plates or proof it was Tom, there wasn’t much they could do, and I wanted to throw something at him for being so useless.

I wasn’t sleeping at all by this point, just lying on Sady’s couch with my eyes open, listening to every car that drove by and every footstep in the hallway. Every time the building creaked or someone slammed a door, I’d jump up and check the windows, my heart pounding so hard it hurt.

I maybe got 3 hours of sleep a night if I was lucky, and I was running on so much coffee, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Sadi was worse, waking up screaming from nightmares, and then staying up the rest of the night watching the door with a baseball bat in her lap.

The insurance adjuster finally came to look at my car, and when he finished his estimate, I almost threw up. Between the deductible and what they wouldn’t cover, I was looking at $1,500 out of pocket, plus rental car costs since mine would be in the shop for at least a week.

My credit card was already maxed from buying groceries for both of us since Satie was too scared to leave the apartment to go to work. And now I had no idea how I’d pay for the repairs.

Then Satie found Tom’s social media and showed me these posts he’d been making. Stuff like, “Some people don’t know when they’ve got a good thing”. And betrayal always comes back around with angry face emojis.

It was obviously about her, but vague enough that when we showed it to the cops, they said it didn’t count as a direct threat. Priya told us to screenshot everything anyway and keep adding it to our file.

So, we spent an hour going through all his accounts and saving every post that seemed even slightly threatening. By the end of the week, my supervisor pulled me into her office and shut the door, which is never a good sign.

She said my performance had been slipping. I’d been late three times, and other people had noticed I seemed distracted and jumpy.

She gave me an official warning and said, “If things didn’t improve, we’d have to discuss my future at the company”. Then she mentioned the employee assistance program had free counseling sessions, sliding the brochure across her desk with this look that said she knew something was seriously wrong with me.

I took the brochure and left her office with my hands shaking, knowing she was right about everything being wrong with me. That night, I showed Sadi the brochure while we sat on her couch eating takeout Chinese food.

She was picking at her lane and said the protective order hearing was next week and she wasn’t sure she could do it. Her hands kept moving, folding and unfolding the paper napkin over and over while she talked about how testifying might make Tom even matter.

I put my hand on hers to stop the napkin folding and told her whatever she decided was okay with me. She deserved to feel safe no matter what that looked like for her.

The week passed in a blur of work and watching Sadi pace around the apartment, changing her mind every few hours. The morning of the hearing, we got to the courthouse early and sat on the hard wooden benches outside the courtroom.

Priya showed up with a thick folder of papers and sat next to us going over what would happen. We waited for 2 hours watching other cases go in and out of the courtroom doors.

Tom never showed up and neither did anyone who looked like they might be his lawyer. Finally, a woman in a suit came out asking for Satie’s case number and told Priya that Tom’s lawyer had filed for a continuence.

She said they claimed they weren’t properly notified, even though Priya had all the paperwork showing they were. The judge came out for 30 seconds to extend the temporary order, but said we had to come back in 2 weeks.

Walking back to the car felt like we’d run a marathon for nothing and had to start all over again. The next week was quiet, but the quiet was almost worse than when things were happening.

Every black truck I saw on the road made my heart pound, and I’d have to check the license plate. Sadie wouldn’t leave the apartment unless she absolutely had to, and even then only with me.

She quit going to work and started calling in sick every day until they fired her over the phone. I’d catch her standing at the window with the curtain pulled back just a tiny bit, watching the parking lot.

At night, she’d wake up at every sound and I’d find her checking the door locks again. Priya came over one afternoon with paperwork for a transitional housing program that would move Sadi somewhere safe.

The address would be confidential, and Tom wouldn’t be able to find it, even if he tried looking. But it meant Sadi would have to leave everything behind, including her job and all her friends here.

She’d get a small apartment in another city and help finding a new job, but it would take time. Sadi filled out the forms slowly, like each answer hurt to write down on the page.