Oh, God, Helena thought as she walked into the office on Monday. Mr. Young is going to be furious with me. Why didn’t Acacia get me up?

Stoically, she walked into the office – and was surprised when work came to a halt around her, as the other adjusters stood up and applauded, rushing over to greet her. She heard Mr. Young’s voice: “Helena! You’re the last person I expected to see here today! Are you all right?”

“I’m OK, Mr. Young,” she smiled wanly.

“You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be,” he said seriously. “There’s nothing that can’t be handled. I’m sure you’ve got to be in a great deal of pain.”

“I hurt,” she said, “but after I finally got my folks heading home, I realized that I’d hurt less if I was here and had something to occupy my mind. It’s better than sitting home alone, bored to tears, and thinking about how much I hurt.”

“Helena,” he smiled, shaking his head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about you. Talk about taking a whipping and keeping on ticking! Young lady, I can’t tell you enough how proud I am to have you working for me.”

“It was really nothing much, sir,” she replied shyly. “I don’t know why people keep making such a fuss over it. I just did what I thought was the right thing at the time.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought it was pretty amazing.” He let out a sigh. “All right, Helena, if you insist on working today, I guess I can’t stop you, but if it gets to be too much for you, then – please – feel free to get out of here.”

Helena pulled out the stool at her desk with her toe, knelt down on it, and turned to her work. Norma had already done the morning report for her, but there was still a stack of claims that had to be processed, and some of them were fairly complicated. Half an hour later, she was deep in one, trying to make sense out of it, when dimly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone set something down on her desk. She glanced up, and noticed that it wasn’t Mr. Young, with another claim to be settled – but the company president, with a vase full of roses!

“Oh, sir,” she protested, really surprised. “You didn’t have to do that!”

“I think I did, Ms. Curtis,” he smiled. “It’s the least I can do for such an extraordinary young employee like you.”

“But sir,” she protested. “I’ve been telling everyone that I didn’t do anything heroic. I just did what needed to be done.”

“Yes, you did,” he said. “The point is, you did do it. Ms. Curtis, I’ve been talking with your supervisor, and he tells me that you are a most extraordinary young employee, let alone what happened Friday. You’re polite, orderly, a hard worker, rarely make mistakes, and recognize when you’re over your head and aren’t afraid to ask for help when you need it. On the basis of that, I’m afraid I’m going to make him rather angry with me.”

“Sir?”

“If you’d be interested, there’s an assistant manager position open in claims review. You’re very junior to be promoted to an executive track slot like that, but both he and I think you’re capable of handling it. Moreover, we both think you deserve the chance.”

“But … sir, I …”

“I’d better watch it, Miss Curtis,” Mr. Young smiled. “You keep going like you’re going, and one of these days I’m going to be working for you.”

The new job wasn’t easy. It didn’t have the routine that had carried her for months. Until then, the decisions that she’d made were minor, obvious ones. The new job wasn’t like that at all. She had an office, although only a cubicle, rather than the open row of desks where she’d worked before, but the cases that landed on her desk involved thinking, involved real decisions, mostly second-guessing the work of others. It was harder – but she found herself enjoying it. By the end of the week, she found herself settling into the work, making sense of it, and she pressed on, trying to do the best job she could.

Life outside the office had changed a lot in that week, too. Her mother called virtually every night, worried about her, but she told her that she was fine, that she wasn’t hurting much anymore, that things were going to be all right, and eventually, her mother started to believe it.

Only Acacia really understood that she was in a lot less pain than nearly everyone thought she should be; it had now died down to a mild ache, with occasionally a sharper pain than that if she stretched for something, but nothing much to be concerned about. Her back still looked like hell, but in the mirror, the bruises were fading and starting to turn yellow, and the cuts and scratches were healing. Still Acacia kept the dressings on, kept the antibiotics coming.

