Chapter Three
“Hey, I’m Ashley,” the woman who stepped into the room said, giving me a small, encouraging smile.
“Riya,” I said with a nod, self-consciously shifting in the stiff hospital gown, feeling more naked than I ever had before in my life despite it.
“Riya,” she said, setting a bag down and reaching inside to spread items onto a tray she pulled out of a corner.
“I know this is really awkward. But this isn’t going to be painful—maybe a little uncomfortable at parts—but it’s really important for us to get every bit of data we can since you don’t remember what happened to you. ”
I swallowed hard as she reached into the cabinet for a box of gloves, then turned away from me to wash before slipping them on and scooting toward me on the stool, dragging the tray with her.
“I understand.” And I did. This needed to be done. I needed to strip down and be poked and prodded to see what I had or had not been through.
“We’ll start small. Can I have your hand?
” she asked, reaching for a small wooden stick with a tapered edge as I placed my hand in one of hers.
“Just fingernail scrapings so we can see where you’ve been, hopefully,” she offered, scraping under each nail and putting the samples into tiny little paper envelopes.
“Alright. I am not going to do your pulse or any of that. But I am going to check your body over,” she said, scooting back, and I knew the intention was for me to stand, so I did.
I took a deep breath and reached behind my back for the tie and undid it so the gown slid down, the cool air of the room making my bare skin goosebump from head to toe.
Ashley’s brows drew together as she stood and moved closer to me, taking my arm and turning it around twice, then doing the same with the other.
“Hm, okay. No bruising,” she said, moving around my back, and I had to shut my eyes and swallow hard against the embarrassment of having every bare inch of my body examined.
“Sawyer mentioned you saying you were sore,” she said, moving in front of me again and handing my gown back to me, which I happily slipped inside quickly.
I knew the worst wasn’t over, but I was glad for a small barrier.
“Yeah, I’m sore.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere. Literally. I feel like all my muscles hurt. You know, like after you work out really hard and can’t move the next day? That’s how I feel.”
“Okay,” she said, jotting down a quick note.
She reached out as I sat down and touched my head, pushing her fingers in.
I imagined she was looking for some sign that I had been hit in the head or something.
But my head was the only part of me that didn’t hurt.
She reached back toward the tray. “Alright, I am going to take a little blood,” she told me, reaching for a swab and wiping the inside of my elbow to clean it before taking a syringe and quickly pushing it into the vein, giving me no warning, no time to get anxious over the idea.
I looked down, watching my blood flow into the glass in a detached sort of wonder.
“One more vial,” she said as she took the first one out and capped it.
“Okay.”
“Alright,” she said a minute later, capping it and turning to me with a somewhat guarded expression. “So, because you don’t know what happened to you. Sawyer and I feel it would be best if we did…”
“A rape kit,” I said, swallowing, feeling my stomach clench hard. “I want it done too. It’s, ah, better to know,” I said, meaning it. Nothing was worse than not knowing.
“Okay, so I need you to lie back, pull your knees up, then let your legs fall open, feet touching each other,” she said as she reached for the items she needed. “Would you feel more comfortable with me talking through this or just getting it over with?”
“Just get it over with,” I said, closing my eyes tight and trying to pretend I was somewhere, anywhere else than in some exam room in a private investigator’s office getting a rape exam done by a nice nurse I would never see again.
“Okay. Riya. Hey,” she said, her voice low and soothing. “Riya,” she said again, pressing my legs closed. “We’re all done. I’m sorry. I know that was unpleasant, but it’s all over.”
I took a breath and sat up, letting my legs drop down over the side of the table, gripping the edge so hard that my hands turned white. “Was I raped?”
Ashley tossed her gloves away, turning back to me and shaking her head. “No, Riya. From what I can tell, there hasn’t been any sexual activity, either consensual or otherwise.”
Somehow, those words, those perfect, wonderful words, were my breaking point.
I brought my hands up, burying my face in them as I let out the tears that I had been holding in since I woke up that morning.
