Then his hands were on me. My back slammed against theshelves, pills and bandages digging into my spine. I told him no. I said it over and over. He didn't stop.
No.
I force my eyes open and stare at the dashboard until the cracks in the plastic come into focus. I need to count things.
Four cup holders. Three tree air fresheners. Two air vents. One crack in the windshield that spreads like a spiderweb from the passenger side.
I reported the rape. I went straight to HR with the evidence. The bruises on my wrists where he held me down, purple and yellow and ugly. Security footage showing me leaving the supply closet in tears, makeup smeared, clothes disheveled. His semen was still inside me when I went to the ER for a rape kit.
They fired me two weeks later.
"Budget cuts,"they said. The HR director didn't even look at me when she said it, just shuffled papers and avoided eye contact."Your position is no longer necessary."
His position remained necessary, though. His six-figure salary remained intact. His corner office with the view of the park remained his. I was the problem. The troublemaker. The nurse who couldn't handle the job, who should've kept her mouth shut.
My phone buzzes again. I don't look at it this time either.
Instead, I pull back onto the highway. Thirty miles to go. The sun's almost gone now, just a sliver of orange on the horizon.
The city appears like it's rising from the earth itself—Hartford's skyline cutting into the darkening sky. It's bigger than Pinewood, with actual buildings and actual traffic and actual life happening around me instead of the sleepy nothing of the town I left behind.
I navigate to Emma's neighborhood on autopilot, my hands making turns before my brain registers the street signs. I've been here before. Christmas two years ago, when Emma wasjust starting to show with Ethan, and everything felt possible. Emma's birthday last summer, before my life imploded. That awkward shopping trip with Jackson two months ago, when we bought Ethan his first ice skates and barely spoke except to comment on prices, the silence between us was so thick I could've choked on it.
I park in Emma's driveway and kill the engine. The sudden silence is deafening.
The house is dark. Every window is black, no porch light on. Nobody's home.
For a second, I consider leaving. Just starting the car and driving away. Going back to Pinewood or maybe somewhere else entirely, some town where nobody knows my name and I can disappear. Anywhere but here, anywhere I won't be a burden.
But where would I go?I have three hundred dollars in my checking account. No job. No references that won't tank an interview. No apartment because my lease was up last week, and I couldn't afford to renew it, couldn't even afford the security deposit on a new place.
Emma is the only person in the world who might let me crash on her couch without asking too many questions.
I dig through my purse until I find the spare key Emma gave me when they moved in. She told me I always had a place with her, said it with that fierce certainty Emma has about everything. I'm about to test if she meant it.
The key turns smoothly in the lock. I step inside and shut the door behind me, locking it out of habit. The house smells like Emma. Her vanilla candles and whatever laundry detergent she uses.
I drop my bags by the door and stand in the entryway, suddenly frozen. My reflection stares back at me from the hallway mirror. I look hollow-eyed, too thin, my curls a mess. I look away.
What am I doing?
I can't just show up here with no warning and expect Emma to take care of me. She's pregnant. She has a toddler who needs her attention and energy. She has her own life, full and complete without me. And I'm about to dump all my shit on her because I'm too much of a coward to handle my own problems. After all, I've got nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to.
My chest tightens again. The walls are moving closer, the air growing thinner. The familiar panic creeps in at the edges.
I sink onto the couch and press my palms against my thighs. The fresh cuts sting under my jeans, a sharp burn that grounds me.Good.Pain, I can understand. Pain makes sense when nothing else does.
I should leave before they get back. Pack up my stuff and disappear before Emma finds me here like some kind of pathetic stray. She doesn't need this. Doesn't need me falling apart in her living room, bleeding my trauma all over her perfect life.
But I don't move.
I sit here in the dark and wait for my best friend to come home so I can lie to her face and pretend I'm fine.
Because that's what I do now, I perform while I'm drowning. I smile while I'm bleeding out. I act like I'm okay when every morning I wake up, and the first thought in my head is that I wish I hadn't. That maybe it would be easier just to stop fighting, to let go, to finally rest.
The numbers run through my head like a countdown. Like I'm waiting for something to hit zero and finally be done.
I bury my face in my hands and try to remember how to breathe.In for four counts. Hold for seven. Out for eight.The breathing exercise my therapist taught me before I stopped going because I couldn't afford it.
