Chapter Fifteen
My hand throbbed, but I could move each finger. Sprained, perhaps. Bruised, definitely. Broken? No.
I stayed quiet as I sipped my water, using the chilled bottle to soothe my hand.
The cashier was named Amy, I learned, and she mostly left me alone, though did keep a closer eye on the door than I suspected was usual.
Guy with a broken nose was a pretty incriminating description, but no one came in who raised any alarms.
Until…half an hour later—
Alex herself walked through the door.
My breath caught. Her eyes immediately widened in alarm. She rushed to the counter, but the cashier stood up. “Is this someone you want to see?” she asked me.
“It is.” I stood with care, exhausted from the aftermath of adrenaline. I left the safety of the counter, still in awe to see Alex at all. “Hey.”
Instead of greeting me in return, Alex gently took my wrist. “What the hell did you do?”
“Broke Cliff’s nose and ran the hell away.” I tried to smile, but she carefully tested my fingers, noting when I winced. “I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“No, but we’re getting you some ibuprofen and a wrap.”
“You don’t have to—”
She was already gone, having rushed down one of the aisles.
I leaned back against the counter. Amy leaned forward. “Is that your girlfriend?”
“Ex, but yeah,” I muttered.
Amy hummed in approval. “Not many people would drop everything to help their ex.”
My heart ached in that awful, familiar way. “I know.”
Alex returned with the items in hand, plus a bag of microwavable frozen peas. “For your hand,” she said, and she proceeded to check out.
As she did, I smiled at my unexpected guardian. “Thank you, Amy. For everything.”
“Take care, okay?”
I nodded. We left the drug store.
Alex led me to a grimy stone bench, where she began doting on my hand.
“Take this,” she said, handing me a single pill.
Then, she wrapped my hand with all the care she’d put into our session at the gym, her calloused fingers tender and mild.
“Next time, you’re better off punching with the palm of your hand. ”
“I don’t know if I’d survive a ‘next time’, but thanks.”
Alex paused, wincing slightly. “What happened?”
I heaved a breath, determined to ward off any fickle tears.
“Cliff found my apartment. He wanted to extort you for money. Unfortunately, he figured out we’d broken up.
” I shrugged even as my hands trembled at the memory.
“He basically kidnapped me. He was going to sell me to some guy he owes money to but talked himself into admitting he still loved me. Pulled into a parking lot. Tried to rape me. I punched him and somehow got away.”
I forced a smile. It nearly felt like a nightmare, yet my hand was a testament to its truth.
To my surprise, Alex stood. “Put the peas on your hand. I’m going to make a call,” she said, an odd tension in her voice.
I remained on the bench as she took a few steps away, her voice lowered when she spoke into the receiver. But I heard my name, and I heard a few keywords. She recounted my story, though to whom, I didn’t know.
I didn’t actually care.
Alone, I wrapped my free arm around myself, heartbroken at the sudden wash of safety. I was safe, but this wouldn’t last forever. I was with Alex, but not for long.
The breeze picked up, and I shivered in my comfy t-shirt, a sight for sore eyes indeed. Soon, Alex returned, and I gasped when she put her jacket around my shoulders. She looked so lost, yet determined all at once. “This will never happen again, I swear it.”
I believed her, somehow. Everything she said, I ate hook, line, and sinker. “Is my mom safe?”
“She is.” Alex smiled with no humor, perhaps even a wince as she sat down beside me. “Chiara is hardly subtle. I asked her to watch your apartment; she is, instead, in your apartment, with your mother, and now your mother knows everything. Sorry.”
I shrugged, actually rather relieved. “Better she hear it from her than me.”
“How’s your hand?”
I removed it from beneath the frozen peas. “Better than before.”
“Good.” She paused, looking uncomfortable as she wrung her hands together. “Terra, what I said when we broke up, about you and your standards…that was really messed up. I’m sorry.”
“It was pretty messed up, yeah,” I replied. “But it only hurt because it was kinda true.”
“True or false, it was vile. I’m so sorry. In case it needs to be said, I don’t care who you’ve had sex with. I have no room to talk. And I don’t care that you’re bisexual, if that needs to be said too.”
The silence lingered like fog. I struggled to correct her, but truth was truth.
“I’m not bi. I hated every single one of those hook-ups, but not as much as I hated myself for not knowing how to say no anymore.
I was proud to be a lesbian before…everything.
