Chapter Fourteen
Sadie
I hear a rush of footsteps behind me as multiple people come into the room. My first thought is that he’s brought more people to rape me until someone scoops me up in their arms, and Lance’s woodsy scent instantly brings me peace.
The first time in hours, I fall back into tears and cry as he holds me close to his body. I can hear Mason screaming at Paul, but Leo is gone. It’s right now that I realize that this was his plan all along. He never wanted to keep me; he just wanted a little time to break me.
“We’ve got you. You’re okay,” Lance says softly as he walks with me out of the cabin. “We are going to go sit in the car, okay?”
“Okay,” I say almost inaudibly.
“Are you hurt at all?”
“No,” I shake my head. “I’m not hurt.” He gets in the car with me in his lap before having me sit up.
He pulls his shirt off, leaving him in just his undershirt, and pulls it over my head.
Once it’s pulled down and I am no longer exposed, I bring myself back to his chest as I nearly curl into a ball in his lap.
Eventually, Mason and Dean get into the car with us. I look up and see that our entire friend group is here, minus Leo. They are keeping their distance, including Todd. Normally, Todd would be right here with me. The fact that he isn’t means that he feels guilty.
“I need Todd,” I say, sitting slightly.
“Hey. She’s asking for you,” Lance opens the door and calls out.
“Hey, sweetie,” he says as he kneels beside the car. I’m so fucking tired, but he needs to know it’s not his fault. He didn’t know that Leo would do that. I put my arms out to get him to help me up. He and Lance help me stand before Todd wraps me in a hug and holds me tightly.
“I’m so sorry, Sadie,” he whispers.
“You didn’t know,” I say. “No one could have known he would do that.
“Wait. Who?” Lance asks, pulling away to look at me.
“Leo,” I say. I’m confused now.
“What do you mean?” Lance asks as he gets out to stand with us. Everyone else comes over, and I’m suddenly overwhelmed. Panic bubbles inside of me, and I can feel myself shaking.
“Hey, hey, hey. Look at me, Sadie. Not them. Me,” Todd says, cupping my face. I nod and focus on just him. “What about Leo?”
“He’s Paul’s cousin,” I say. “He…” I can’t even say the words before I start crying. But it’s enough.
“That son of a bitch,” Lance snarls.
“I heard him on the phone with someone,” I say as I pull away and wipe my eyes. “Where is he? Where is Paul?”
“In the cabin. He can’t get to you. You’re safe,” Todd says reassuringly. “He was on the phone?”
“When he was talking to me,” Lance says.
“I heard him say your name. I couldn’t really concentrate so I didn’t know what he was saying, but… Todd, it’s not your fault. Okay?”
“I shouldn’t have left. I knew something else was off with him showing up like that,” he says with a sigh.
“I just want to go. Can we go?” I turn to Lance and ask.
“Yeah. Come on,” he says, motioning for me to get in the car.
“We’re going to take you to the hospital, okay?” Mason says. I nod and let Lance pull me into his lap so I can curl up against his chest again.
Once the car starts moving, I fall asleep within a few minutes. It is entirely driven by exhaustion from what they did to me. They stole pieces of me that I don’t think I’ll ever get back. As I start to drift away, I easily let myself slip back into my dissociative state of mind.
“Sadie,” Lance says softly. I jolt awake but relax when I see we are still in the car. “We can’t all go in with you, so I’m going to take you in. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say softly. “This is pointless, though.”
“Why?” he asks.
“He didn’t hurt me,” I say. “He… he intentionally didn’t cause me pain,” I say.
“I won’t make you, but I think you should still let them look at you,” he says.
“Okay,” I sigh.
Lance gets out and sets me on my feet before helping me slip my feet into sandals. Mason and Dean get out and come around to hug me.
“Thank you for finding me,” I whisper when Mason hugs me.
“He will never put his hand on you again, Sadie,” Mason swears.
“You don’t know that… He…” I say.
“He will never put his hands on you again, Sadie,” Mason repeats when he pulls away to look at me. “I swear to you right now… Paul will never hurt you again.”
“He’s going to get away with it again,” I say as I tear up.
“We don’t know that just yet. Let’s just do this part and file charges,” Dean says as he pulls me close to hug me. “Just one step at a time.”
“Let’s do this so I can take a shower,” I sigh.
Lance takes my hand, and we go inside. Right away, a nurse greets me.
I suddenly can’t talk again when I see there are so many people in the waiting room.
Lance tells her why I’m there, and I am spared the panic attack when she immediately takes me back to a room.
Two nurses come in and explain the process for the rape examination.
Because I lost consciousness in the beginning, they suggest that I do the full exam since I don’t know what they did.
I do know, though. I can still feel their hands on my body.
I feel unclean in a way that I don’t think will ever go away. They ruined me; broke me.
I stay in a dazed state through the entire exam. Lance holds my hand the entire time I am in his presence and makes sure that I don’t slip away completely. When she is done, she gives me sweatpants and a T-shirt to dress in since they took the shirt.
I am sitting on the edge of the hospital bed with my head lying on Lance’s shoulder when a cop comes into the room. “Are you Ms. Graves?” he asks. Immediately, I don’t like his tone. He looks amused as he stands in front of me.
“Yeah,” I say in a small voice.
“The nurse said that you disclosed a rape that you wish to file a report on. Is this correct?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Okay. So, the initial findings of the exam show no indication of assault. I want you to be fully aware of what that means,” he says.
“He raped me,” I say matter-of-factly. “They both raped me more than once. I think.”
