by Claire Raye
By the time I get back home, everyone else is awake, sitting around in the kitchen as though they’re waiting for something. Me probably.
“Dude,” Josh says, as I collapse into a chair beside him.
“Hey.”
Mum comes over and presses a kiss to the top of my head, which must be a sweaty mess. “Can I get you something to eat?” she asks.
I shrug. “Coffee is fine, thanks.”
She squeezes my shoulder and I wait for what I know is coming. “You should eat something,” she adds, moving toward the fridge. “It’s going to be a long day.”
Don’t I fucking know it. I’ve already been up for hours, my brain going over and over all the things I know are going to happen today. The people I’m going to see, the things I’ll be expected to say and the shit I’m going to have to do.
“Sure,” I say, exhaling, figuring at this point, it’s easier just to give in.
A couple of hours later, me, Josh, Mum and Dad are in the car and on our way to the cemetery. I’m wearing a suit that belongs to my brother and only half fits. I’m hot, even though it’s winter, as I sit here sweaty and uncomfortable. Beside me on the seat sits a box that contains everything I ran from. Everything I’ve come home for.
It looks so fucking insignificant and small, and it kills me to think this is all that is left of them.
“You okay?” Josh asks and it takes me a second to realize we’ve arrived and he and I are now sitting alone in the car, our parents standing outside, waiting for us.
I let out a long, slow breath. “Not really,” I admit.
Josh reaches across the back seat, his hand on my shoulder. “This was never going to be easy,” he says, his voice quiet. “But we’re all here for you, Adam.”
“I know,” I say with a nod, just needing this to be over.
Josh undoes his seatbelt and I follow, the two of us climbing out of the car. He walks around to my side, holding the box that contains Rachel and our unborn baby’s ashes. Needing to take a step back from everything that’s happening, I look at him and blurt out, “Charlie misses you.”
Josh’s mouth curves into a small smile as he shrugs as if to say of course she does. “Come on,” he says, slapping me on the back. “Let’s go.”
Inside, there are about forty people waiting for us; faces that are at once so familiar, but so totally foreign. I hadn’t wanted something big, would have preferred to just have family or not even do anything, but so much of this is beyond my control now.
Rachel’s family was tired of waiting, tired of me acting like I didn’t give a shit that in the end it had been easier to just give into what they wanted, what they’d already arranged. At least it saved me from having to think about any of it, from having to do anything.
“Hey, Adam,” Louise, Rachel’s older sister says as she walks over and throws her arms around me. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since the funeral, but it doesn’t surprise me that she’s the first to come over. She’s a free spirit, a nomad and the reason Rachel and I had wanted to travel in the first place. If anyone was going to get why I needed to leave, it’s her.
“Hey, Lou,” I murmur, hugging her back. “How are you?”
She chuckles a little, pulling back as she meets my gaze, her hands on both of my arms. “Probably about as shit as you look.”
I give her a wry smile. “I doubt that.”
She squeezes my arms. “Have a drink after?” she asks, tilting her head toward the door that I’m pretty sure we both want to escape through.
“Definitely,” I say with a nod.
Louise rejoins her family, Jane and Mike standing with Rachel’s younger sister, Ella, who just nods in my direction.
A heap of Rachel’s friends are here too, but Josh steers me toward the front seats before any of them have a chance to come and talk to me. I can feel them all staring though, their eyes like daggers in my back as their unspoken questions fill the room.
At least some of my friends are here too, James, Chris, a couple of other guys, helping to balance out the tension that surrounds us all.
After we sit, a man in a suit walks out, a sympathetic smile on his face as he looks first at Rachel’s family sitting on one side of the room and then at mine, sitting on the other. It feels weird and fake and nothing like Rachel would’ve wanted and, in this second, I feel like a complete arsehole for not taking care of this. For not giving her what I know she would have preferred.
“Good morning,” the guy starts, but I don’t bother listening to what else he has to say. Instead, my eyes focus on the simple urn that now sits on a stand at the front after my brother handed over the box which contained it.
How is it possible that Rachel’s life has been reduced to nothing more than a handful of dust? To something so small and insignificant, something so fragile and so easily lost. It’s pathetic and such a contrast to who she was.
I close my eyes, my head dropping as I finally allow myself to remember the woman I once loved, the woman I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. The woman I was about to start a family with.
You’re allowed to move on, Adam. I want you to be happy.
My eyes snap open, the floor beneath me blurry as I blink rapidly in an attempt to try and focus. I see a tear fall, splattering on the carpet below me as I try to process what the fuck that just was.
I love you, Adam, I always will. But be happy, please. You deserve that.
My eyes close again as I bite the inside of my cheek, stifling the groan or sob that I can feel building in my throat.
It hurts.
