The Complete Irreparable Boxed Set: Irreparable #1-2

by Sam Mariano

  Most of the recent ones were from her parents and her brother, Todd. Just below those, however, were the messages she hadn’t gotten around to deleting, even though she figured she probably should. Her mothers certainly didn’t seem the type to go snooping through her stuff, but on the off chance, she had saved Ethan’s phone number into her contacts under the name Shelly. If they ever tried to play detective and snoop through her stuff, they wouldn’t look twice at a text message from Shelly.

  She was no good at remembering phone numbers. Plus, she was lazy about deleting things. There were thousands of messages in her email inbox for exactly that reason.

  “Do you think you’ll still be able to do once-a-week appointments when you’re back in school?” Lauren asked suddenly.

  Willow had started seeing the counselor the week after her phone call to Ethan. It wasn’t helping all that much, however, since she still got pissed off when anyone wanted her to talk about the whole ordeal. She also refused to tell the counselor about Ethan. Ashlynn had assured her she could—and should—tell the counselor anything and everything, but Willow wouldn’t.

  It wasn’t only because she didn’t want to get him in trouble; she didn’t want to acknowledge what he had done. It clashed with her new view of him, and she needed that to keep her sanity.

  And a little because, despite Ashlynn’s assurances otherwise, Willow couldn’t shake the idea that the counselor would tell. If Ashlynn knew the truth, she would drive to Ethan’s house and gut him before Willow could even attempt to explain the situation.

  Not that she could blame her. If Willow had a daughter, she would feel the same way, but since she didn’t, she didn’t have to think about it from that angle.

  That night Willow and Todd got roped into hanging out in the family room and watching some television after dinner. While her moms watched some dumb sitcom, Todd spent the whole time text messaging some girl he claimed not to like, and Willow spent some time playing around on her phone, noting that 70 people had liked the picture she posted earlier and scrolling through to see what was going on in the lives of her old friends.

  There was a picture of Scott with some girl named Holly that Willow didn’t recognize. The comments all alluded to a relationship, but his status hadn’t changed, so she wasn’t sure. It seemed like she should care more than she did.

  She didn’t think anyone noticed her snooping until Todd murmured, “He’s an asshole.”

  Glancing up in surprise, she asked, “Who?”

  He nodded toward her phone. “I saw that picture earlier.”

  “Oh.” Willow shrugged. “It’s okay, I dumped him anyway, not the other way around. It’s high school, he’s bound to date someone else and I’m bound to run into them in the halls. At least she’s not one of my friends.”

  Calling them her friends seemed a little odd, but calling them her “old friends” felt weirder, so she went with that.

  “Still,” he put in loyally.

  Willow offered him a little smile. “Who are you texting?”

  “Nobody.” He glanced up as she quirked a brow and he sighed, lowering his voice. “Becka.”

  “I thought you totally didn’t like her,” she said lightly.

  “We’re just friends.”

  “Does she know that?”

  “I don’t know, girls are dumb,” he stated.

  “Um, no, I’m pretty sure boys are dumb.”

  For the next few minutes they bickered back and forth like they used to and it was a nice change of pace. Willow didn’t even realize the sitcom had ended and the news was on until Todd had to go back to texting Becka, who thought she was being ignored.

  “That’s just awful,” Ashlynn was saying, shaking her head.

  Willow glanced at the television to find out what Ashlynn was talking about and saw a news story about a 15-year-old girl who had been kidnapped and kept in some deranged man’s basement for several months. He’d been captured and in addition to the kidnapping charges, he was being charged with rape, to the surprise of absolutely no one.

  “I just can’t handle stories like this anymore,” Lauren stated.

  “Rotting in jail isn’t good enough for that monster,” Ashlynn added.

  Lauren shook her head, agreeing. “I’m just so glad you were rescued before anything like that could happen to you, honey. You were so lucky.”

  Ashlynn slid a glance in Willow’s direction, catching the suddenly stormy expression on her face and reaching for the remote. “Well, I think that’s enough news for one evening.”

  “I haven’t seen the weather yet,” Lauren objected.

  “You can check it online,” Ashlynn stated, changing the channel.

  It was too late. Willow already felt the initial sinking sensation that slowly morphed into hollowness in the pit of her stomach. Lower in her gut, she was already beginning to feel a dull ache—the same overwhelmingly uncomfortable feeling that she got anytime she was reminded of her ordeal. Her therapist had given her some bullshit breathing exercise to do, but when feelings of anger and injustice were welling up inside of her, she wasn’t thinking about breathing—and she wasn’t about to start doing a breathing exercise in front of her family anyway.

  The need to flee was coming on strong, like an itch she needed to scratch—but in her brain, where she couldn’t get to it.

  There was also nowhere to go. Out, away—anywhere, but she didn’t feel safe by herself in the world anymore. Even though she was sure it was only her imagination, she still imagined people watching her, waiting for their next opportunity to hurt her.

  A couple of times she even considered going to her father to see if he had any friends or associates or whatever who could just keep an eye on her when she had to go to and from school. She never went, afraid it would be too embarrassing, and he would probably just say he couldn’t help her anyway.

