by M. Homer
I am shaking as he tells me this and I can’t understand why this information is so new to me. I was six! I should remember this, I should remember him! I shut my eyes as vivid images invade my brain. Images of a man around thirty with a huge beer gut, browning teeth and a slightly balding head flash before me. I smell a stale beer stench and I try and shut my mind down as these images are scaring me but they continue. I see him walking towards me with a horrible leer and a dark look in his eyes. In the next image I see him coming into my room at night and forcing his hands between my legs, hurting me unbelievably, bruising my soft six year old skin, his rank breath invading my mind. I feel his dark hooded eyes on my face and I start gagging. I turn away from my family, who look at me in shock. I run into the bathroom, throwing up last night’s dinner and anything else that may be there. I keep going until there is nothing left and then I sit down on the toilet seat and cry again. Will I ever be able to stop?
Knocking cuts through my defenses. I fling open the door and run into my mother’s arms, weeping. She doesn’t understand that my tears are not for my lost uncle but for my lost innocence but holds me as I weep regardless.
The last few days at home are spent with me trying to get it together. More and more pieces of my terrible early days fall into place. I start to remember how I hated that man. I even remember his name; ‘Uncle Dean.’ I remember he lived with us for as long as I could remember. I remember the trailer we lived in and various people coming in and out at all hours of the night and day while I was locked away in my tiny room. I try and remember my birth mom and dad, but I can’t. Their faces just hover out of view. I start to remember more about my tiny brothers, the way that I felt so protective of them and the way I was more of a parent to them than my own invisible ones. It upsets me hugely that in burning down my house, my uncle not only destroyed my family but any memory of them that may have been there. I think about the picture sitting at home and am grateful for them one piece of proof I have that they existed at all. Of course, I wake up most nights, drenched in sweat, crying and reliving all those terrible moments with him. I thought when I started remembering, I would get better, but all the remembering did is make things much worse for me. By uncovering some of my past, I have awakened the beast and the memories just keep coming, bringing my nightmares alive.
My parents want me to stay with them and get support. They see their news has affected me badly. “We can always call the college and get you a transfer here?” my dad says as I get ready to leave, tears streaming down my face. I look over at him standing in my doorway and see the uncertainty reflected in his eyes.
I wipe my tears away and stand up. “No, I need to get back. I want this degree and I want to get better. I know you’re sorry you told me but I needed to know and I promise I’ll go back and see Doctor Sandy. In fact, I’ve already got my first appointment booked!” I go over and give him a hug, reassuring him I will be okay. “Thanks, thanks for taking me in, making me yours and for loving me. I am so lucky you and Mom did what you did for me, and I really realize that now.”
I feel his body relax and he puts his big hands around me hugging me close. “We’ve always loved you, birdie, from the second you got here with your blue eyes watching our every moves and your ability to dart off and hide at any sign of trouble. Even then, your resilience blew us away, your quiet strength showing us a smart intelligent young lady just waiting to make herself known. You call us anytime and we’ll make sure we come and get you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“It’s gotten worse!” I accuse Doctor Sandy the second I see her on my return to Rainbow Springs.
I pull my bag off my shoulders and slump into the seat glaring at her as if this is all her fault. It is a new year and so far, nothing is going the way I want it to go. New Year’s Eve was spent alone at home with the family all going to bed at ten too tired to see in the New Year. I have yet to receive a text, call or even email from any of my so-called friends and my plane flying back was delayed because of the snow today. I am miserable, cold and tired and I really just want to go home, crawl into bed and never come out again. Instead, I came straight from the airport to my therapist as I was so angry that my trip down memory lane hasn’t made me any better. In a mad rush I tell her all I know, all I have started to remember.
“Breathe Samantha,” she tells me, “just breathe.”
I take some deep breaths and sit back waiting for an explanation from her as to why my life has just taken such a turn for the worse. I know I am being unreasonable but I really wish she would give me some solutions!
“Samantha,” she says, “what you have just started remembering must be very difficult for you but here is the problem. Now that you know and are remembering, you actually need to face it and stop blaming yourself for what happened to you, your brothers and your parents.” She eyes me closely as she says this and I fall back onto the sofa with shock. Do I blame myself for what has happened? I blink back my tears as I continue to reflect. Then it hits me; my little brothers who trusted me to hide them, my frustration at not being able to get him off me, my sadness at not being able to remember my birth parents. Shit, I do feel guilty.
“Samantha, what are you thinking?” she asks me.
Everything. “Nothing,” I say. I am too raw right now to say my feelings out loud.
She just cocks her head to one side and looks at me from this new angle, a knowing look in her eyes. “Think about it, Samantha,” she says gently, “you were only six years old.” With those words, I feel the tears begin to fall in earnest. I have never cried the way I have cried over the last year and I am sick to death of it, but I just can’t stop.
“I…(gulp)…just…(gulp)…wish…(deep breath)…they were all alive with me,” I choke out. I put my elbows on my knees, hands over my face and cry and cry. It is a little while later that I realize that Doctor Sandy is pushing a box of tissues towards me. She looks at me gently but says nothing, waiting for me to…well actually, I don’t know what she is waiting for me to do.