It hurts so fucking much having to do this. Having to let go, to say goodbye, to not feel fucking guilty because all I want to do is leave and go back. Go back to Mila and all of the safety and happiness and peace that she offers me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
I feel a hand on my back and I flinch, wondering what the fuck is going on before realizing that it’s Josh who’s sitting beside me. I don’t look up and he doesn’t move his hand, just keeps it there in a silent acknowledgement of everything that’s happening.
The ceremony or whatever the fuck it is feels like it lasts forever and yet is over in no time at all. Suddenly we’re all standing and I’m surrounded by people who are hugging me, whispering words I don’t hear as I’m dragged outside.
We’re taken to a grassed area, to a garden with a giant gum tree surrounded by rose bushes. It’s beautiful and peaceful and something I know she would’ve liked even if she’d have hated to be trapped here.
Scattered ashes was something she’d mentioned once, back when we’d been doing our wills in preparation for getting married. I’d told her to stop being so morbid, that this wasn’t something we’d need to worry about for at least eighty years and in any case, I was going first so she needed to remember what I wanted.
“Maybe we’ll go together,” she’d said, smiling as she leaned in to kiss me. “So we never have to be apart.”
God, fuck, how the hell had she ever joked about that shit?
“Adam?”
I look up, find my dad standing beside me, his arm outstretched toward the garden. It takes me a second to realize what he’s pointing at, the small box that sits in the ground, waiting.
“Do you want to?” he asks, his voice quiet.
I nod, swallowing hard as I step forward before crouching down in front of the garden. “Bye, Rach,” I whisper, pushing some of the dirt into the hole. “I’m so fucking sorry. For everything.”
My tears fall again, drops hitting my hands as I push more and more dirt into the hole, covering her ashes, burying all that remains of her and our life together. When I finally stand, I can barely see, my vision blurred by tears. I feel hands on my arms, people guiding me, steadying me, but I ignore them all as I turn and walk away, needing a minute of peace. Just needing some space.
As I step onto the footpath, I walk
aimlessly amongst the gardens, the eyes of everyone on me as I weave a path through the graves and trees, not thinking about where I’m going or what I’m doing.
My whole body feels numb, as though I’m incapable of feeling anything anymore and a wave of fear washes over me as I wonder if I’ll ever actually feel anything again.
Just as I reach the edge of the grounds, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. Even though I know it’s probably Josh or my parents, I still pull it out, glancing at the screen and the message that fills it.
But it’s not until I read it that I finally break down and sob like a fucking baby, everything hitting me in one huge crash that practically cripples me.
Mila: I love you too. So much.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mila
I miss him more than I thought I could ever miss someone, and it’s only been a little over a week. There was no set return date, no return flight booked, everything was very open ended since Adam wasn’t sure how long it would take to sort everything out with Rachel’s estate. Even though we never really talked about what he was planning to do there, I have an idea. I’m sure they had a house and cars and a life that Adam just left behind. I have absolutely no idea how long it takes to tie up all those loose ends. Weeks, months, years?
I don’t want to add more stress to Adam’s plate by asking when he thinks he will be back. He keeps saying soon, but soon could mean a number of things and I’m not even sure he has as much control over the situation as he thinks he does.
I’m trying to keep myself occupied, focusing on what I can do going forward with my own situation. Today I’m meeting up with Madison for my first survivors’ group, and despite the anxiety I feel coursing through me, I’m also interested to finally find people who have gone through what I have, to find support in numbers.
For the last several months I’ve just been going through the motions, never really letting myself get angry about what happened to me and how it has affected my life. I’ve been trying so hard to stay neutral in the hopes that no one will notice how fucked up I really am, but I don’t want that anymore. I want to let myself feel, to get angry, to grieve, to heal and to move on and I’m hoping that hearing the stories of others, to hear their thoughts and the ways they’ve dealt with it all will help me too.
Madison is waiting for me when I walk up, and I stop short, looking at the sign outside the building, as I chew the inside of my cheek nervously.
“Yeah, I know, I thought the same thing the first time I showed up here too,” she calls out, motioning at me with her hand to keep walking.
“A church?” I question, finding the location to be not only odd but also a little unnerving and possibly not the right place.
“They just rent a room here and use it twice a week for meetings,” Madison tells me. “It does seem weird given a few of us have had abortions because of our rapes, but like the people who are here for meetings, the church doesn’t judge us either.” She shrugs, pulling the door open to let me in.
We walk down a long hallway, and everything sounds echoing and loud, even the far-off sounds of people laughing and talking feel louder than necessary. It’s a strange sensation, one that makes me feel like I shouldn’t be here, that I’m intruding on something that isn’t mine. But it is mine, this will always be a part of me. The loudness of the room is just a reminder that my voice needs to be heard, that I will no longer be silent.
When we walk in, I’m surprised by how different it looks to what I expected. Everything you see in movies and TV shows has people sitting in a circle, exposed and available to everyone. But here, it’s several rows of chairs and people are scattered throughout them. A few people are up front chatting and there are a few more just shy of the entrance.
