by Amie Gibbons
He took her hands, looking her in the eyes. “I’m guessing that’s a big part of it.”
“I can’t believe he called me crazy,” she said, sounding stronger. “You’re right. He’s a psychiatrist, he should know better.”
She looked around, meeting my eyes.
I smiled and gave a little wave.
“I like it in here,” she said. “It’s peaceful. It’s like the voice in my head isn’t screaming at me. I’m not feeling much of anything.”
“I think that’s more shock than anything else,” Carvi said. “Ariana had the same reaction when we were in here dealing with her issues.”
“You said trauma,” I said. “AB, your first time sounds like it was a lot like mine. Did it hurt? I mean, more than most virgins say it does where it’s uncomfortable to maybe a little pain at the beginning?”
She nodded fast. “What I can remember, oh yeah. It hurt a lot. And he… I was drunk. So drunk I don’t remember most of it, just flashes here or there. I consented before I was drunk. But I told him how much it hurt. And somewhere in there, he…”
She shook her head.
“You can say it,” Carvi said.
“I can’t.” Her eyes searched the air in front of her. “Why can’t I say it?”
“Because you were traumatized and never dealt with it,” Carvi said. “Do you want me to say it?”
She nodded.
“He did anal with you,” Carvi said, making me flinch. “He did anal when vaginal wasn’t going well, and you don’t remember him doing it. You just remember him asking and you know your ass was killing you for days afterward. Meaning you were too drunk to consent to that, you didn’t consent to it before you were drunk, and he did it anyway. Which means?”
“Which means he actually did assault me,” she whispered. “And I let him. And I didn’t press charges when I could have because now we’re past the statute of limitations.”
I pressed my lips together and sniffed.
I had an asshole who left me, but AB was actually assaulted.
And had feelings for the guy afterwards.
How did we help her with this?
“Possibly,” Carvi said. “If he took the consent at the beginning as including anal because it’s general sexual activity, or asked and you said yes and he didn’t realize you were too drunk to consent at the time, or if you weren’t actually that drunk and everything’s fuzzy because you were tipsy and in shock… Do you see where I’m going with this?
“You are traumatized, and he should have stopped at so many points, but from what I’ve seen in your head, he probably didn’t have the required mental state for it to have been criminal. He traumatized you and he should realize that, but you probably were in the right in not pressing charges and ruining both of your lives’.”
“Um,” I said, raising my hand, “AB, I don’t know if this changes things, but the statute of limitations in Tennessee for rape is eight years.”
She flinched at the word rape, but her head snapped back towards me, eyes flying wide. “What!”
“It’s eight years. If you wanted to press charges, you have until next September.”
Her mouth fell open and the clown rang the bike’s little bell as it blasted past.
“I could press charges?” she asked, shaking her head. “No. No. No. That’s supposed to be off the table. I can’t… I can’t. It’s too much.”
“AB.” Carvi caught her hands. “Annabeth, look at me.”
She did.
“Just because it’s an option, does not mean you have to do anything right now. Okay?”
“But I could?”
He nodded.
“I can’t deal with that.”
“Then don’t. You have months.”
“I would ruin his life. Even if he did r… I can’t do that to him. I can’t ruin his life. His name. His career. His chance at citizenship. I can’t.” Her mouth twisted up. “But from what I can remember,” she continued so quietly I could barely hear her as her forehead wrinkled up, “he was not nice. It was like he was losing patience with me. It was… I can’t deal with this. I can’t deal with this.”
She flinched and looked away.
“Same with mine,” I said. “But you have OCD. I think Carvi’s right. Your OCD was triggered by the trauma of the act.”
I looked to Carvi and he nodded.
Okay, that meant keep going.
“But then why do I still have feelings for him?” she asked. “If he traumatized me and I have this fear response, why do I also have a crush on him? Come on, I have a thing for the guy who… hurt me like that, and I don’t want to ruin his life. That’s crazy.”
I looked at Carvi.
I was so not qualified to play therapist.
“What would happen,” Carvi started slowly, drawing her eyes back to him, “if when you stared flirting with him, he flirted back? What if you ended up back in bed? You said you’ve had fantasies like that. What happens after that? What happens in the fantasy after sleeping with him?”
She shrugged. “Nothing. That’s it. That’s the fantasy.”
“Which means your subconscious thinks that’s the end goal,” Carvi said. “Why would you want to sleep with him again? Wouldn’t it be just as bad?”
He was doing the same thing with her he had with me last week, walking her towards something.
“No,” she said. “Of course not. I’d be sober and into it and more experienced for sure.”
“Would th-”
She held up a hand and Carvi shut up.
Her eyes moved back and forth while her mouth moved, like she was talking to herself.
Working something out.
“You said…” She shook her head, licking her lips, eyes focusing on his again. “After he called, you said the next time we talked, that if he wasn’t as big an ass, that I was probably exaggerating in my head how much of a jerk he was being. And if he wasn’t a jerk, that I’d probably been exaggerating in my head.”
