Chapter 5
JACKSON
Maya's been here for seven days, and I've turned into some kind of creep who tracks her movements like I'm studying game footage.
I know she flinches when someone moves too fast. Saw it yesterday when Chase reached for the remote, and she jerked back hard enough to spill her coffee. He didn't notice, but I did.
I know she rubs her wrists when she's stressed. Left one first, then the right. Circular motions, like she's trying to erase something. She did it three times during dinner last night while Emma talked about baby names.
I know her smile never reaches her eyes. Not once in seven days have I seen that real light I used to know, the one that made you want to be closer to her just to feel some of that warmth.
She's performing. Every laugh, every joke, every casual conversation is all an act. And I'm the only one who seems to notice.
I'm also noticing things I shouldn't like how her jeans hang loose on her hips, how she picks at her food instead of eating it, how she barely sleeps. I hear her pacing at two, three, and four in the morning.
Last night I almost went upstairs. Almost knocked on her door and demanded she tell me what the fuck happened in Pinewood that made her show up here looking like a ghost.
But I didn't. Because we're not friends anymore. We're two people who kissed once and spent a year pretending it never happened.
Practice this morning was brutal. Coach ran us into the ground with back-to-back drills that left my legs screaming. Good. Physical pain I can handle. It's the other kind that's killing me.
Now I'm home at 11 a.m., dripping sweat, desperate for a shower and maybe three hours of sleep before we have to leave for tonight's game.
The house is quiet when I walk in. Emma's car is gone, probably took Ethan to some toddler thing she mentioned. Chase is still at the rink doing extra shooting practice.
Which means Maya's here alone.
I dump my gear by the basement stairs and head for the kitchen. I need water and food. Most importantly, I need to stop thinking about the girl upstairs who's slowly disappearing.
That's when I see it.
A journal. Small, leather-bound, sitting on the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker.
I know it's hers. Saw her writing in it once, years ago, when she was staying with us in Calgary. She'd curl up in the window seat in our old house and fill pages with her messy handwriting.
I should walk past it, grab my water, and go downstairs and mind my own business.
Instead, I stand here staring at it like it might explode.
It's open. Just slightly. Like she set it down in a hurry and didn't close it all the way.
Don't.
I reach for my water bottle, fill it from the tap, and drink half of it.
The journal sits there, pages bent from use.
This is wrong. Reading someone's journal is a massive violation. I know this, and would never do it under normal circumstances.
But these aren't normal circumstances. Maya showed up here with everything she owns in garbage bags, and she's not eating, not sleeping, flinching at shadows. Something happened. Something bad enough that she ran.
I need to know what I'm dealing with, need to know how to help.
That's what I tell myself as I pick up the journal.
The pages are filled with her handwriting: quick, slanted, sometimes barely legible. No dates. Just words and drawings scattered across pages like she was trying to get them out of her head as fast as possible.
Some pages have sketches. Dark, twisted things. Hands reaching, pills scattered like stars, a small blade drawn with careful detail. A child's outline, faint and ghostlike.
I flip through, reading fragments at random. My stomach turns with every page.
The blade helps. I know it shouldn't. I know it's not healthy, but it works. The pain is clean. Simple. Something I control when everything else is too much.
I know where the arteries are. Studied them. Could end it fast if I wanted to. Sometimes I think about it—how easy it would be. How quiet.
I turn the page. More sketches of blades. Pills arranged in patterns.
But not yet. Not today. Today, I just need to feel something that isn't him.
Him.
I flip back further, hands shaking now.
I can't stop seeing her face. Lily. Over a year, and she's still there every time I close my eyes. I still hear her monitor. I still feel her ribs under my hands.
Six years old. Six. She should be in second grade now. Should be losing teeth and learning to read.
I should have caught it sooner. Should have pushed harder. Should have known.
My fault. It's all my fault.
The next page has a drawing of a hospital room. A small bed. A flatline across the top of the page.
I keep flipping. The handwriting gets messier, more frantic.
His hands were on me in the supply closet. I remember stuff digging into my spine. I couldn't move. Couldn't scream. I just froze like the pathetic fucking coward I am.
He took everything. My body. My job. My sense of safety. I reported him, and they fired me. Two weeks later. Budget cuts, they said, as if I don't know what that means.
The hospital chose him. His salary, his office, his fucking reputation. I'm the problem. The troublemaker. The nurse who couldn't handle it.
My vision blurs. I blink hard, and the words come back into focus.
Hands that took what wasn't offered.
Another page. Just five words, written over and over until the pen tore through the paper.
It should have been me.
The journal slips from my hands and hits the counter. I make it to the sink just in time to throw up everything in my stomach.
Someone raped her.
Her supervisor. At the hospital. And when she reported it, they fired her.
I grip the edge of the sink, water still running, my whole body shaking with rage so intense I can barely breathe. She's cutting herself, thinking about suicide, blaming herself for a patient's death that happened over a year ago, and a rape that wasn't her fucking fault.
And I had no idea.
None of us did.