“I’m sorry,” I start saying but she stops me with a look.
“Samantha, I am your therapist. The one person you don’t need to apologize to,” she says softly.
“He abused me.” My mouth opens by itself and tells her, “You know, my uncle—the dick who destroyed my life—him.” I expect to see pity on her face or disgust but, instead, I see neither.
She just looks at me and nods again. “Is this the man who invades your sleep?”
I nod a reply and feel my body start to tremble again.
“It’s great that you can identify who he is and why he scares you so much. This is where you can finally begin to heal. This is the start and it will hurt, but Sam, at least you have a starting point.”
“I don’t know, well I’m not sure if he ever, you know, violated me in that way,” I say, still crying. “That scares me! What if I try and have sex with someone and I freak out? What if my body is damaged and broken and beyond repair?”
“I am not a specialist in possible rape victims, but you could go to a doctor and get yourself checked.”
I shake my head, a ‘hell no’ forming on my lips, I am just not ready! She sees my whole body tense up and reminds me to breathe through it and just think it through as I start to hyperventilate. After a while, my breathing steadies.
I think about her words as I grab a cab home. One man, one sick twisted man destroyed my whole childhood. I hate him and I startle myself by realizing that I hate my parents for allowing him into our lives. Maybe they would all still be here if it wasn’t for them bringing him into our world. As I near my home, I see cars parked along the road everywhere and when we stop at the house, I see people all over the lawn heading inside and out without giving a shit to who actually lives here. I step out, angry now, as I haven’t seen or heard from my housemates for over two weeks now. Nothing, not one email, text, or call and they are having a damn party?
I stomp past everyone pulling my bags behi
nd me. Inside is chaos too with music blaring and people jammed in everywhere. I push past them to get into my room. In the kitchen I see Nathan and Ben and for a moment, my heart catches in my throat. He is more beautiful than I remembered. Nathan commands the room with his presence. His hair looks slightly longer and is curling just under the cap he is wearing. His tattoo is clearly visible under his blue T-shirt, which looks new. I wonder if it is a Christmas present from his family as usually Nathan sticks to plain colors and not vivid blues or greens.
At this moment, people are crowded around him cheering him on as he does shot after shot of I don’t know what. Finally he finishes them all, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and looks around. His eyes stop dead when they see me.
The noise is deafening and all I want to do is turn around and head straight out, but this is my home. Damn it! He gets up unsteadily and moves towards me. I see that once again, he is wasted.
“Sam,” he says, looking at me with sadness, or guilt, not sure which. He says no more, just pulls me by my hand past all the people ogling me in the kitchen into my room. I glare at Ben as I pass him. He puts his hands up in the air as if to say, “Hey none of this is my fault.”
When we get to my room, Nathan slams the door shut with his foot and pulls me into him, holding me so tightly I can hardly breathe.
“I missed you so much,” he says into my shoulder.
I feel his head resting on my throat, his breath warms me to my toes as I breathe in the familiar scent of him I know so well.
“You never called,” I reply, taking a shaky breath and trying to push him away.
“I couldn’t,” he says, sounding tearful.
Tearful? I have never heard Nathan tearful.
“What? Your phone got stolen?” I ask him while I try and push him away again and get some perspective.
His gaze follows me as I sit on the bed and pull my shoes off. “And what the hell is this party all about?” I wave past the door at the mess outside of it.
“We needed to forget. To unwind,” he says, vaguely coming to sit next to me on the bed and trying to grab my hands, his eyes still glued onto mine.
“Nathan,” I say looking down at his hands, “what are you doing?”
“Will you kill me if I kiss you?” he asks me, looking intently at my lips.
Wait, What?
“These last couple of weeks, not seeing you, not lying next to you, not being there for you…well it nearly killed me! I need to kiss you, just this once. Please?” he begs me.
“You’re just drunk,” I start saying but his head is already coming towards me and I stop talking as his firm full lips gently touch mine. I stop breathing and just stare at his face which is so close. His eyes are closed and his mouth, well it’s moving, trying to get me to relax and open up.
“Sam, just breathe,” he whispers against my lips. As I take a breath, his tongue finds mine and all rational thought flees. I calm my panic by looking into him, reassuring myself that this is Nathan, my Nathan. My emotions from my holiday get pushed aside as I relax into him. The past is banished from my brain as his kiss sends me to new places and my body responds to his touch.
The kiss is intense, deep, as if Nathan is trying to find a route to my soul. I start to melt against him, my body betraying my mind, and Nathan uses this opportunity to lift me up and place me on top of his lap. His warmth, his hands, his mouth and his scent dissolve me until I find my own hands moving by themselves, wrapping themselves around his head, pulling him closer to me.
His breathing is harsh when he finally tears himself away and so is mine. I try and calm myself by closing my eyes and counting silently to a hundred.