Carvi grinned and nodded.
“I want to sleep with him again,” she said, “because if we sleep together again and it isn’t horrible and painful, and he isn’t a jerk, then that’d be the same thing. It’d be like I’d exaggerated in my head how bad it was the first time, it would mean it wasn’t that bad, and that’d take away the trauma, that’d cut off the OCD trigger at the source.
“And I’d be able to prove I didn’t suck in bed too, which I still think is part of it, but, but…”
She nodded as Carvi whirled his finger around.
“Is that it?’ she asked. “The trauma of the act triggered the OCD, created that panic response, and then he left me, which gave it another layer because of the rejection, and that made me fixate on him. Because if I could get him under control, if I could understand him, he couldn’t hurt me again, like we said before. And if I could get him back, it’d undo the trauma of him leaving me.
“But there’s also the wanting to undo the psychological trauma, which started the whole thing to begin with, which is probably a bigger part of why I want to sleep with him again, because if I did and it wasn’t bad, it would mean it wasn’t that bad back then and I just blew it up in my mind, and if it wasn’t that bad then it’d mean I wasn’t that traumatized. I want to undo the trauma.”
“Sounds like a sound theory,” Carvi said. “You also have a very big problem with failure. You can’t stand that you failed there.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“It's okay to fuck up, Annabeth. You need to believe that. Repeat it in the mirror, whatever, but you need to get it through your head that fucking up and failing is okay.
“You made a bad decision. You trusted someone you shouldn't have, and you lost so much that you can't stand it.”
Her face twisted but she didn’t say anything.
“Then,” Carvi said, “you lost more trying to win him back in some way, to recover some of what you lost. You can't. It's gone.”
He paused,
letting that sink in.
“So just stop,” he said. “Leave what you lost and walk away from the game, because you aren't getting it back, no matter how many hands you play. He has your past. Oh well. Decide, today, that he doesn't get anything else, not one more minute, from you.”
They stared at each other.
“What do I do?” she finally asked.
“Let yourself feel the panic, and don’t do anything,” he said. “Same as any other time your OCD has reared its ugly head. Stop trying to fix things with him. Stop trying to control people around you. Let yourself actually feel the panic and do nothing, just let it pass you by.”
She took a deep breath.
“I feel like I can do that right now,” she said slowly, “but I don’t think it’ll hold once we’re out of here.”
Carvi gave her that strained patience look he’d given me one too many times before.
“You saying that shows you want to control it,” he said. “That’s the fear talking right now. If you get out of here and that peace leaves you, so what?”
Her mouth worked.
“AB,” Carvi said, squeezing her hands, “you will never cure the panic attacks until you drill down into what causes them. Yes, we’ve made some progress here, but there’s more to it. The OCD goes back to childhood. We can get to that too. But for this issue here, you have to identify what your triggers are and what exactly you feel when confronted with them.”
She nodded.
“And then,” Carvi said, “you logic your way out of them. Take a breath, count to ten, whatever, and ask yourself, ‘What is the worst-case scenario here?’ When you’re worried about it happening in the future, ask yourself what the worst case is if you run into your trigger.”
She nodded, eyes shining as she turned her head away.
“You will get better, AB,” Carvi said. “But you have to be able to answer one simple question. ‘What am I so afraid of?’”
She sniffed and Carvi bent to the side to look her in the face.
She turned away from him, pulling her legs up so she could turn her back fully to me and sit cross-legged on the bed facing the wall.
Her small shoulders shook and Carvi climbed on the bed, sitting behind her and pulling her curled up body between his legs, hugging her tight.
AB and I were so alike in our stories, but we had massively different issues. I had had trauma and was more than a little easy in high school, and then fixated on Grant later on.
AB was much more traumatized than I first thought, and she had never lost her feelings for Thomas. Probably beat herself up for it over the years too.
And she’d seen him coming back into her life as her second chance. Especially since he’d been divorced, and they’d become friends. It sounded like they just fell together, hanging out so easily, it wasn’t hard to believe she’d thought it meant something.
What had I missed though? Something had happened while I’d been passed out. Maybe Thomas called again?
No, wait, not in the middle of the night.
No, Pyro said she’d been stewing.
Us all getting carried away had triggered her, and it’d brewed until she exploded. She wasn’t like me. She didn’t explode right away. She stewed until it boiled over.
So when had Thomas called her crazy?
The phone call earlier, where I heard her yelling at him? Or maybe even before that, and she’d finally exploded over the phone over it then.
I opened my eyes back in my body downstairs at the kitchen table.
Mama’s hand right in front of my face.
“Ah!” Mama jerked back, eyes wide like I’d startled her.
“What?” I asked.
Quil chuckled. “She found your fugue state fascinating and was waving her hand in front of your face.”
“You surprised me,” Mama said. “You were gone, and then bam, my baby’s back.”
I grinned.
“Just in time too,” Quil said, putting a plate in front of each of us.
The forks were already there.
And Pyro flew over with the pan clenched in his tassel.