And once I opened up those floodgates, there was no closing them back up. My body folded half over, my chest shaking hard as I tried to keep the sobbing inside even as the tears fell, making me let out a strange, hiccuping, choking noise.
“Riya, hey,” Ashley said, moving to sit beside me on the edge of the table, her hand landing on my knee.
“I know this situation is crazy, but I’m confident that if Sawyer takes your case, he will figure it all out and get you some answers.
It’s not as hopeless as it feels right now.
And once we get the blood tests back, we might even have more to go on.
Try to look on the bright side here. You’re sore, but not hurt.
You weren’t assaulted. Everything is going to be alright. ”
I sniffled loudly, swiping hard at my cheeks. I wasn’t entirely convinced that everything would be okay. But that being said, I didn’t need to have a complete breakdown in front of a stranger either.
I was a realist. Things were not okay. And chances were, they would not be okay for a good, long time. I would need to harden the hell up.
“Okay. That’s enough of that,” I said at my own expense, getting off the table and reaching for my pile of clothes. “Sorry about that.”
“Honey, I think I would be rocking in a corner if I lost a year of my life. You are holding it together remarkably well. Alright,” she said, putting all her samples into a bag and then tossed half of the equipment used.
“I am going to go get this all analyzed so I can report back to Sawyer so we can get some answers for you.”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. If she could tell me something, anything, I owed her big time.
“Best of luck, Riya,” she said, going into the hall, leaving me alone to quickly redress.
I went out to the hall as well, looking around a little helplessly. I didn’t know what to do or where to go.
“Mr. Anderson is in a meeting right now, but he will get in touch with you.”
That was a dismissal if I had ever heard one.
And that was all fine and dandy, but he didn’t even have a way of getting in touch with me. But I nodded to Marg and gave her a grateful smile and headed outside. I couldn’t stand inside the reception area like a little lost puppy.
That was what I felt like, though, as I sat down on the giant steps leading up to the building.
Because the fact of the matter was, losing a year of your life meant you lost a lot of things.
Like, I imagined, my apartment and every single thing inside it, my car that was two payments shy of being paid off, my purse and all my IDs, which meant all the access I had to things such as my bank account and credit cards to get temporary lodging.
I had nowhere to go.
That was a truly terrifying thought.
My family, small as it was, was gone. I had made a couple of friends over the years, but no one I felt close enough to show up at their doorsteps and beg for a place to stay until I got things sorted out. I didn’t even have a phone to call people or figure out what could be done.
For someone who had always had her life pretty under control, it was completely and overwhelmingly unsettling not to know where I was going to sleep that night. Or how I was going to get food. Or get my life back on track.
“Brock, I swear to fuck, only you would find yourself bare-assed naked on some woman’s back…
” Sawyer’s voice trailed off as he moved down the steps.
When I turned my head up to look at him, his brows drew together.
“I gotta go, man. I don’t know, make a maple leaf skirt and call a cab.
Not my problem you pissed off your fuck buddy.
Oh, shit,” he said, smiling a little wickedly and, even from several feet below him, I could hear a woman shrieking through the phone.
“Good luck with that, man,” he said, hanging up and tucking the phone into his pocket.
When I didn’t say anything, because, well, what was there to say, he exhaled hard. “Come on, babe.”
My brows knitted when he turned and continued down the steps, as if he expected me to follow. “Ah… sorry, what?”
“I said come on,” he said with a shrug, turning back to me, the sun making him squint those gorgeous green eyes of his. “I need to eat. You look like you need to, too. So let’s eat.”
And then I said a handful of words that, in my previous life, were so out of the realm of possible words to string together that I felt mortification well up inside me at having to say them. “I don’t have any money.”
“Like I’d let you pay if you did. Come on, I don’t have all day,” he said, turning and starting to run across the street.
And, well, with nothing else to do and no other way to get food, I stood, walked to the end of the sidewalk, waited for traffic to clear, and followed him. On my achy legs, it took me half a block to catch up to him, even though he was keeping a somewhat leisurely pace.