“Me too,” Dr. Mayes agreed.
“I have a boyfriend and he supports me all the way,” Brandy said. “He’s been there to keep my head up when I feel like the world is caving down around me.”
“Good. You need that, Brandy. If you two are being active, please make sure you are using protection.”
“We are,” she said. “Some days it’s really hard to do things that way, but it’s getting easier as more time passes. And I know he’ll never hurt me like that. Not the way my step-dad did.”
“I wouldn’t ever understand how someone who was raped can have a love life,” Sawyer said. “I mean, after something like that, the mind wouldn’t be able to fully relax to let nature happen, right? Wouldn’t it hurt? The first time hurts and all that, or so people say, so how much worse can it be to want to willingly do something after being forced?”
“Good questions,” Dr. Mayes said. “Stephanie, would you be able to answer them?”
I was never more glad to have a friend like Sawyer. There was no way I’d ever willingly ask that question, even when I was ready to know the answer. I didn’t want to think about a time that I’d be ready for that step with any man. And would a man even want me that way after the abuse I’d gone through? I was damaged goods.
“Sure, I guess,” she answered. “It’s all mind over matter. The first few times sucked. I panicked and hit my boyfriend. But he knew what happened in the past and was there to help me through it. Truthfully, it hurt just as bad as the first time, it just didn’t hurt me as emotionally like it did when I was forced. Well, not the same way. It does make a difference, having the choice. Also, doing a lot of playing in the bedroom helps a lot. And having a partner you trust.
“Talking about it helps, along with having a supportive partner. It’s important for both of you to know and understand the limits.”
“Do you remember when the abuse started with Alan?” Dr. Mayes asked. She sat in the chair across from me, the polar opposite of how I was curled up on the loveseat. My knees were pulled to my chest, leaving my toes hanging off the edge of the couch.
“A little over two weeks after he took me,” I answered, my voice thick with tiredness. “He got fed up with whining about wanting to go home. All I wanted was my brother and parents.”
“What did he do?”
“Slapped me across my face.” When that failed to get me to shut up about what I missed, what I wanted, he didn’t hesitate to use his belt. Many times, I cried myself to sleep with red welts littering my backside.
“When was Lisa introduced to you?”
“About the same time, give or take a few days.” My heart hurt, remembering how she had reacted to me. “She wasn’t pleased about Alan’s ways of punishment. The words she threw at him.” I paused, shaking my head. “He didn’t care, of course. But she tried. I miss her, though. A lot.”
“In the words you wrote, you said she died. How?”
“He killed her. Pushed her down the stairs after stabbing her with the knife she was going to use on him. Lisa was trying to protect me from him. She had seen my back after one of the many punishments he dished out.”
A shudder went through me as the sounds I wanted to forget echoed inside my head. I could still smell the coppery blood as it seeped onto the floor, staining it. “That’s what I dreamed about last night, and I couldn’t go back to sleep after. I can’t get the image of her out of my mind. She was just lying there, lifeless and bleeding. She was the only thing that was able to keep me sane enough to keep pushing through all the crap that Alan did to me. Then she died, and my heart died right along with her.”
“She was trying to protect you,” Dr. Mayes said gently. “Like any mother should do for her child. You feel guilty, don’t you?”
“How can I not? She didn’t need to try to protect me. I was surviving okay.”
“Butokayisn’t good enough, and you know that. Lisa, from what I could tell, saw you as a daughter and nothing less. If you could talk to her, I bet she wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.”
I knew that. Lisa was determined to save me from anything and everything that pertained to Alan. She was like my guardian angel.
“Then, why didn’t she get me away from Alan when she knew what was being done to me?” Why did my voice come out whiny? Hadn’t I gotten past all this shit already?
“Did you maybe stop and think that she wasn’t able to? It’s possible that Alan had some sort of hold over her, just as he did you. Ace figured out who you were through Lisa, and maybe he was biding his time too. So it’s not all on Lisa about getting you out sooner. There are so many sides to this that’s always going to be hard to tell who’s at fault. But really, it’s just how fate works. It was all out of everyone’s control.”
“Fate. Yeah, right.” My words were harsher than I wanted them to be, but in this room, I was finding it harder and harder to pretend. The real me was coming out, and there was no way I could stop it. My anger, sadness, and hopelessness appeared without my consent.
“I know life has dealt you one heck of a hand,” she went on, not at all upset about my response. “It’s hard to grasp the concept of it all. Which is why you must know it’s not your fault. None of it is.”
I glared at her, knowing that one look spoke more than words ever could.
“Will you be at group tomorrow?” she asked, ignoring my look and mood.
“I don’t know yet.”
“You haven’t been sleeping well, but keeping busy is the best thing to do. Don’t let the monsters keep pulling you down, Scarlett. You can overcome all of this. You just need time to process it all and fight through it one day at a time.”
