The Art of Moving On (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Sarah Raymond

  Casey awoke and automatically sat straight up. The sob that escaped her lips was something out of a horror film. Massive tears blurred her vision and escaped, leaving moist trails on her cheeks. She put her hands over her face, and let the heaviness of her heart explode. Dr. Roma came to sit beside her on the couch and rubbed her back. She made sure to keep some distance between them so as to maintain a professional relationship, but it was never more evident that Casey needed to lean on someone. As she wept relentlessly, she noticed that something had changed inside of her—she was relieved.

  When Casey finally calmed herself, and she had expelled dozens of tears, she sat quiet, staring into space like the undead. Her eyes were flat, and her heart was broken. Dr. Roma had felt it safe to move back to her chair, and now sat, waiting for Casey to rejoin the living.

  “Casey?” Dr. Roma said.

  She said nothing.

  “Casey?” she said again.

  All Casey could respond with was, “Huh?” Her head, like the rest of her body, was heavy and exhausted. She did not have the strength to look Dr. Roma in the eyes.

  “Casey, it is important that we discuss a plan of action. Now that the memory has been revealed, you need to assess how you are going to deal with it.”

  “Okay.” Casey still refused to look her in the eyes. “What do you suggest?” she said, a complete lack of enthusiasm inhabiting in her words.

  “Well, you can handle the situation one of three ways. First, you can put yourself in a state of denial, telling yourself that your subconscious made the whole thing up. I hope that this is not the course of action that you take, because frankly, we both know that it actually happened.” She paused, waiting for a significant change in Casey’s face, which did not appear. “Second, you can go home and run through the memory over and over until you understand it, which will probably never happen. This will likely include a great deal of guilt and grief. You will wear yourself out trying to understand that which you cannot. I hope this is not the path you choose either. You have come so far on the road to recovery, and it would be counterproductive and unhealthy to experience new grief.” She paused once again.

  “And third?” Casey asked.

  “The third option, which I think will be the most difficult, is to accept it. Scream and cry for a few hours. Maybe get some rest and think on it. Do not beat yourself up for too long. Accept, and move on. It might take a little time, and a lot of finesse, but it can be done.”

  Casey nodded, though she had only half-heard Dr. Roma.

  She left the office, her mind overloaded with questions. When had Jace become a monster? How long had the abuse and sexual assault been going on before Casey had decided to leave? The timeline of events in her life made no sense. She could not pinpoint the exact moment that the Jace she fell in love with died, and the abusive drunk was born. What had caused such a change? She thought maybe he had always been that way. If she was able to suppress the memory of the day of the accident, what others had she blocked? You were so weak, she thought to herself. Casey felt like her head might explode, so she walked the streets with no destination in mind.

  Chapter 28

  Some time later, Casey lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling. She did not remember walking home, had no idea how or when she got there. Her mind was blank, her soul empty. Nothing mattered in this moment except for the comfort of her bed, and the brown spot from an unknown origin living on her ceiling. She stared at that dingy spot for what seemed like a lifetime before exhaustion took over, and her eyes closed.

  Casey panicked. She was being choked. Her airways were clenched, her mouth open, gasping for air. She felt hands around her neck, her vision becoming blurry from the lack of oxygen. Finally, the hands released her throat.

  Her eyes popped open and she realized that it had only been a nightmare. Her lips parted, and she breathed deep, filling her lungs with precious air. She sat up in bed when her heart rate began to slow. “It was just a nightmare,” she said out loud, gradually convincing herself that she was in no danger. She did not know how long she had been out, but she suspected that it had been a while, as it was dark outside. She remembered Sammie coming into her room at some point, trying to rouse her, then leaving discouraged at the failed attempt. She later heard her roommate murmuring to someone on the phone, but she was unsure if it had actually happened, or if it was all just a dream. She had also woken a few times at the sound of her cell phone, but she had eventually turned it off. Casey tried to remember when she fell asleep. Was it daytime, or nighttime? All she could remember was the spot. She glanced up, half expecting the spot to be gone—a thing of the past, a painful memory of someone else’s mess.