“Are you counting?” he asks. Shit, okay, I wasn’t so silent then. I just give him a sheepish smile and nod.
“Are you okay?” he says, looking at me seriously now.
I realize that my eyes are wet from tears that have fallen unbidden. I hate my weakness and feel ashamed of myself.
No. “Yes,” I say, avoiding his eyes at all costs. He sits there holding me while all the noises from the party come back to hit us, full force. Finally I am brave enough to look him in the eyes and give him a sweet tender smile.
“I missed you too,” I whisper to him. He smiles sadly at me and then gently pushes me off his lap.
“I’m really sorry about the party,” he says. He even sounds sober now but I know he isn’t or he would never have kissed me. “I’ll make sure no one bothers you,” he tells me, getting up to leave.
“Wait, why do you have to go back out there?” I ask him desperately. Then I hate my mouth for speaking without first checking in with my brain.
He looks down at me. “What? You think it’s safe for me to stay here with you right now?”
I look at his body which is clearly tense, and this startles me as I realize that he wants to take this further and yet he knows I am not ready.
Er, I guess not, I think recalling the kiss which I can still feel on my swollen lips. He just shakes his head at me with that smile of his, runs his hands through his hair and then turns and walks out. Just. Like. That!
Chapter Twenty-Two
I hide in my room the rest of the night while the party gets wilder and wilder around me. At one point, I hear a crash above my head and I close my eyes and cringe. I just hope Nathan is okay or not up there fucking someone after what he has just said and done to me! I find the ear plugs they gave me on the plane and shut out the world. I know right now I need to focus on me, not on anyone else, including Nathan and his sexy lips and mysterious problems he won’t share!
I don’t want to wake up, I tell myself over and over again as the morning light shines through the closed daisy-covered curtains. I can only imagine the mess outside of this room and I am terrified of what else I might find. I give myself a long pep-talk and then finally, put on jeans and a comfy sweater, gather my strength and open the door.
The mess is worse than I could have imagined, with beer bottles and pizza boxes all over the floor. The fridge contents have spilled over every available surface and even cigarette butts lie in the sink. Were they smoking in our house? I will kill Ben when I find him. My horror at the mess is so overwhelming that I miss a huddled figure sitting in the corner until it speaks to me.
“Is it as bad as I think it is or am I just delusional and drunk?” it asks.
“Aarrrrggghhhh!” I scream before noticing it’s Carrie sitting there in the dark. “Jesus, you scared me!” I shout at her.
“Tell me about it, my head is pounding even worse now, thanks to that scream,” she says, holding her head with her hands and shaking it slightly.
I approach her slowly until I am right in front of her. “What the hell was last night all about?” I ask.
Carrie looks up with bloodshot eyes. “Sometimes going home sucks, don’t you think? I guess we just wanted a night to celebrate being back. Being away…” She gets up slowly, goes to the sink, and drinks the water straight out of the tap from her cupped hand. She wipes her mouth on her sleeve, looks over at me and says, “It’s good to see you. We missed you and I really want to talk, but right now, I have got to get some sleep.”
I watch as she trails upstairs dragging her feet and hear her door shut quietly.
I need to get out of here so I text Jess. We set a time and place to meet up and I head upstairs for a quick shower.
Nathan’s door is slightly ajar. I tiptoe to his door, to make sure he is okay. Well actually, I am just dying to see him. I peek in and at first I can see nothing as it is pitch black with his curtains shut. Slowly my eyes adjust to the darkness and my heart drops to my toes. The bastard is definitely not alone. He is lying naked in bed next to a tall, toned, naked woman. They lie intertwined on top of his covers. I put my hand over my mouth to stop the sob and turn away just as Ben stumbles out of his door and knocks straight into me.
His hands reach out to catch me and his eyes open wide. “Oh fuck!” he says.
I hea
r a mumble from the room. Ben hears the noise, looks back at my face with concern and instantly lets me go. I flee as fast as I can out of the house, not even stopping to grab my bag.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I end up at Sally’s. Sally’s face lights up but as she sees me close up her smile drops and she slows right down. “What the hell happened to you?”
I just discovered Nathan in bed with a stranger after he kissed me passionately just last night!
“Um, nothing, I’m just tired,” I tell her with a tight smile.
“Bastard!” she says. “Come on in and tell us all about it.”
Seriously? Is everyone around me psychic? She takes me by the shoulders and drags me over to the counter. The café is quiet at this time of the morning but I know it won’t be long before it gets crazy.
“Hey, Sally; whatever happened to Arnie?” I ask her, thinking of the first day Mandy brought me to meet these two amazing women. I realize I need to thank Mandy for bringing me to Beth and Sally.
“What? Who?” she asks looking puzzled.
“You know, that person who was meant to be here the day I started but was sick or something,” I mumble looking at her pretty face which is as usual bright red from running around getting things ready.
She pauses, looks at me funny once again, and then laughs. “Are you trying to deflect this conversation?”
“What? No! I am just curious,” I tell her and think, damn why does every conversation have to be about Nathan?