“You think?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
“When I woke up… I could tell one of them had done something,” I say. “The first time they raped me, I just… It’s like I dissociated. I stayed like that until they found me. I think they raped me multiple times, I just don’t know how many. I just remember feeling their hands on me.”
“So… I’m going to be transparent with you,” the cop says. “I’ve seen the video. Are you sure you want to report this?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lance snaps at the cop. “Why don’t you just do your fucking job and take the report?”
“All I’m saying is from this end of things, there’s not much to report,” the cop says bluntly.
That was his plan, though. He didn’t hurt me because he knew the guys would find me.
He knew his time was limited, so he made it appear as consensual as possible.
After the video was leaked, my credibility was shot.
No court would see that video and be able to set aside their sexism for long enough to believe that I could be raped.
With no evidence to back it up, Paul and Leo will get away with it.
Nothing will happen to them, and they know it.
“I just wanna go home,” I tell Lance quietly. “I told you it was pointless. No one will believe me.”
“Are you sure?” Lance asks me, softening his voice when he talks to me.
“Please take me home,” I say tearfully. He nods and stands up.
I don’t object when he scoops me up and walks out.
A few nurses say something to us. Something about antibiotics and something to make sure I don’t get pregnant should my birth control fail.
She has sadness in her voice when she talks.
They try to get me to sign, but I just stay quiet and don’t move.
She lets Lance sign, even though I don’t think he should be able to, but I won’t complain. I just want to take a shower.
By the time he gets me into the car, I’ve completely shut down. I can hear everything going on around me, but I probably appear to be out of it entirely.
“What’s wrong?” Mason asks when Lance shuts the door.
“That fucking cop basically said she had nothing to report because she wasn’t injured, and the video,” Lance says with anger still in his voice. “She just… shut down.”
“It’s a lot to process,” Mason says softly. No matter how soft or kind he is making his voice, I can still hear the anger.
“How the fuck is that fair?” Dean asks.
“Ninety-seven percent of rapists never face consequences,” Todd says. “She’s a smart girl. She understands that, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. She just needs time.”
I close my eyes, but I do not fall asleep, although they do think that I’m sleeping. My breathing is even, and I’m completely still. It’s not like I’ve gone crazy and my mind is empty. I’m still very much here and aware of what’s going on, I just have no desire to do anything.
When we get home, Lance carries me in and sets me on Dean’s bed while he gathers what I need to take a shower. Dean and Mason are in the room, but no one touches me. I stare at my hands until Mason comes over and kneels in front of me.
“We are going to go to the living room, but we will keep an ear out for you. Okay?” he asks. I give him a small nod, and he gently pats my leg before standing up. Lance sets everything in the bathroom before they all leave, shutting the door behind them.
The moment they are out of the room, I go over and lock the door. I don’t know why I’m doing it, but I feel safer this way. I then go to the bathroom and turn on the hot water before shedding my clothing.
When the water is as hot as it’s going to get, I step into the shower.
The scalding water burns my skin as it rains down on me.
The sting and aching feeling that it creates is fucking blissful.
I never knew that causing myself pain would bring me so much peace.
I grab the washcloth and soap, then set in on scrubbing my skin.
I feel dirty and used after what they did to me. I can still feel them inside of me. Their grunts and moans replay in my head on a loop as I remember the way they dove into my body with desperation to find their pleasure in me. They took from me without hesitation for their own benefit.
Paul did so much worse, though. He showed me in just a few hours that he is the one in control, and I was never free of him. I will never be free of him. He will continue to get away with hurting me. He owns me. I will never be free.
I keep scrubbing my skin, desperately trying to get their touch off of me.
I can’t stand the feeling of them any longer.
My skin burns as I rub it raw, allowing the soap to cause a stinging sensation.
The burn makes the feeling go away. As long as I keep scrubbing, I don’t have to feel them.
I don’t have to remember what it was like when my body betrayed me when they forcefully created sick pleasure.
Only it wasn’t pleasurable. It was painful.
To them, it appeared to be everything they ever wanted from me.
To me, there’s never been anything more painful than what they did to me; what they made me do.
“Oh, my God!” Mason says with a panicked tone as he steps into the shower and shuts the water off.
When he yanks the washcloth out of my hands, reality knocks the wind out of me.
My skin is bright red. I have patches of raw skin where I’m bleeding a little.
I am hysterically sobbing when Mason wraps his arms around me to hug me tightly.
“Shhh. You’re okay,” he says softly. “You’re okay.”
Mason picks me up before I can collapse and takes me to the bed.
He sits me down, and someone wraps a towel around me before he pulls me into his lap.
He gently rocks us while I try to stop crying.
Everything hurts, but it’s not the physical pain that’s bothering me.
It’s the crushing emotional weight of everything that happened today and when I was a child.
I was just a little girl when he abused me.
My parents let him do that. He has this belief that an orgasm would rid me of my demons, so he likely had the same belief back then.
It’s becoming extremely obvious that my parents let that happen to me.
They signed me up for that camp, knowing what was going to happen.
Only, Paul took it further than they expected.
Naturally, that would be my fault. I am the temptress who convinced him it was okay to orally rape a child.
I am the one who asked for it with my slutty ways.
Or so they say. If they did it then, I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that my parents are partly responsible for this time as well.
The video triggered them to act and try to rid me of my demons again.
He will never stop. Paul will continue to torture me until one of us dies.
I’ve been complacent about my abuse, and I’ve allowed him to win over and over again.
He has gotten away with hurting me far too many times.
Consequences be damned, I will not be the one to lie down and die because I refused to fight for myself.
I don’t know how long it will take me to pull myself out of this fog, but when I do… He’s dead.