  She had started carrying a pocket knife in her purse, but realistically, she knew it wasn’t likely to help her in the event that a few big men decided to kidnap her again.

  Her own vulnerability was very discomfiting. She knew everyone thought she was fragile, which made her even angrier.

  The only place she could escape the watchful eye of her family—while also not putting herself in actual danger, in her own mind—was her bedroom.

  Pushing herself up off the floor, she made some mumbled excuse about needing to go put her clothes away and escaped up the stairs.

  Once she was in her room, she found that she really had left her new clothes in the bags on her bed, so she sighed and started taking them out, folding them or hanging them and putting them away. The comfy black zip-up dress she kept out, deciding to change into it after her shower since she was only bumming around the house for rest of the evening.

  Once everything was put away, she sat down with her journal—another thing her psychologist considered a good idea—and set out to write. Several minutes later, pen poised over the notebook paper, she hadn’t written a single word. Considering she was still unwilling to write down what happened to her, she was unable to appropriately pinpoint why she was angry, and she settled for writing a bunch of synonyms for her feelings instead.

  The exercise didn’t lead to any real catharsis, so she finally abandoned the journal and went to take a shower. The giant spider crawling along the shower wall had other plans, so she spun on her heel and debated how long she would have to deal with Ashlynn’s prying concern if she called her upstairs just to get rid of the spider.

  Probably too long.

  She didn’t need a shower that badly.

  Instead she changed into her dress and pulled her hair up into a heavy, messy bun on top of her head—her hair was getting too long for that particular style, and she was debating chopping some of it off—not even going to a hair salon, just going to get the scissors, going into the bathroom, and chopping it right off.

  The spider occupied the bathroom, however, and the scissors were downstairs, so that plan was shelved.


  Sighing as she crawled into bed, she kicked the notebook in the floor and curled up under blankets, staring out the window. It was still light outside—only a little after 6—and much too early to go to sleep. Plus she was all wound up, and going to sleep like that would be impossible.

  Still, she had no more use for the day. Going to sleep and wasting her evening depressed her a little too, since it meant one day closer to having to go back to school.

  Going to sleep was always risky anyway. Her method of trying to control her dreams wasn’t infallible, and she wasn’t in the right mindset at the moment. The more she went to bed in a negative or anxious mood, the more she would dream about all the really bad stuff. If she got in bed and tried to think about nothing, she would invariably become anxious about the possibility of having a bad dream—then she would. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  Since she was already in a bad mood, she attempted to color over the anger with nice thoughts. She was alive, that was something. She wasn’t being forced to spread her legs for money multiple times a night—another boon. Resisting the memories of people dying right before her eyes, she went for super positive—the school year would be great! She would simply ignore what had happened and focus on her future.

  Finishing high school and going to college would be nice. Maybe she would even meet someone eventually, someone to wear her pretty dresses on dates with, who would understand without having to talk about it that she had intimacy issues even she didn’t understand, who would be patient—not even patient, because he wouldn’t even care. Yeah, he would be so in sync with her that he wouldn’t even need to discuss what happened or why she was the way she was. He would just get it—and accept it. He would accept every part of her. It wouldn’t hurt if he was also nice to look at, tall, strong—into martial arts or something, so he could kick Tito’s ass if she ever saw him again. Maybe he would even teach her, so she could kick Tito’s ass herself. He would probably have dark hair, a strong jaw—definitely. Really nice eyes, a sexy smile.

  She smiled faintly, closing her eyes. Yes, that would be nice. She would feel safer when he was around, and he would like her new, mature way of dressing. Somehow she might even find her way back to being able to think about sex without having terrible images flash across her mind—she could create new memories with him, and eventually it would just be a thing that happened to her in the past that she didn’t need to think about anymore.

  Then she remembered that “maturity” in even the oldest guys at her school wouldn’t entail any of that.

  Oh well, she would have to wait for college.

  In the meantime, she would have to come up with a more realistic way of achieving those goals on her own.

  Sometime after daydreaming about scenarios in which she and her mystery college boyfriend—he was a junior or a senior by the time she fell asleep—would sit in coffee houses discussing life, philosophy and politics, Willow drifted off to sleep.

  Suddenly the man named Chuck was standing in a dingy room, coaxing someone behind her. He reached over and pinched one of her breasts, causing Willow to cry out in pain, objection, humiliation. What was going to happen to her? She wasn’t a fool; she knew that most of the other girls had been “broken in” by at least one of the thugs—but not her. They couldn’t do that to her.

  Then there was Ethan. Beautiful, terrible Ethan, unzipping his jeans as her heart pounded so loudly in her chest and her blood raced through her veins so rapidly that she could hear her body’s reaction. She felt herself trembling. Heard her mind crying out in denial—it couldn’t possibly happen to her, it couldn’t. Someone would save her somehow.

  But then he was behind her, smacking her on the ass, and tears were welling up in her eyes. She was helpless, out of control, at everybody else’s mercy.

  In front of them, the one called Lane spoke but his voice was her mother’s as he said, “You’re so lucky.”

