41. Athena
CHAPTER 41
Athena
V ictim.
It’s a word that’s been mentioned no fewer than three hundred times over the last three days. I kind of hate it.
Even though I’ve been asleep for most of those three days, I still hear it, and I still hate it.
I’m exhausted. Every muscle in my body hurts, every hair on my head hurts, every time I take a breath, it hurts. I’ve been in for another x-ray on my foot, and Scott requested they check my chest because every time I do the bare minimum to stay alive, I’m in pain.
He was right, I’ve cracked two ribs that were missed when I was taken into the hospital the other night.
Well, actually, I didn’t crack anything. The men who attacked me did. And now we’re back to victim.
I don’t want to be known as a victim, I want to be known as a survivor, because I did. I survived. And so many people don’t.
I’m so glad Ares said survivor the other morning in my room, he set the tone for the rest of my brothers, because if he’d called me a victim I’d probably have given him a jaw to match my own—even though my hand is fucked up.
Scott hasn’t left my side since he found me behind the library. My brothers aren’t much better. They only leave when I force them to, and never all at once. They take turns to go home, repack their bags, and come back. They’re sleeping in my two spare rooms, they’re cooking and cleaning, and if I so much as sneeze they’re by my side. It’s sweet, and to be honest, such a relief because right now I’m eaten alive by anxiety and terror.
I’ll get tired of it soon enough, and I’m playing it cool, acting as though they’re irritating the fuck out of me, so they don’t know how shredded my insides are. I hate it. I hate feeling like this, but the comfort my brothers and Scott bring me right now is unquantifiable.
Mamá and Abuelita have both come over to visit and sit with me, Savannah, too. Papá hasn’t stopped by, he called yesterday, offering whatever legal assistance I might need, but is out of town so can’t come over.
I’m not sure whether I believe him or not. He’s probably afraid I’ll slap him with my cast if he comes within range.
He’s also probably not wrong.
Not to mention, the boys had a trio of legal counsel for me to look over the other day. I’m all set for resources.
My brothers have kicked into action, hiring the best legal team in the country. The lead counsel is someone Artemis has had dealings with in the past, and the fact that she’s female is just one more check in her pros column.
When she broke the news to me this morning that my rapists had been released on bail, Scott looked murderous, but everyone stayed chill. At least outwardly.
The rapists were barely in custody, but my lawyers made sure DNA samples were taken from both of them to compare with my test kit results. I shiver, trying to blink the memories out of my line of vision.
I’m not sure where the boys are going to vent their emotions, especially given that they’re currently living under my feet, but my brothers have been far too level-headed over the past three days. It’s like they’ve had personality transplants. Everyone’s afraid to look sideways at me, or move near me, or even blink in my direction.
I hate it.
I mean, I understand it, but I still hate it. No one has ever been cautious like this around me before, no one has ever been afraid I’m going to spontaneously burst into tears or have a flashback or panic attack.
To be fair, none of those things have ever happened before now, either.
We’re all figuring this out together, and I really feel for them, because I know it’s not easy.
“Are you ready?” Scott’s voice pierces my thoughts from the doorway to my room as I stand in front of my mirror staring at the bruising all over my face, the cast hanging limply at my side, and the boot covering my still swollen and sore foot.
Today’s the day I start therapy. Or at least the process of finding a good trauma therapist to help me figure this whole thing out. Again, the boys picked a hat trick of highly qualified therapists for me to try. After a quick look around online to double check their homework, I reluctantly agreed they had, in fact, picked the three best qualified people to help me out, and I couldn’t procrastinate reaching out to them for a timeslot.
To their credit, they didn’t strike one name off the list solely because he has a penis, though I’m not sure they’ll leave me alone in the room with him enough to actually get anywhere with a therapy session. I guess only time will tell. I’m booked in to have at least one session with each of them.
Is there such a thing as too much therapy?
My trauma doesn’t think so.
Turns out, after a traumatic event, your body can often react in ways we don’t want it to and have no idea how to fix. The whole attack is still playing in my mind on a loop, but as though it was happening to someone else, not to me.
I remember the warm feeling of the urine as it seeped under my freezing cold ass on the hospital gurney, the deep shame and embarrassment as the all-female nursing staff checked every inch of my skin for signs that those animals had defiled me, the bottomless agony in Scott’s eyes as he stared down at me, lying on the grass.
But the attack itself, the step by step, the finer details of the assau—rape, those flashes are as though I’m watching a horror movie, and a woman who looks just like me is the unfortunate victim of the show.
There’s a lot to unpack there, that the woman in the movie in my brain is a victim, but the word itself makes me feel like I’m about to break out in hives.
