Chapter Thirty-Two #2
I sit up slowly, the room swaying like it’s been drugged. My temples pulse. My bones feel too soft, too small. “What question?” I whisper. “Why can’t I remember what I even asked? What the fuck is wrong with me?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, baby,” Mama says. “You were trained to protect your mind. To lock the pain away. But no one ever taught you how to stop doing it.”
“Great.” I scoff. “So I’m still doing it?”
Mama nods once, grimly. “Yes.”
I rub my eyes like I can squeeze the answers out of them. “Gaia said… she knows how to reverse it. How to bring everything back.” Again, that silence. Four pairs of eyes land on me, all filled with caution, dread, maybe even guilt.
Ryan’s the one who breaks. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“No,” I snap. “It’s a terrible fucking idea. But I need to feel it. I need to know why my father did what he did. What really happened between me and Wyck… before the last three years became all I had.”
I shake off their hands and pace, tension ricocheting off the walls. “I have a right to the truth.”
“If you’re serious,” Gaia says, eyes steady, “then let’s get serious. You said you needed a support system? Well… we’re here. All of us.” She gestures around.
I let a grin curl at the corner of my mouth. One part fear. One part pride. “I’m not ready. But let’s do it anyway.”
She grabs a chair from the kitchen, places it dead center in the living room like it’s a damn ritual circle. “Sit here. The rest of us will surround you.”
“Okay, this is giving major Exorcist vibes.” I joke, mostly to keep my nerves from slitting my throat.
“Girl, shut up,” Ryan snaps, smacking my arm.
Fred adds, “Out of all the shit you could’ve said, that’s what you chose?”
I grin. “It made you smile. Mission accomplished.”
Gaia ignores us and moves the remaining chairs into place. “Alright. Everyone, sit.”
“Shit. We’re really doing this,” I mutter, wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans. “This is either gonna break me… or birth me.”
Gaia’s voice cuts the tension like a scalpel. “Athens. Shut the fuck up. This isn’t a fucking exorcism, it’s worse.” She raises her chin. “And if any of you move during this, I will slap the soul out of you.”
Silence falls. We sit. Something thick settles in my lungs. Dread. Truth. Maybe both.
“I only positioned you all around her,” Gaia explains, “because when the memories start to hit, she might pass out again. Or seize. Or scream. This isn’t reading words on paper. This is soul surgery. And I have something to bring her back if needed.”
“I won’t pass out,” I lie. “I’m ready.”
She doesn’t even blink. “No, you’re not. But you’re brave enough to do it anyway.”
The second she turns to Mama, my chest tightens. “You ready?” she asks her.
Mama nods, her voice soft. “Yes, baby. I’m ready.”
Her voice coils around me like warmth I haven’t earned. I mouth, I love you , and a tear escapes before I can stop it. She mouths it back.
And for one damn second, just one, everything feels okay.
Then Gaia’s eyes cut to mine.
No warning. No countdown.
Just a single word. A loaded bullet of sound.
“ Rain. ”
“ Hello.”
The woman’s voice slithered into the sterile room like silk soaked in poison. She was pretty, too pretty, in a clinical, wax-doll sort of way, and wore a pristine white coat that made my skin crawl. No name tag. Just her smile. That was unsettling enough.
“My name is Mrs. Kaia Walker,” she said, her eyes never blinking. “And I’m going to help you forget.”
“Forget what?” My voice cracked, barely above a whisper. I twisted in my chair, searching the room with growing panic. “Where’s my mama?”
Mrs. Kaia gestured to a slatted window with the blinds pulled shut. “She’s just on the other side of that. Watching. Listening. But she thought we should have some privacy first.”
“Why?” My chest felt tight. My fingers dug into the fabric of the chair. “What do we need to talk about?”
She clicked her pen. The sound was surgical. “Tell me about your father. And how he hurt you.”
The words made my spine stiffen. There it was. The thing I wasn’t supposed to say. The thing Daddy said would get me killed. But he’s gone now. Mommy made sure of that.
Still, I hesitated. Because part of me still thought he might claw his way back from hell just to shut me up.
“When Mommy left for work,” I whispered, “he’d come into my room. At first, he just… told me stories. Rubbed my back until I fell asleep.”
“And then?” Kaia’s voice was calm. Cold. Detached. Her pen moved like a needle stitching up something gory and raw.
“Then he started touching me.” I pointed to the places. I couldn’t say them out loud. Not yet. “Just his hands, at first. But later… he made me touch him too. His private part. I didn’t want to. But if I didn’t, he’d hit me.”
“Why didn’t you tell your mother?”
“Because he said he’d kill me.” My voice trembled. “But Mommy walked in on him one night. She didn’t say anything. Just grabbed me and we left.”
“And where is your father now?” Her pen paused mid-air.
