8. Briar
Chapter Eight
brIAR
Oh God, my head is killing me.
I turn slowly beneath the sheets, the blanket twisting around my legs like it wants to hold me down.
A heavy, fuzzy throb pulses at the back of my skull, worse than any hangover I have ever known.
I know I drank too much last night, but this feels wrong.
Deeper. Like my body is trying to warn me of something I cannot remember.
I push the blanket down and freeze. I am still fully dressed with the same black top and shorts from the club clinging to my skin, damp with nervous sweat. My boots lie kicked off near the foot of the bed. No ache between my thighs. No sticky warmth. No soreness. Nothing.
My breath catches.
I sit up carefully, the room tilting for a long second before it steadies.
The light filters through the half-drawn curtains, casting soft gray shadows across the walls.
The other side of the bed is untouched, sheets smooth and cold.
No indent from another body. No jacket draped over the chair. No trace that anyone stayed.
So… he brought me home and I simply passed out? He left?
I stand on shaky legs, one hand braced against the nightstand as the floor seems to tilt beneath my bare feet.
The apartment feels too quiet, too still.
The air carries a faint, earthy scent I cannot quite place, something that makes the fine hairs on my arms rise.
I shake it off and pad into the open kitchen-living space.
My bag sits neatly on the table. My coat is folded carefully over the arm of the couch.
No glasses. No empty bottles. No evidence the night continued here at all.
My fingers tremble as I grab my phone and dial Lucille. It is after two in the afternoon—she will be awake.
“Hey, girl!” she purrs, voice warm and teasing.
“Hey—” I start, switching to speaker as I wander toward the bathroom. The cool tiles send a shiver racing up my bare feet.
“I saw you leave with that leather-jacket guy!” she coos before I can ask.
“How? You left way before me.”
“I was in the parking lot. In his SUV.” She says it so casually I can almost see her smirk.
“Oh. Car sex. Nice.” I try to laugh, but it comes out thin and shaky. I peel off my clothes, the fabric suddenly too tight against my skin, and stand naked in front of the bathroom mirror.
My reflection stares back at me. My skin is unmarked. No bruises. No bites. No fingerprints. I run my hands slowly down my hips, over my belly, between my legs. Nothing. No tenderness. No trace of him.
“I… have no idea,” I say, the nervous laugh dying in my throat. “I woke up and do not remember a thing.”
“Briar—” Worry sharpens her tone instantly.
“No, no,” I interrupt quickly, my voice cracking as I wrap my arms around myself. “I was still fully clothed in bed. I do not feel… anything. I think he just dropped me off and I passed out. He left.”
“Oh. That is… kind of nice,” Lucille says, but the suspicion in her voice mirrors the unease twisting tighter in my stomach. “At least he did not take advantage. But you do not usually drink that much, girl.”
She is right. I do not. I even drove home without any real trouble… did I not? What if he slipped something in my drink? But then why bring me home and do nothing? Unless he did, and then cleaned everything up so it would look like nothing happened.
A chill races down my spine, sharp and familiar. No. Not again.
“Briar, honey?” Lucille’s voice cuts through the rising panic.
“I am here, sorry.” I sniff hard, blinking back the sting in my eyes as I try to steady my breathing. My reflection in the mirror looks small and fragile, arms wrapped tight around my middle like I could hold myself together. “I would feel it, right, Lu? If he… fucked me.”
There is a long beat of silence on the line.
“Yeah,” she says finally, soft and careful. “Of course you would.”
My phone lights up with a new notification. An unknown number. My thumb hovers, trembling, before I tap it open.
“Hey, sorry for leaving so quickly. You fell asleep almost immediately after we got back to your place, so I let you rest and headed out. I’m going to be away for a few weeks, but maybe we can hook up when I’m back?”
Oh God.
The breath I had been holding rushes out of me in a shaky wave.
My shoulders sag, the tight knot in my chest loosening just enough for air to slip back in.
He could be lying, of course he could, but with the untouched bed, the lack of marks, the absence of any soreness… it fits. He really did just leave.
“Lucille, you will not believe this—” I read her the text, and she explodes into whooping laughter, loud and bright, until her sister calls her name in the background.
We say quick goodbyes and I hang up. A fragile kind of calm settles over me. The night had been… normal. Nothing happened.
Okay. Nothing happened.
I turn the shower on, letting the water run until steam curls thick and heavy, fogging the mirror and turning the tiny bathroom into a hazy dream.
When I finally step under the spray, the heat hits my skin like a brand, burning away the sticky remnants of last night’s wine, the club smoke, and the unease I cannot name.
For a moment it works. The warmth sinks deep into my muscles.
Then the images come anyway.
Stronger hands pinning me down. A raspy voice whispering against my ear how perfect and innocent I was. How he was going to take what no other man could ever have.
My stomach lurches violently.
I gag, sliding the shower door open with a wet squeak, and barely make it to the toilet before my body rebels. The sound that tears out of me is ugly and raw. My throat burns as everything comes up in painful heaves.
It has been four years, and I can still smell him, still feel the crushing weight of his body. I still hear the low laugh that came when I begged him to stop.
I do not know who he was. I never found out. He made it very clear that if I tried to go to the police, my life would be over. So I changed. All of me. I tried to leave the city, but my own father looked me in the eye and told me to deal with it. To toughen up.
I never spoke to him again.