  She wanted to lash out, to scream, to fight, but then there was a gun pressed up against her temple. She was crying, shaking—she didn’t want to die. Not like that, not mostly naked in a dirty rathole surrounded by people she despised. People who didn’t give a shit if she ever drew another breath.

  Dropping to her knees, she held out hope that somehow she would be saved. She didn’t know how, but she knew someone would save her—just like in the books or movies. The girl had to be saved—she didn’t belong there. Things like that couldn’t happen to her.

  Except that it was happening. There was no hero to save her, only a room full of terrible people who placed no actual value on her life. People who probably wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if she gave them even a flimsy reason.

  Maybe if she got him off, it would be over. It wasn’t like she had a choice anyway. She felt disgusting as she touched him, refusing to look above his waist—too humiliated to watch him as he watched her—if he was even watching her.

  Then he was in her mouth, and she was crying, making a real mess of herself as she tasted him. It was impossible not to think about what she was doing to a perfect stranger, half naked, while other strangers watched.

  Behind her, as she labored over a stranger’s cock, she heard Lane/her mother say, “You’re so lucky.”

  Waking with a gasp, it took Willow a moment to realize it had only been a dream. She wasn’t really back in that awful place—she wasn’t really being raped again. Only in her mind, like so many other nights.

  Helpless tears welled up in her eyes, infuriating her.

  She felt sick to her stomach. Her mind felt polluted—her sense of peace demolished. There was no healing. There was no getting better or moving past it. Nearly every night the same fucking shit—she experienced it over and over again. All the feelings were still there, even if it wasn’t real, because it was real. It had happened. It wasn’t just a bad dream.

  To feel helpless was the worst kind of agony.

  So she saturated her helplessness in fury—she deserved to be fucking furious. She had been wronged, her suffering did not spring forth from a vacuum—it was the result of her body and soul being violated, her ability to control what happened to her ripped away.

  And for what? She didn’t even know. She only knew that it wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing she could do about it.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

  Reaching for her cell phone, she lit it up, wincing at the brightness and impulsively going to her text messages.

  She rolled her eyes at the name Shelly, deceptively posing as Ethan. Without bothering to check the time or consider his family, she rapidly typed out, “Tonight my mom told me how lucky I am that I wasn’t raped while I was in captivity. I sure am fucking lucky!”

  Well, it ended up saying she was “ducking” lucky because autocorrect was a prudish bastard, but he would get the gist.

  “Fuck you,” she said to her phone, throwing it down beside her on the bed.

  Just lying there thinking about it, she could feel her face heating up, her rage building. She needed to release her anger, but that felt impossible.

  Her phone vibrated and lit back up.

  Picking it up, she read his message. “Are you okay?”

  “No I’m not ok. I’m furious. I thought I was doing better.”

  He promptly replied, “Do you need to talk?”

  “There’s no one to talk to,” she stated.

  “I thought you were seeing a counselor?”

  She couldn’t remember if she had told him that or not, but she sent back, “Can’t tell her.”

  She watched the screen for a minute, but it only dimmed and faded to black. He didn’t seem to have a response to that one.

  Dropping the phone back into the cushion of her blankets, she covered her face with her hands and tried to find her way back to a more peaceful mindset.

  Her mind wasn’t having it. The dream was too vivid, too real.

  Then her phone went off.

  She wasn’t sure what
she expected it to say, but she did not expect what she read. “Are you able to meet me somewhere?”

  For a split second, she was so surprised that her fury was delayed, but then she remembered that she was afraid to go outside after dark, and even if she ran to her car, she would have to face the terror of running to it, then the terror of running back inside when she returned. It wasn’t worth it.

  “No,” she sent back. Then she elaborated succinctly, “Afraid to go outside alone after dark.”

  The phone indicated he was typing, then he sent back, “Is your family asleep? I could pick you up.”

  She didn’t respond. It surprised her, and she wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about it.

  Then he added, “Or I could just come to make sure you get to your car safely.”

  That made her feel a little bit better, but when she tried to imagine it, it still seemed scary.

  She also wasn’t sure seeing him would help… even if he was the only person who knew what happened to her, so he was also the only person who might understand why she still felt the way she did.

  Finally, making a snap decision, she sent back, “Pick me up.”

  After he agreed and told her he would be on his way momentarily, she stayed in bed, pulling her blankets up to her chin. She had something new to think about, she just didn’t know what to think about it.

  Eventually Willow pulled herself out of bed to go into the bathroom and take her hair out of the messy bun, opting to wear it down in waves that fell all the way to her butt. Once more she considered the scissors, but it wasn’t really the time for an impromptu haircut.

  Even though she heard her mother’s disapproving voice in her head telling her she should probably change out of the “beach cover-up” before she left, she didn’t. She wasn’t afraid to show leg; despite the fact that he was the one to hurt her in the first place, she harbored no real fear that he would do it again.

  Her sometimes overwhelming distrust of all people and things since she returned home occasionally tried to convince her otherwise, but she thought his guilt was real. Ethan didn’t have sexually violent urges—he had just been in a bad situation, exactly like she had been.