I rinse my mouth, splash cold water on my face, then twist the tap off and try to get myself under control.
The journal's still sitting there, pages open to those five words repeated over and over. I close it carefully and put it back exactly where I found it, the same angle, the same position.
She can't know I read it, can't know I violated her privacy like this.
But now I know, and I can't take it back.
Can't unsee those words, can’t shake the rage burning through my chest, can't stop thinking about some piece of shit putting his hands on her and then taking her job when she tried to get justice.
I want his name. I want to know who he is so I can drive to Pinewood and beat him until he stops moving.
But that won't help Maya. And right now, she needs help more than I need revenge.
The front door opens, and I freeze.
"Jackson?" Maya's voice. "You home?"
I grab my water bottle and force my face into something neutral.
She walks into the kitchen carrying grocery bags, Max trailing behind her like a shadow. She's wearing leggings and one of Emma's oversized sweaters, her curly hair piled on top of her head.
She looks at me and stops. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Fine. Just finished practice." My voice sounds wrong, too tight.
She sets the bags on the counter, right next to her journal, and doesn't seem to notice it's there. "You look like shit."
"Thanks. Always know how to make a guy feel good."
"Seriously. You're pale." She moves closer, and I force myself not to step back. "Are you sick?"
"Just tired."
She studies my face, and for a second I think she sees right through me—sees that I read her journal, that I know everything.
But she just nods. "Emma had me pick up stuff for dinner. Did click and collect so it'd be ready when I got there." She pulls out a package of chicken breasts. "Apparently, pregnant Emma can't stand the smell of raw chicken anymore."
"Makes sense."
I should leave, should go downstairs and process this alone, but I can't move, can't stop looking at her and seeing those words in my head.
Hands that took what wasn't offered.
"Jackson." Her voice pulls me back. "You sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine, Maya."
She doesn't look convinced, but she doesn't push, just starts unpacking groceries and moving around the kitchen.
Max sits at her feet, meowing for attention. She reaches down and scratches behind his ears without looking, and he purrs loud enough to fill the kitchen.
I watch her put away vegetables, stack cans in the pantry. Do all these normal motions while my brain screams with everything I know.
She's suicidal.
She was raped three months ago.
She blames herself for a patient who died over a year ago.
And she's pretending everything's fine because that's what Maya does. Puts on a show of strength while she's drowning.
I can't tell Emma, can't tell Chase, can't tell anyone without betraying Maya's privacy.
But I also can't just do nothing.
"Hey." The word comes out before I can stop it.
She looks up from the bag of apples. "Yeah?"
"If you ever need anything. Or want to talk. I'm around."
Something flickers across her face. Pain, maybe. Or surprise. It's gone before I can name it.
"I know." She turns back to the apples, her shoulders tensing. "Thanks."
That's it. That's all I get.
I grab my water and head for the basement stairs, and I swear I can feel her watching me leave.
In my room, I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the wall.
Seven days. She's been here seven days, and I've watched her fall apart in slow motion without understanding why.
Now I understand. And it's so much worse than I imagined.
Someone hurt her, violated her, and instead of getting justice, she got fired and lost everything.
The rage is back, burning hot in my chest. I want to hit something, want to find whoever did this and make him hurt the way he hurt her.
But violence won't fix this, won't help Maya heal.
She needs therapy. Real therapy, with someone who specializes in sexual assault. She needs support, needs someone who knows what they're doing, needs help. I don't know how to give.
I lie back on my bed and close my eyes, but all I see are those pages. Her handwriting, the drawings of blades and bodies, and all the ways she's thought about ending it.
She's thinking about killing herself.
The thought makes my chest so tight I can barely breathe.
I can't lose her, can't watch her disappear, can't stand by while she cuts herself and plans ways to die.
But I also can't tell her I read her journal, can't confront her directly because she'd shut down and probably leave.
So what do I do?
How do I help someone who doesn't want to be helped? Who's so good at faking it that nobody notices she's drowning?
Above me, I hear footsteps. Maya moving around the kitchen, the sound of water running, a cabinet closing.
She's up there right now, pretending everything's fine.
And I'm down here, knowing the truth, terrified of what happens next.
Because I read her journal, and now I know.
She's not okay. She's never been less okay.
And I have no idea how to save her.
I roll onto my side, grab my phone, and Google "how to help someone after rape," and I immediately feel like a piece of shit for not knowing this already, for being thirty-one years old and having no fucking clue how to support someone through something like this.
The articles all say the same things. Listen without judgment. Believe them. Don't pressure them to talk. Respect their timeline for healing.
But Maya's not talking, she's not healing, she's cutting herself and planning suicide and pretending to be fine, and I'm supposed to just wait and hope she decides to open up?
That feels like watching someone bleed out while you stand there with a first aid kit, waiting for permission to help.
I hear her laugh upstairs. High and bright and fake.
Emma must be home.
I should go up there, act normal, and pretend I don't know what I know and play my part in this twisted performance we're all putting on.
Instead, I stay in bed and try to figure out how to save someone who doesn't think she's worth saving.