With El. Since you already know. I’m working on being proud of it again, instead of afraid.
” I shrugged, sniffing to ward off my threatened tears.
“Trauma really takes everything from you. I’ve been a shell for so long.
It kinda sucks how much you helped me be myself again. ”
“And it kinda sucks that I did lie to you, in a way. Not telling you that I knew about El and everything.”
“There’s not really a graceful way to say it,” I said, some bitterness escaping with the words. “‘Hey, wanna get coffee—by the way, I know you were gang raped after watching your girlfriend get shot.’ It’s not exactly something you bring up on a first date.”
Alex at least had the decency to look stunned. “I didn’t know you were gang raped.”
“Oh.” I gulped, feeling the weight of the conversation shift. The worst sort of chuckle escaped my lips, my nerves alight. “Surprise.”
I gasped when Alex’s arms appeared around me, holding me close. She shuddered as she stroked my hair. “I’m so sorry.”
My tears fell softly, silently. I held her back, savoring every second of the finite embrace.
“I guess I didn’t know as much as I thought,” Alex finally whispered. “The press said you were sexually assaulted. The phrase doesn’t really give gravity to the truth.”
When her hold loosened, I quickly wiped my tears before sitting up.
“It’s okay. You only knew what everyone else knows anyway.
I’d recently turned eighteen, so they published my name and face because they wanted a good story, even though my mom begged them not to while I was recovering.
The reporters only got the legal details, though. Not the full story.”
I paused, considering my next words. El’s memory was nearly erased; perhaps this was the time, after all.
“I met El in middle school,” I said. “She was living with her aunt because of issues with her parents. Otherwise, she would’ve been in some private school.
She was like you—cut her hair short, embraced her masculine side.
We were only twelve, but we instantly clicked.
And after being best friends, when we were fifteen, it became something more. ”
I shut my eyes, managing to see El’s face without any brutal wounds.
“You know I was disowned by my extended family when I came out as a lesbian. She was, too, so Mom took El in to live with us. Everything was perfect. We had so many shared dreams, so many plans for the future. I loved her with my whole being, my whole soul, and it was the most beautiful feeling in the world to be loved by her in return. We decided to go to ASU together, even applied to share a dorm. It was supposed to be the beginning of our happily ever after.”
I opened my eyes, lest I see blood. I saw only Alex, her magnetic gaze fixed upon me.
“We were out late one night, walking home from a movie. That’s when…
they accosted us.” I hadn’t spoken so plainly of it since I sat before the judge.
The words came more easily than expected, even as my eyes welled with tears.
“They were drunk. They cornered us into an alley and told me they’d let us go if I let them pass me around. I told them ‘no’.”
My face fell. I clutched my arm with my good hand, the dread of it rising anew.
“One of them shot her. No warning. Right in the shoulder. I begged for them to let me call 911, and he said I could after I let them fuck me.” My tears escaped rapidly, my next breath shuddering as the pain washed over me.
“So, I did. And I watched El bleed out on the concrete while they held me down.”
“Oh, God,” came Alex’s broken whisper.
“Someone heard the gunshot and called 911, so the cops walked right in on the scene.” I pulled Alex’s jacket around me, willing its warmth and scent to soothe me. “It was too late. El bled out in my arms. I just held her, screaming, until the paramedics arrived.
“They took me away—turns out, I had a major concussion from being thrown to the ground. The doctors said I was lucky to not have any brain damage or worse, but they kept me in the hospital for a few days just in case, long enough for El’s family to bury her in a private cemetery up in Sedona and take everything of hers out of our dorm.
I knew they hated me. It still hurt like hell. ”
I heaved a steadying breath, the worst of it off my chest. Still, my tears followed familiar trails down my cheeks. “I’m lucky, in a way. All four of the men went to prison—three for ten years, and the one who shot El for fifty. It’s difficult to lie when the cops caught it on their body cams.
“Obviously, I didn’t exactly have a good time after,” I continued, failing to summon a chuckle.
“It broke something to me. We couldn’t afford therapy after the initial payout ran out, but one thing I was told in those few weeks was to be mindful of behaviors that mimicked my trauma.
But telling him no and watching El get shot…
I couldn’t protect her, and I definitely couldn’t protect myself.
So, I said yes or said nothing to anyone who wanted me. ”
I tried to flex my hand and winced. “We all have our scars. Some of us just self-harm in different ways, I guess.”