He had been sitting in the car while it happened. I screamed for him—
A sob rips from my throat before I can stop it. My hands tremble so badly I have to grip the cold edge of the sink to stay upright. The shower is still running behind me, steam filling the small room until my reflection blurs and disappears.
I need to get my head under control. I cannot break like I did back then.
Lucille was my salvation.
We met exactly one week after it happened.
I was on a path of slow destruction: drinking until the world went black, smoking anything that would numb the pain, letting strangers use my body because at least then it felt like I was choosing it.
I was curled in a filthy alley behind some bar when she found me.
She did not ask questions. She simply knelt down, brushed the damp hair from my face with gentle fingers, and whispered, “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you somewhere safe.”
She took me to her place and cared for me for weeks without even knowing my real name. She brought me soup when I could not eat, held my hair back when the vomiting would not stop, and sat with me in silence through the worst of the nightmares.
“I wish someone had been there for me too.” she would say in that soft, caring tone she only uses for the people she loves.
She got me the job at the bakery. She found me this cheap apartment when I told her I could not go back to college. She helped me change my style when I could no longer stand to look at the sweet, innocent girl in the mirror.
I turn the shower off. Water drips from my hair and runs down my skin as I stand there, shivering in the cooling steam.
I wrap a towel tightly around myself and wipe the condensation from the mirror with my palm. My reflection stares back. Pale cheeks, wide eyes, the woman I built from the broken pieces. I try to smile at the thought that nothing happened last night.
But sometimes the memories still creep in. And in moments like this, I still feel like that soft, broken girl who screamed for her father and received nothing in return.
I take a slow, shaky breath and force a small, ironic smile at my reflection in the fogged mirror.
“Get it together, Briar!” I murmur, my voice barely louder than the dripping water. “You are not that girl anymore.”
I pull on a pair of black sweatpants, my favorite soft bra, and the oversized hoodie with the murderous-looking cat printed on the front. The fabric is worn and comforting against my skin. I slip my feet into fuzzy socks before putting on my shoes and leave the apartment.
Rain falls again outside, dark and moody, the sky hanging low and bruised. It presses down on everything, making the world feel heavier than it should.
One of the reasons I fell in love with this building is the little coffee bakery across the street.
They make the best salted caramel latte and the most sinful cinnamon pumpkin one.
Their donuts are dangerous—fluffy, filled with hazelnut cream, and dusted with powdered sugar that always ends up everywhere.
“Hi Briar, the usual?” Marcus asks from behind the counter, already smiling. He is a sweet nineteen-year-old, the owners’ son, with kind eyes and zero judgment.
I nod, forcing a small smile. “Please.”
I wait at the counter, arms wrapped tightly around myself, while the rich scent of coffee and warm sugar fills the air. Marcus returns with my salted caramel latte and a huge carrot donut stuffed with hazelnut cream.
“Thank you.” I pay, take the warm cup and paper bag, and run back across the street through the rain.
I make it up the stairs, keys already in hand, but I freeze when I reach my door.
A single black flower sits on my doormat.
“What the—”
I spin around, eyes darting up and down the empty stairwell. “Hello?”
Nothing. No footsteps. No breathing. Just the steady patter of rain against the windows and the distant hum of the city far below.
“You better stop this,” I warn the empty hallway, my voice sharper than I feel inside. “Or I will call the cops!”
I kick the flower hard, sending the crushed black petals skittering across the floor, then unlock my door and slam it shut behind me, twisting every lock with trembling fingers.
Why is someone leaving these damn flowers?
I peel off my wet clothes, toss them into the hamper, and pull on an oversized shirt that swallows me whole. I slump onto the couch and drag my fluffy black blanket over my legs, curling into the corner like I could hide there.
That damn flower. It is beautiful in a strange, unhinged way. But who in their right mind leaves a toxic plant on someone’s doorstep? I know touching it will not hurt me—it has to be ingested—but still. These creeps are getting creative.
I take a bite of the donut and cannot help the little purr that escapes. Powdered sugar dusts my lips and fingers. “Best thing ever.” I murmur, licking the sweetness away.
I turn the TV on. A medical drama flickers across the screen, but I quickly switch to a trashy relationship reality show instead. Fake drama. Easy to lose myself in.
Doctor shows always drag me back to my old life, to the future I was supposed to have before everything changed.
Before I changed. I honestly do not know if I ever truly wanted it or if it was simply expected.
My father is an engineer. My mother was a pediatric doctor.
So surgeon it was. I promised her on her funeral day that I would carry her legacy.
My mind drifts back to that day. It was sunny and beautiful. The only dark thing was the—
Wait.
I grab my phone and open the cloud. I still have the pictures of the funeral arrangements with her photo in the middle. Maybe it is morbid, but at the time they brought me a strange kind of peace.
“Oh no.” I breathe as I zoom in on the left side of one photo.
A bouquet of black hellebores.
No. It is a coincidence. It has been five years.
Maybe it is my father playing his little mind games with me. God knows he loves them.
I take another bite of the donut, trying to calm the panic rising in my chest. This is just some creep. Probably a neighbor trying to be funny. A coincidence. That is all.
But my hands keep shaking.
Shit. I am going to lose my mind.
I stand up and start pacing the living room, doing the breathing exercises Lucille taught me.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Count to ten.
Then my phone pings.
Private number: You are safe now, my love. I will protect you from everyone.
Oh no—