  She decided to leave her phone off and stay in her room. The last thing that she wanted in this moment was to be bombarded with questions about her excessive sleeping habits. She needed pure silence, and to get rid of the brown spot. Casey went to the bathroom and grabbed the cleaning supplies she kept underneath her bathroom sink. She pulled her desk chair directly beneath the strange brown circle on the ceiling, and climbed on top. She began with the spot, wiping away the dark oily substance from the fresh white ceiling, all the while wondering where it came from. She hadn’t seen it before, but she knew better than anyone that sometimes things remained hidden until it was time for them to be seen.

  When the spot had been wiped clean, she looked around her room. To most, her space would be considered spotless. To Casey, it was a disaster, just like her life. She moved from the ceiling to the fan, ridding the blades of miniature clusters of dust. She then moved to the baseboards, restoring them to their original purity. She scrubbed the sinks and the tile floors with a toothbrush. She bleached her bathtub and made her bed. She dusted the entirety of the room. She avoided getting out the vacuum because she did not know what time it was, and she did not want to wake Sammie. When her room was cleaned to her obsessive satisfaction, Casey decided to organize her closet, then her desk drawers, then her shoes, socks, etc.

  Hours later, she looked around the room and was satisfied. Feeling pretty parched, Casey went into the kitchen. It was still dark out, so she figured that if Sammie was not asleep before, she was now. In the kitchen, she flipped on the switch and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. She took a long swig, her eyes gazing around the kitchen. This could use some cleaning, too. She sat down her water, and got right to it.

  By dawn, Casey had pretty much cleaned the entire apartment with the exception of the living room and Sammie’s room. She did not notice the sound of Sammie’s door opening and was moving on to the living room. Somehow, cleaning the mess was making her feel better. It was as if with each toilet she scrubbed, with each stain that disappeared, each sponge that she dirtied, her past was being wiped away as well. She needed a clean slate.

  She was on her knees inspecting a spot on the wood floor in the living room when Sammie caught sight of Casey. She must have looked insane, her hair matted with sweat, still lingering in her clothes from the day of the hypnosis, however long ago that was.

  “What in the hell are you doing, Case?” Sammie asked, apparent worry existing in her voice.

  “Cleaning,” Casey said, scrubbing the miniscule spot with a sponge.

  “I can see that. You know that it’s only 7 a.m., correct?” Sammie looked around, noticing the immaculate apartment for the first time. “Holy Christ, how long have you been cleaning?”

  Casey stopped scrubbing for a moment to think, then went right back to working at where the spot had been. “I don’t have the slightest idea.”

  “Do you have any idea how nuts you look right now, crazy lady? I mean, first you sleep like the dead for three days straight, and then I wake up to find you cleaning the apartment at 7 a.m. like you have OCD? Your phone has been off, so of course, I have been getting a million phone calls from Conor. He is worried sick about you. What in the hell is going on?”

  Casey stopped scrubbing and looked up at Sammie. “Three days?” she asked
in disbelief. When Sammie nodded, Casey dropped the sponge and sat back to relieve her knees from the nagging pain that she hadn’t noticed until now. She wiped a sweat-soaked strand of hair from her brow with the back of her wrist. “Three days,” she said again, trying to let it sink in.

  “So the deal with this is, you are going to tell me what in the hell is going on or I am taking you to the hospital. This is outrageous and you are scaring the hell out of me,” Sammie said.

  Casey suddenly wanted to tell her everything, anxious to get the burden off of her chest.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  When Sammie complied, she began to tell her the entire story. She left out nothing, unable to keep a single detail to herself anymore. It was just too much. It was all just too much.

  When she had finished, she rose to make a pot of coffee in an effort to escape the silence in the room. Sammie’s face had said it all. She was horrified by the events leading up to the wreck. Sammie had obviously known nothing about what Jace had done, or the fact that he was drinking on that tragic day.