The boys tell me that I could wait before jumping into therapy, that they weren’t rushing me by having names ready less than twenty-four hours after I was raped. But why bother waiting and giving those images in my brain the chance to plant roots and fester? Surely, it’s better to get the jump on working through what I experienced and hoping to move toward some kind of, I dunno. Recovery feels like the wrong word, I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from what just happened.
Maybe I just want to get out of the apartment, get back outside and into the real world. Part of me wants to stay in here, safe and sound, protected, and never leave again. It’s comfortable in here, no one stares at the bruising on my face, there’s no pointing and whispering about who I am or what happened to me. But most of all there’s no chance I’m going to walk into my attackers on the street.
My heart skips up a few hundred beats per minute at the thought.
Of course, someone at the hospital talked. The story broke on the internet before I’d even spoken to Savannah, or Edith, or any of the girls really. Apollo is working on finding out who that was and grinding their bones into dust. He says that’s a joke, he won’t really grind their bones into dust, but right now, given how high tensions are and how I haven’t seen any of them blowing off steam, I wouldn’t put it past him.
Or maybe Artemis would be more likely.
It’s always the quiet ones.
“Remember, hermana.” Apollo helps me toward the door. This boot might be clunky, but I can manage just fine, though I don’t shake him off.
Sometimes I think they need to help me more than I need help, and who am I to take that from them?
“If this one doesn’t work out, if you don’t like something about them, we have a dozen more for you to try. And you don’t need to try them all in one go, we can spread it out.”
What he’s not saying is that this isn’t a quick fix, this will take a long time to mend even a little. He’s right though, while the short list had three names on it, there are any number of trauma specialists across the country.
Scott chews at the inside of his mouth. He’s the one who has had to endure my nighttime accidents over the past two nights.
Seems I’ve regressed all the way back to my childhood, and my flippant comment about not wanting to wear diapers when calling Scott Papi, may need to be considered for other reasons if I can’t figure out how to stop wetting the bed.
To his credit, he hasn’t said a single word. He’s helped me out of bed, put me in the shower to rinse off, and changed the bed both nights in a row without so much as an uttered word of complaint.
I really don’t deserve him.
Apollo and Scott help me downstairs. I don’t make eye contact with anyone, but I also don’t miss the audible gasp of one of my neighbors in the elevator. Despite the sizzle of embarrassment in my skin, I don’t lift my head.
I know without checking that whoever it is, is looking at me. It’s hard to ignore the massive bruises covering most of my face. They’re probably scowling at my brother and Scott right now too, like it’s their fault this happened to me, like they might be responsible. It’s an instinctive reaction, to blame whoever’s standing next to the injured person for the carnage still making my body swell.
Everything hurts. My joints are stiff, muscles sore, skin is swollen and hot to the touch. I’m getting another scan on my foot tomorrow, and from how painful each step is, even with the boot underfoot, it’s probably fifty-fifty as to whether or not it’s broken or fractured like my arm.
The therapist’s office isn’t too far away, maybe ten minutes, fifteen at a push, and despite my suggestion to play rock, paper, scissors to see who gets to come with me on my merry adventure, neither man is willing to step down.
Pretty sure if I say only one can come, there’ll be a battle to the death.
Tempting.
But there’s already been enough spilled blood, and I don’t really care if they come along with me. If anything, I need Scott to get himself in front of a doctor as well, he’s traumatized too. Though I doubt he can pretend this happened to someone else other than me. I bet in his mind he sees it all in high-definition picture.
The journey to the therapist’s office is quick, and Apollo finds a space to park right outside the building. It’s next to a popular, local coffee shop, so with all the to-ing and fro-ing, it must be our lucky day to get parked right out front.
Apollo opens the door for me while Scott reaches his hand to me to help me slide out of the car.
I feel it almost before I see it, there’s a chill that meets my face as a shadow moves into view. At first, I can’t place the features I’m staring at, but when the voice meets my ears, my blood runs cold.
“Athena de la Pena, so nice to see you up and about. Feeling better after your little accident?” His voice is saccharine-sweet, dripping with false concern. It’s Brock, one of the two men who violated me only three nights ago. He’s holding a donut with a bite taken out of it in one hand, and in the other, he’s got a coffee of some kind.
A tremendous urge to rip it from his hands and pour it over his head strikes me, but I can’t make any part of my body move.
I’m frozen in place as he smirks at me, the knowing in his eyes telling me he’s still playing with me.
I’m frozen in place as he salutes me with his donut still in his hand.
And I’m frozen in place as he saunters down the street away from me, swaggering as though he doesn’t have a care in the world, while I’m standing here, unable to move, with hot piss trickling down my legs.