The biggest change had come with Andy. They’d been friends, just causal dates, up to that time, although it had shown signs that it could get more serious. Now, it was doing just that. It was a little strange. In the quiet moments, she could remember being in that quiet, peaceful mountain meadow, enjoying the peace, but could remember being called back, and, after arrival, seeing Andy right in front of her, the concern evident on his face. In some way she could never explain, something in her mind clicked, and she began to associate Andy with that quiet space, that peace, that contentment. And she knew he had risked his life to rescue her, doing his best when no one else would or could take the chance, and her gratitude mixed in with those memories …

And a change had come over Andy, too. He was with her every night, classes or not, concerned about her and showing it. She appreciated his concern, it was very nice of him, but it began to be somewhat bothersome, too.

On that Friday night, she and Andy and Acacia were hanging around the apartment. There weren’t any good movies on that night, so Acacia had rented one, and they planned to watch it just for something to do, but they hadn’t gotten to it yet. Helena decided she wanted something to drink, and announced, “I’m going to the kitchen and get a glass of orange juice.”

Andy started to spring to his feet, saying he would get it when Helena stuck out her hand to stop him. “No, Andy,” she said. “I’m a grown woman, in good health. While I appreciate your courtesy, let me do it myself, please.”

“But Helena,” he said. “I’m just trying to do what I can for you. I mean, after last Friday …”

“I know,” she said. “And you’ve been a dear. But Andy, I am not some potted plant. I can do things for myself.”

“But Helena,” he protested. “After watching that bastard whip you, well, I just feel I ought to do what I can to make it up to you. I shouldn’t have taken you up there, I shouldn’t have let you go into the bank with me, I shouldn’t have tried to protect you. You might have made it to the door in the confusion there at the front, and you wouldn’t have had to do it. I just feel guilty as hell that I had to let it happen to you.”

“Oh, Andy,” she shook her head. “That’s all hindsight. There’s no way you could have foreseen what was going to happen. What happened, that’s all. Andy, I appreciate your concern, but you need feel no guilt. You did nothing to feel guilty for, and much to be proud of.” With that, she slid off to the couch onto the floor in front of him, and went to high kneel. “Andy, my hero, it is I that should be on my knees before you in my gratefulness for saving me, and you’re only making me feel guilty about it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just can’t make myself feel that way. There should have been something I could have done to keep you from getting whipped.”

“Andy, there was nothing you could have done,” she said, head bowed down before him. “I don’t even think you could have volunteered to be whipped in my place. He wanted to whip a woman, and I was really the only candidate. Andy, we’ve been over that. You’ve heard it from me time and time again. The most important thing, in my mind, is that I bought you the chance to do what you did, and you did it well, my hero. Had he not been whipping me, he never would have been distracted to the point where he wouldn’t notice you getting free and attacking him. If you’d done it any other time, there’s a good chance you’d have been shot and killed.”

Andy sat back, thinking about it. She was right, he realized. There really had been no other chance. “But Helena,” he said again. “To challenge him like you did … and then, seem so calm about it … Helena, I don’t know that I would have had the courage. I think I’d have been shitting my pants.”

“But, if the situation had been different, would you have taken the whipping for me?”

“I would have,” he nodded his head bravely, cringing at the thought, but accepting it. “I would have hated it, yes, I would have been scared shitless, but I’d have managed somehow. I just don’t know how you did it, and faced it so calmly.”

“I’d already realized that the worst that could happen was that I’d wake up in the arms of Jesus,” she said softly. “I accepted that. Beyond that, I knew that the only thing the whip could bring was pain, and I had reason to believe that I could handle the pain.”

“You had reason …” he frowned. “Helena, that’s … that’s crazy.”

Helena just kept staring at his lap, realizing that she’d just made a serious slip, trying to figure some way of talking herself out of it. The best she could come up with on short notice wasn’t very good. “Andy, let’s just say that I knew from experience that I can handle a lot of pain.”

Andy reached out, put his hand under her chin, and raised her head so he could look into her eyes. “Helena, I’ve got to know. Is there something crazy going on here, or am I crazy?”