  Finally, when the smell of the warm roast flooded the bleached apartment, Sammy shared her reaction. “Casey, I am so sorry. I…” She stopped, obviously struggling with the words. “I knew that Jace was a drunk, but from the outside, you guys looked so happy together. I never would have known.” She sat stunned, obviously trying to process the blow. “How long had he been abusing you?”

  Casey poured them both a cup and went over to sit on the couch by her friend. “That’s just it, Sam. I don’t remember. It is like a huge portion of my life is just missing. I remember the good times, but it is like the bad times were just erased.” She took a sip, letting the steaming liquid course through her insides.

  “How did you not know about the details of the accident?” she asked Sammie, suddenly curious. One would think that their best friend would know intimate things like that.

  “Casey, you were a zombie,” she said. “You were so depressed, it was like you died with them. I sat with you at the funeral. I held your hand. You didn’t cry—didn’t shed a single tear. It was like you were in complete shock. After the funeral, you refused to have visitors. You wouldn’t leave your house. I honestly thought that you were going to end up committing suicide. Then, one day not long after, you just disappeared.”

  Casey sat in silence, straining to remember any of that time. Everything was really fuzzy up until she arrived in Boston. It was as if a portion of herself came back to life only when the ocean air had hit her face. She gazed into her cup of coffee, the black liquid a reminder of the darkness in her life. How was she ever going to get past this? She realized that she was exhausted once again.

  “So what are you going to do now? I mean, you have been so happy. How is this going to affect you?” Sammie asked.

  Casey had no answer for that question. She had no idea of what the future held for her, or how long it might take to accept the truth of what happened and move on.

  “Well, right now, I need a shower, and I am exhausted.” She patted Sammie on the knee, and rose to go in her bedroom before her devastated roommate could protest. She wanted to sleep, so that was what she was going to do.

  Chapter 29

  When she woke later, she glanced at the clock to find that it was around 6:30 p.m. She had slept through yet another day, but she felt a little better. Somehow, the rest had washed a bit of the darkness from her mind. She wasted no time getting out of bed, her stomach screaming in agony. She hadn’t eaten in days, and all she wanted was to scavenge the refrigerator. The apartment was quiet, so Casey figured Sammie had gone out. To her dismay, she found that there was nothing in her fridge but a Diet Coke and a block of cheese. Chinese it is, she thought as she searched for the take-out menu.

  When she found it, she went in search of her phone, dread growing inside of her as she thought of the numerous missed calls and texts that she had no doubt received over the last few days. She sat on her bed, take-out menu in one hand, phone in the other. For a split second, she contemplated ignoring the device all together, but she gathered her strength, and turned it on.

  The seconds that it took for her phone to turn on felt like hours. When the screen finally lit up, she was bombarded with the chimes of missed calls and texts. Her lover was obviously concerned. As she sat and waited for the chimes to end, she dreaded reading them—what was she going to say to Conor? How could she explain days of lost time without telling him about the revelation? There was no excuse that was going to fully satisfy his curiosity, or ease his suspicions. She prayed that whatever came out of her mouth would at least soothe his mind until she could muster the strength to tell him about her past.

  When the room was finally graced with silence, she inhaled slowly and glanced at her phone. 15 missed calls. 35 missed texts. It could have been worse—she was out for days.

  She began reading the texts first, not ready to hear the fear or anxiety in his voice. Up until the twentieth text, the messages were pretty generic. They ranged from, Hey love. Where are ya? Are ya okay? What is going on? When she had not responded to any of the first texts, they then became laden with desperation. If I did somethin’ wrong, please just tell me so we can fix it?

  Casey felt terrible that he would think that her disappearance was his fault. She wished that she had made up an excuse before she crashed days ago. It was not her intention to worry Conor. The rest of the messages were much like the ones before, with Conor worried and frantic. He was obviously worried sick about her. Though she felt bad, she rather liked the idea that she had a man that was concerned for her well-being.