Madison and I slide into the last row, unnoticed and quiet, which is what I hoped for my first time visiting.
“You don’t have to say anything. No one will ask you to introduce yourself. No one will see you and announce that you’re new to the group,” she reassures me, as if she can see the worry written on my face. It’s not so much that I’m worried or scared, it’s more the unexpected, but it’s also that I’ve spent so long not talking about what happened that I’m not even sure how it will go when I do. It feels like it could all come out like opening a dam.
“There will come a time when they ask if anyone wants to share anything, but again, you don’t have to say anything. There are people who have come twice a week for years and never said a word,” Madison adds.
“I’m not certain I’ll be one of those people,” I say back, smiling sheepishly. “I’ve always been a little loud.”
“Then I imagine these last few months have been really hard. I was the same way and suddenly what I wanted to shout from the rooftops felt like it should never be said out loud. Being silenced is hard.”
The meeting starts and I take everything in, listening to every story, every bit of advice and every little detail that might seem insignificant, but to me, nothing is. I relate to it all, I feel it in my soul and every single word encourages me to do what I have been contemplating doing since I started seeing Liz.
“So, what did you think?” Madison asks, turning to look at me as people begin to file out the door.
“I’ve never felt more confident in what I know I need to do,” I tell her and the smile she hits me with has me feeling like I’m going to cry.
“I knew you had it in you, and I knew from the moment I met you in that little therapy room with your sister, that not only are you a survivor, but you were also meant to be a badass.”
I laugh at her, her comment making me feel strong even if I feel so far from a badass. I’ll always have doubts, always have the insecurities that have plagued me since my rape, but at least now I hope to offset them by sharing my story.
I take so much with me when I leave, everyone’s words playing out in my head as I process how to move forward. This won’t be the last time I come to a meeting and from here going forward, I plan on working to help people just like me.
One woman said, “Being a survivor feeds everything I do.” Those words stick and they stick hard. I want what happened to me to fuel my life every single day.
I think about the nurse at the hospital who did my sexual assault forensic exam. Up until a few weeks ago, she was the only person to know what happened to me. She was there with me through the most traumatic experience of my life. She held my hand, never judging me for not wanting to go to the police and she talked me through every step of the process.
I want to be what that woman was to me. I want to be the person that these people see when they are broken and scared, because I’ve been there too.
But I also want to stop this from ever happening to someone again. I know he didn’t stop after he raped me. There has to be women who came after me and maybe there are even women who came before me. I saw the look on his face, a look that said he didn’t care, that he was entitled, and I was too weak to refuse. He was too controlled for it to be his first time.
But if I have anything to say about it, it will be his last.
It’s something I should’ve done the day it happened, but I won’t beat myself up over it. I can only move forward and focus on the things I can control. I can control whether I report the rape or not and it’s time I reported it.
I leave the meeting, and instead of going straight home, I go to Ruby’s. She’s the reason I finally admitted what happened. Going to her counseling center session with Madison is what started all of this and I think she should be the first to know what I’m about to do. I owe her a thank you.
“Ruby?” I call when I open the front door.
“Up here!” she yells from her bedroom. “And Caleb isn’t here,” she adds, giggling like she knew I would wonder if I’d be walking into something I didn’t want to see.
“Hey,” I say when I stop in her doorway. She’s sitting at the small desk in the corner, her laptop open. �
�I’m going home to tell Mom and Dad and I’m filing charges against the guy who raped me.” The words leave my mouth, and they don’t sound like my own. There’s a confidence to them, a finality and a determination that makes me feel stronger than I realize.
“Do you want me to come with you?” she instantly asks.
“Thanks, but I’m going to do this on my own. I think for Mom and Dad to take me seriously, I need to do it alone. You know how they are, they’ll immediately turn to you and start asking you questions, like you have better insight into my life than I do.”
“I’m sorry,” Ruby now says, standing up and walking over to me.
“Sorry for what?”
“Sorry that they’ve never treated you the way they treat me. That they never trust your choices or what you say and that you feel like they’re going to question you.”
“I’m certain they’re going to question me, but so will everyone else when I admit what happened. Might as well get my start in a place I’m comfortable.” I shrug and Ruby nods, a telling look of agreement on her face.
She hugs me, her arms pulling me to her, her grip tight and I swallow hard, the feeling of tears stinging my nose.
“It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. It’s okay to feel however you’re feeling. There is no right or wrong way,” Ruby says, and I feel my emotions finally give way.
I stand in her arms, crying on her shoulder, wondering if I’m ever going to be able to get through this. Telling her was one thing, telling my parents is another, but then there’s telling Adam.
I worry about telling him more than anyone.
When I walk into the apartment and tell Charlie I’m going home, she doesn’t even hesitate for a minute.
“I’m going too,” she says firmly.
“I want to do this alone.”
“I’m sure you do, but when all is said and done, you’re going to want someone there and I’m not letting you feel alone for even a second,” she insists, and again the tears return.