He scrapped a heap of eggs scrambled with veggies and cheese onto Mama’s plate and then another mound onto mine.
“Thanks, baby!” I said. “This is awesome. Seriously, when did you learn how to cook?”
He shrugged as he flew back with salt and pepper.
I looked over my shoulder and sure enough, the coffee pot was already percolating, almost all the way full.
Like he read my mind, or my face, Pyro grabbed two mugs, poured coffee, and flew them to us, going slow.
My mouth fell open.
“When did you become so thoughtful?” I said, a sob breaking in my throat.
Pyro put the mugs down as Quil walked to the fridge and my carpet wrapped around my shoulders, squeezing me hard and nuzzling my cheek.
I reached up and stroked him, feeling the softness under my fingers, the spark of magic running through him.
Quil put milk, sugar and two spoons next to the mugs.
I looked at him, still petting my baby.
And for a moment as our eyes met, everything paused.
I felt my baby wrapped around my shoulders, a warm, sweet weight, after he’d made breakfast and coffee just because he thought we’d need it. I saw my guy, all open heart and open mind, optimistic and kind, even after everything he’d seen in his hundreds of years of life.
And my Mama. The woman who raised me, who loved me unconditionally, as a parent should.
I wasn’t always the most selfless person. I wasn’t always brave. I tended to freeze when the supposed flight or fight response came on. But I was working on it.
And I could be strong. I’d seen it last week. I could overcome my issues. I could help people with similar issues, and use my powers to do more than just come up behind criminals, cleaning up their messes.
I could be brave like my Mama and strike out on my own like she did.
I had the visions and the knowledge of how to investigate.
I had the support system to figure out the business part of it too.
In this moment, this paused moment of life, I saw it all.
I had love, hope, and a purpose.
I had everything I’d ever need.
Time came on again and Quil grinned at me, taking my hand and kissing my knuckles, and Pyro let me go, flying away.
“Where did we put his threads?” I asked as Quil let my hand go.
“The bag he brought with him,” Quil said. “They seem to have burrowed into it though, so we’re going to have to keep an eye on it.”
My eyebrows shot up as I mixed sugar into my coffee.
“Why?” Mama asked.
“Because that is loose magic from the demon side, and we don’t know what it will do,” Quil said.
“Demon?”
“Yeah,” I said. “The demon dimension is on the other side of the astral plane, which is where I go when I get my visions. That’s where Pyro’s from. He can physically travel through the astral plane, when most everything else can’t, and he came here. He doesn’t remember life before about ten years ago though.”
“I forgot to ask,” Mama said, “where did you get him?”
I choked on my mouthful of coffee, almost coughing it all over my eggs before catching it and swallowing before coughing.
Quil tossed his head back laughing. “You don’t want to know.”
I grinned and shook my head. “Probably not. Just, ya know, plausible deniability.”
Mama squinted at me but didn’t say anything.
We ate while Mama caught me up on what I’d missed at the rally, and Pyro flew around, cleaning up the kitchen.
He really was wonderful.
I knew adults who wouldn’t think to cook and clean for others like that. And here my baby was without a second thought.
The sun would be up soon and he’d be down for the day, so after we finished eating, I got up and snagged him ou
tta the air, pulling him into a tight hug.
“You are the sweetest,” I whispered to him. “I love you, baby.”
He hugged me back, lifting me off the ground and whirling me around before setting me down.
His ‘I love you too.’
I helped finish the clean up by filling the dishwasher, then I looked upstairs.
AB and Carvi were still up there.
And still being way too quiet to be doing anything fun.
Pyro had made enough of the scramble for her too, and hers sat on a plate, just waiting for her to come downstairs and eat.
Maybe they went to sleep? It wasn’t like they couldn’t use it considering everyone but me had been up all night.
“Carvi?” I whispered mentally.
“Yes?” he said after a moment.
“Everything okay up there?”
He sighed and it echoed through my brain. “No. I pulled her out and… she wanted back in. She likes it here, it’s peaceful, so we’re sorting through her memories.”
“Can I help?”
“Actually, yes, I think you would be a big help right now.”
Was it just me, or did Carvi sound… defeated?
“I’m going back in to help Carvi with AB,” I said out loud. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but Carvi’s sounding a little beat. Quil, would you mind coming too? I’m pretty sure I’m not qualified to play therapist and you always make me feel better.”
He smiled and nodded, sitting in the chair next to me.
I looked over at Mama.
She wasn’t exactly at counting and lining things up levels of OCD, but she could get hyper focused and obsessive, especially when working on a book, so she probably had some of it.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding as I opened my mouth.
I grinned.
I closed my eyes, focusing on the brains buzzing right next to me. I’d only done this when I was under pressure or seriously turned on, meaning only when there was something extreme going on, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t do it now when I was calm and everything was peaceful.
Especially since my friend needed the help.
Chapter eleven
I opened my eyes, back in the room, with Mama and Quil right next to me.
The place was warehouse sized now, with different rooms I could somehow see, like I was staring at the bones of the place from above.