  The last message, however, made her sick to her stomach. All it said was, Casey? Please for the love of Christ answer me. She did not have to hear any of the actual voicemails to grasp the pain in his voice.

  Without fully thinking it through, Casey searched for Conor’s name in her contacts and hit send. It rang only once before Conor picked up.

  “Sweet Jaysus, Casey! Where the hell have ya been? Ya had me worried sick.” Panic hit Casey. She had no words. She sat in silence, racking her brain for an excuse. “Casey?” Conor said again.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I…I have been so sick. I think I had the flu or something.” She winced at the lie. It was not a huge stretch for Conor to accept this excuse, especially after she had thrown up her insides at his house on Thanksgiving. Still, she hated lying to him. “I took some crazy medicine, and it knocked me out. Every time I woke up, I just took more and went back to sleep. I honestly thought I was going to die.”

  The other end was silent. Please believe me, Casey thought, not wanting to have to explain anything further. Finally, his voice assured her that he had accepted her excuse.

  “Well, ya scared the shite out of me. I even got Samantha’s number from Giovanni, and called her lookin’ for ya.” So that is who Sammie had been on the phone with. “Why did ya not call me? I would have taken care of ya. Brought ya some soup or somethin’?”

  “I just slept a lot. I didn’t even have the energy to eat,” Casey said, satisfied that it was not a total lie. “Plus, I didn’t want you to get whatever I had. It was awful.” Not a total lie either.

  “Well, do ya feel better now, love? Can I see ya?” he asked in such a sweet tone, Casey had to consider the offer. She was completely unsure if seeing Conor right now was a good idea, but she felt that she needed his comfort. Maybe his warm, loving body wrapped around hers would wash away the cold lurking inside her heart.

  “Well, I don’t feel a hundred percent yet, but I would like to see you. I was just about to order some Chinese. You can join me if you want.”

  Casey could literally feel his mood change over the phone. “How about I pick up some food instead? I’ll grab a film. We can just take it easy?” His tone was light-hearted and happy, but she could sense lingering desperation. She must have really freaked him out.

  “That sounds great. I’m still in my pajamas, though,” she said, thankful that she had taken
a shower earlier that day. Her energy level was still low, and moving far from her bed seemed like a feat she could not accomplish.

  “Even better. I’ll see ya in a half hour or so, love.”

  Just under a half hour later, Casey had managed to get out of bed. She had brushed her hair and teeth, and felt it best to change her sheets. She had, after all, been lying in them in a near comatose state for days. Waiting for Conor, she lay back down in her freshly made bed and thought about the past. Her heart ached immensely, not only for her son but also for herself. She had spent so much of the last year mourning the loss of her family, which up until a few days ago included Jace. How could she have been crying over a murderer? A drunk? A rapist? The memory suppression was not normal. She was not normal.

  Just as she began an exhausting thought process, there was a knock at the front door. She rose to answer it, walking lazily through the spotless apartment. When she opened it, Conor did not waste any time scooping her into his arms and holding her tight. He squeezed her so tightly that she felt as though she might pass out.

  When he finally released her, and she recovered from the aching pain in her ribs from his embrace, she looked up into those emerald eyes. He looked at her as if he had not seen her in months.

  “Don’ ya ever do that to me again, ya hear?” He barely said the words when his voice broke, and he pulled her close once more. Was he about to cry? Casey felt even worse in that moment than she had before.

  When they had gotten the reuniting out of the way, Casey’s apartment was filled with the delicious scents of soups and rice, egg rolls and vegetables. Her stomach moaned in anticipation, and she motioned Conor over to the table. It wasn’t until he walked ahead of her with the bags of food that she realized he was also in his pajamas. The bottoms were blue and gray plaid and hung loosely from his hips, but hugged his fit ass. He wore a plain gray T-shirt that was just tight enough to show the definition in his chest, and Nike tennis shoes. She watched him cross to the table, her sex moaning more aggressively than her stomach.