Was this a trap? Was I supposed to confess what Mama did?
“I don’t know,” I lied. “We’re living in a motel now. Just until Mama figures out what comes next.”
Kaia nodded slowly, lips pursed in thought. “What if he’s still alive? Aren’t you afraid he’ll find you?”
He’s not. He’s dead. Real dead. But I shrugged. “I’m not worried. If Mama’s breathing, I’m safe.”
Kaia smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “You’re a smart little girl. Sweet, too. What happened to you is unspeakable. But your mother was right, I am going to help you forget. Before I do, though… there’s someone I want you to meet.”
She turned to the door. “Gaia, come in now.”
A girl stepped inside, same age as me, but taller. Her gray eyes were slanted, sharp. Her curls cascaded over her shoulders like black ink bleeding down porcelain. She looked like a reflection, distorted, but close enough to know we came from the same cracked mold.
“Athens, this is Gaia. Gaia. ”
“Are you my sister?” I asked, the words falling out of my mouth like a secret I didn’t know I was keeping.
Gaia didn’t answer. She looked to Kaia, who nodded.
“Yes,” Kaia said. “Half-sisters. Same father. Her mother is… no longer with us.”
“I’m sorry,” I told Gaia.
“It’s okay,” she replied, but her voice was too loud, slicing through my skull like glass.
“Ow.” I winced, covering my ears. “Your voice is sharp.”
She frowned.
“But it’s cool,” I said quickly. “I like your voice.”
That seemed to soften her edges. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t know I had a sister. Why is she here?”
Kaia capped her pen. “Because I’m going to teach you how to forget, and I’m going to teach her how to help you remember. When the time is right.”
I nodded slowly. If Mama trusted this woman, I had to. Right?
Kaia knelt beside me, her hand icy on my knee. “Are you ready, Athens?”
“I guess.” I blinked at her. “How long until I forget?”
“You’ll visit twice a week,” she said. “But listen closely: when we start pulling the memories away, they don’t die.
They go dormant. Buried. New ones will fill the cracks.
And when you're ready… they’ll return. Slowly.
Painfully. Your mother suggested you keep journals. They’ll be your breadcrumbs.”
Gaia stepped closer, her hand brushing mine. “I’ll help you find your way back. When the shadows stop scaring you.”
I wanted to ask what that meant.
But Kaia’s fingers were already at my temples, her voice a low hum in my ear.
“Close your eyes, baby girl,” she whispered. “Let me burn it all away.”
And I did.
And the forgetting began.
The memory hits like a scream beneath my skin.
It drags me back, no mercy, no filter.
My father’s hands. Groping. Forcing. Violating. His breath, sour with whiskey and rot, fills my ears as he shoves his fingers inside me. Too rough. Too deep. My body remembers before my mind does.
“Stop! Daddy, please!” I sob, but the plea only excites him. It always did.
I can feel it. Every inch of it. As if he never died. As if I’m still that little girl trapped in her own bed, begging shadows for mercy they never had.
It burns. It claws. It fucking hurts.
I thrash.
The phantom weight of his body crushes me. His voice slithers down my spine like oil. And when his hand wraps around my throat, cutting off my air, I start choking, desperately clawing at nothing.
“God, please! He’s choking me!” I rasp through clenched teeth. “I told him I’d tell you what he did, what he always did when you weren’t home, and now he’s trying to kill me for it.”
“Athens,” my mother’s voice slices through the darkness like a blade. “It’s just a memory. Baby, listen to me. You’re not there. You’re here. Surrounded by people who love you.”
But it’s hard to believe her when my body’s being torn apart by ghosts. Hard to breathe when my lungs are still begging for air they lost years ago.
“You’re safe,” Fred whispers, her voice trembling but steady. “He can’t touch you now. You’re not alone.”
And then, Ryan.
Loud. Feral. Unapologetically cruel in her truth. “That sick fuck is dead, Athens. He can’t keep killing you unless you let him. So don’t. Fucking. Let him.”
Her voice breaks the spell.
The grip around my throat loosens, just enough to take a breath.
One breath. Then another.
I shudder. My body convulses as the memory starts to dissolve, but the scars remain, stitched into bone.
He’s still dead.
And I’m still here.
And maybe that’s the beginning of winning.
“Mommy!” I called out as I stepped through the front door, dropping my backpack like it owed me money. The air smelled like bleach and something burning on the stove.
She stood at the sink, hands wet, sleeves rolled up, scrubbing something invisible off a plate. “Hi, baby! How was school?”
“Boring,” I groaned. “Park Sun Joo’s still breathing, so that’s a problem. I wanna slap her ugly face sometimes.”
“Athens Jane Walker.” Her tone snapped like a blade unsheathed. “We don’t talk like that.”