“I’m so, so sorry, Cole. If it weren’t for me, none of this would have happened. Just please, please come back to us,” I plead, my tears landing on the bed as I hang my head.
Like a miracle, I feel his hand move in mine. It’s so small that for a moment, I think I imagined it. That’s my wishful thinking that conjured it up. But then he moves again.
“Cole?” I exclaim in a sharp expulsion of air.
I see his eyelids flutter, and then I feel as if my heart will explode from my chest with joy as his eyes open.
“You’re awake! He’s awake!” I cry out—I don’t know who I’m telling as it’s just me in the room, but I want to shout it out to the world. I’m just overwhelmed with happiness. Cole opens his mouth, confused, as if to speak, but I know, from what the doctors told me, that he can’t—not yet. “It’s okay, Cole, you’re okay. Everyone is alright. You’re in the hospital. I’m going to get the doctor now.”
I press the call button, and the doctors scurry into the room to run their tests, then usher me out with the assurance that they will come to get me the second he’s speaking. I race down the strip-lit corridor to find the others. They’re all gathered in the reception area, finalizing their discharges.
“He’s awake! Cole’s awake!” I exclaim again, feeling like Scrooge from A Christmas Carol, just discovering that it’s Christmas Day.
Now Cole is awake, everything feels right with the world. I know that together we can make it through anything. The guys are as overjoyed as I am, and we rush to his room.
After spending hours by Cole’s bedside as he drifted in and out of consciousness, the hospital staff finally kicked us out. We go home together for the first time since all of this began, feeling elated rather than sad that Cole isn’t with us because we know he will be soon.
***
A week later, Cole has improved leaps and bounds, his speedy recovery nothing short of a miracle, and the hospital discharges him. We all knew he would, though—he’s too strong and too stubborn to stay down for long. However, he still has a long way to go before he gets back to his old self. Finally, we can all go home together as a family.
We’ve barely been back since the day Mary Beth helped kidnap me and Mia, only to grab some sleep, shower, and change, and take care of Mia. And never more than one or two of us at a time, the rest of us taking shifts to be with Cole, constantly. We’ve been in the hospital a lot, worrying about the guys. It feels surreal but lovely to be here, like coming home after a long vacation, albeit not a good one. It’s funny how the place that was only supposed to be a temporary safe house now feels like home.
We’re all a little uncertain, unsure of how to act around each other after such a monumental event, all worried that the others are too traumatized for normality. However, we slip into our typical roles, the guys making a late-night snack and helping Cole get comfortable on the pull-out couch, where he’ll sleep for a few nights before tackling the stairs, while I put Lena to bed. When I return, they’re sitting in the living room, having already eaten their sandwiches. I wolf down the grilled cheese they’ve made for me in record time, too. After the hospital food, it tastes like heaven.
With our basic needs met, we finally talk. We talk without judgment, without anger, without resentment, only truth and love. They explain everything that happened to them, and I do the same. We offer words of support and comfort as we tell our tales of woe, and I feel only love for these brave men.
When they admit that, for one moment, they all believed what Zeke was saying and how I was acting was true, I tell them I don’t blame them and explain why I did what I had to do. Their compassion and understanding blow me away. “Of course you did, Lena, you had no choice.” “You did the best that you could in a horrific situation.” “You saved yourself and most likely kept us alive with your lie.” Doc, Judge, and Cole each tell me.
Rex hesitates for a moment, looking humbled. “I have to admit, I believed it longer than the others. I think a part of me always worried that you couldn’t possibly love me back, that what we have is too good to be true. I believed it and treated you terribly even before Zeke took you. The guys were always trying to convince me otherwise, but I didn’t think it until that night. I spent too long punishing you when I should have been showing you how much I love you. Can you ever forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” I tell him, going over to sit on the armrest and wrap my arms around him, kissing him softly on the lips.
The kiss deepens, reigniting the flame that always burns in me for him. I let out a gasp of pleasure and surprise as I realize I’m ready, that I want to reconnect with my men physically as well as emotionally.
Rex mistakes my gasp as the opposite and pulls back. “I’m sorry, it’s okay if you’re not ready for… well, for anything.”
“Yes, take as long as you need,” Doc interjects gently.
“I can’t do much other than watch anyway,” Cole quips with a wink and a smile that makes him grimace from pain and discomfort. I’m awed at his resiliency.
“No… no, I am…” I assure them.
“Are you sure? Because after what Zeke… I mean, what he must have done…” Judge says carefully choosing his words.
“We know that you had no choice, that he made you do whatever he did to you… It doesn’t change our feelings or mean that we don’t want you like that,” Rex is quick to clarify, babbling slightly as he tries not to make things worse with a poor choice of words.
I realize then that they believe that I purposely omitted some details from my story, that Zeke forced me to have sex with him while he held me captive, and I don’t want to tell them. The irony that this time I’m not doing that, but before I was, isn’t lost on me. “No, I mean, Zeke didn’t do anything other than what I told you. He tried to on that second night… the night I…” I stop short of saying the words ‘killed him’; we’ve all agreed we should never say that out loud again, even to each other. I continue, “He didn’t rape me. Not then anyway. I’m so sorry I lied to you before, that I hid it from you all, but the reason Zeke believed Mia was his was because he did rape me that night, the night I escaped and met you, Rex. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. Lots of reasons, shame, fear you would pity me or see me as damaged goods, and because I didn’t want to admit it to myself, I wanted to be the version of myself I created, one who fought back and escaped.” Tears stain my cheeks as I finally admit my secret. “It’s why I couldn’t let him touch me again.”
Cole speaks gently, his warm blue eyes soft and sad. “We knew all along, Lena, or at least we suspected, especially after we heard he thought Mia was his.”
“We would never see you as damaged goods or pity you,” Rex adds, wiping my tears away. “I knew, and I loved you from the moment I saw you.”
Judge speaks firmly, and I see the anger toward Zeke simmering beneath the surface. “None of what happened is your fault, only his. He deserved what he got and more.”
“We love you, Lena, no matter what,” Doc adds.
I’m overwhelmed with love for these men. The horrors we’ve been through have only made us stronger and brought us closer together, and right now I simply feel lucky to have them, to have found this sort of love with not one but four incredible men, each of whom understands me and fulfills me in different ways.
