WILLOW
I’m woken by the sound of my own groan, and a sharp pain in my abdomen follows. It’s jarring and jolting—like the twist of a flaming knife stabbing me from the inside out.
I question it at first, for one brief moment. A flash of panic crossing my mind because I don’t know why it’s happening, why it hurts so bad, why I feel so much pain.
Then consciousness takes over. I’m awake, and I remember why I’ve been in fight-or-flight since the morning I left Berkeley. That was the flight. The running and coping and vowing to start over.
Now, I’m fighting. Fighting consequences I didn’t cause, harboring pain I didn’t ask for, facing guilt I don’t think I deserve.
I don’t want to be awake yet. I don’t want to feel this pain or think about what’s happening in my body. I don’t want to remember what Parker did, or what I had to do because of it. I don’t want to think about dropping out of college or what my future will look like now.
I don’t want to feel so fucking lost.
My eyes flutter open, daylight blurring my vision. I blink, and as I adjust to the brightness, I realize I’m in my bedroom. Morning sun filters through the sage-green curtains over my window, and my bed is covered with my new pink heated blanket. My water bottle and a mug sit on the table beside me.
Movement across the room catches my eye, and I lift my head to find my dad curled up in the oversized chair. He shifts, turning sideways and laying his head on the armrest.
“Dad?”
His eyes fly open, and he sits up abruptly, a knit blanket dropping off his chest and pooling in his lap. “Willow?” he asks on a sharp breath. “Are you okay?”
“Ye—” I sigh. “Well, no. But I’m fine? I don’t know. Why are you sleeping in that chair? I thought I fell asleep on the couch?”
He raises his arms, yawning with a stretch. “Don’t tell your mother this, but she’s old. You were both sleeping in the living room last night, and the way she was lying was going to kill her neck today. So I carried her to bed, and then I came back and carried you to bed too. Thought you’d be more comfortable here.” He stands, running his hands through his blond hair before sitting down at the edge of my bed. “I wanted to be nearby in case you needed me, though.”
For what feels like the millionth time in the last week, I begin crying again. My nose stings with the burn of emotion as my tears spill over. I’m incredibly aware of how lucky I am to have the family I do. I didn’t have to hide my choice from anybody in my life. Not only my parents, but my best friend, my extended family, have all dropped what they’re doing to support me—no questions asked.
I decided I didn’t want anyone outside my parents and Allie to know about what happened with Parker. It almost felt too intimate, the details of the violation on my body. Somehow, telling my family that I came home with an unwanted pregnancywas easier. It made the unconditional acceptance I’ve received from every one of them mean even more.
“C’mere, Sugar,” Dad whispers, sitting back against my headboard and wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “How’re you feeling?”
“So exhausted. I think if I slept for three days I’d still wake up tired.” I sit up, adjusting the heating pad against my stomach as he fluffs my pillows. “Uncomfortable and crampy. A little sad, I think.”
“That all sounds about right.” He kisses the top of my head. “It’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to feel like you lost something. It’s even okay to grieve.”
“It feels more like I had something stolen from me,” I whisper. The sentence crumbles from my lips, fractured.
“You did. Pregnancy can be a joyful thing, but when your first experience with it becomes tainted by something tragic, it’s hard to get past when it happens again later.” I know my dad is speaking from experience. My mom had a miscarriage when my parents got together as teenagers. Years later, after they were married, she struggled with fertility before having me. “You had your first experience stripped from you. It wasn’t your turn, Sugar.” He smiles softly, wiping my tears with his thumb. “Someday, if you want to, you’ll get to try again, with your person. You’ll look back on this. It’ll still hurt, even then, but you’ll know you made the right choice for yourself.”
I sniffle, pulling my legs to my chest. “It was the right choice. I know that. Plenty of people in this world would want me to be ashamed, but I refuse to placate them. I guess I just feel sad it’s happening at all, if that makes sense.”
“It makes sense. All of it makes sense. It’s not fair, and it’s okay to be frustrated by it. It’s okay to be sad and angry and hurt. You’re being plummeted by a tidal wave right now, and you’rewading through it, treading water until your feet hit the sand again. You make me so fucking proud, Willow.”
Well, that does it.
My face falls into my hands because it all hits me at once. I’m sick—aching in my body and my soul. I’m bleeding out, literally and figuratively. It’s overwhelming, and I’ve saddled myself with the immense responsibility of being able to handle it when Ican’t.
Despite the promises that it’s not my fault, that my feelings over what Parker did to me are valid, and I should call the assault what it is, I still question it. Every time I close my eyes, the night replays inside my head, and I find myself searching for the words I didn’t hear or the regret I never saw in his eyes. I still gaslight myself into believing it wasn’t as terrible as I thought, that what he said wasn’t as awful as it feels.
That I’m overreacting and overdramatic.
Though, what I see now when I close my eyes are all the signs that had been there from the start—the signs I was too stupid, too lovestruck, to acknowledge until he went too far.
Some moments I even want to call him. I want to hear his voice because I think it’d be filled with reassurances—confirmations that I’m remembering incorrectly, that what’s existing in my brain isn’t the reality. That he didn’t break me the way it feels like he did, because that’s what he used to say to me when I questioned his comments on my body, or expressed concern for his paranoia, and refused to comply to his demands.
I’d never hurt you, Willow.
Nobody will ever love you like I do, I’m looking out for you.