“What do you mean, Andy?” she replied softly, mind racing hard. She suddenly realized that she was well down a road that she hadn’t made a clear decision to travel, hoping that there might be some way of turning around. This was something that was going to have to come up sooner or later, but she had not yet made a decision how she wanted to do it. The options were still there – a little at a time, or dump it on him and hope for the best. The first option seemed increasingly distant.

“Helena,” he said. “The night we were in the hospital, and I fell asleep by your bed. I had a dream, or a memory of a dream, or something, and it’s been bothering me ever since.”

“What, Andy?”

“I dreamed, or whatever it was, that I was watching as Wade and Acacia were standing by your bed, and you were asking Wade to punish you for allowing a man to approach you with a whip without his permission. I’ve been thinking about that dream, or whatever a lot, Helena. It’s slowly made me realize that something funny has been going on here. The more I think about it, I realize that there’s something about the two of you that I’m not seeing. Time and time again, I’ve heard one of you say something to the other that, well, it seems like you’re talking right past me, slipping something under my nose that I’m not supposed to understand. Wade is involved, too, somehow, I think, but I can’t put my finger on it. Now, Helena, am I crazy, or am I right?”

She was now much too far down the road, and it was clear that there was no turning back. Helena reached out, put her hands in his, and said, “No, you’re right. Andy, there is something going on. We have indeed talked past you several times, but I’m proud to say that we’ve never lied to you. We have allowed you to see some things in, uh, different perspectives, but we’ve never lied. I’ve needed to tell you this for a while, but I haven’t been able to figure out how. It’s … it’s not simple.”

“Let me guess,” he said. “You and Acacia are lesbians, right?”

“Oh, no,” Helena said solemnly. “That’s one thing we are not, I think I’m glad to say. But everything else … well, it’s very complicated, and I can’t explain it in a few words. I don’t understand it all, anyway. It’s not anything that Acacia or I think is wrong, Andy. It’s not bad, and once you think about it, I don’t think you’ll think it’s bad. It’s just different and hard to understand.”

Acacia had been watching the scene from across the room. “Helena, Andy,” she spoke up. “Maybe we ought to have Wade in on this.”

“I don’t see any other way,” Helena sighed. “We need to show Andy, not just tell him, and Wade is much better at explaining it from a man’s viewpoint than you or I will ever be. There are things you need to know, Andy, and not things just about Acacia and me. About you, too.”

“I don’t get it,” Andy said. “This is something truly weird, from what you’re saying.”

“Andy, will you please take me at face value for tonight?” Helena said. “I may have said too much already, and I don’t want you to just see pieces of the puzzle, I want you to see the whole thing, so you can judge for yourself, not just on a few scattered things that don’t make sense. I want you to hear us out, hear Wade out, but we can’t do it tonight.”

Andy frowned. “You guys aren’t Satan worshipers, or into witchcraft, or something like that?”

“Andy, I give you my word of honor,” Helena said. “We are doing nothing that I can see that conflicts with my duty as a Christian. After you see what I’m talking about, I can give you the Biblical references to prove it. If you disagree with my viewpoint, then you disagree, and if we disagree bad enough that we can’t continue, so be it. I have come to understand that I am what I am, and I can’t change that. But please, hear me out, Andy. Please give me the chance.”

“All right, Helena. I’ve come to respect you and like you enough that you deserve the chance. Now, how do we go about this?”

“Be here at 7:30 tomorrow morning,” she said. “Dress nice. Office nice, suit and tie, and we’ll head on up to Wade’s. Is that all right?”

“I guess,” he frowned. “But I can’t help but wonder what’s going on.”

“You’re just going to have to wonder till tomorrow,” Acacia told him. “Andy, Helena may have told you more than she should have for tonight, anyway, so don’t beg and pry for more. Now, if you want to watch this movie, I’ll go throw some popcorn in the microwave.”

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