Chapter 2
The days afterward are just as fuzzy as those final hours in the row house.
I was in the hospital for a while. I talked to the police and the FBI and counselors and psychiatrists and volunteers from women’s groups.
I had pregnancy and STD tests, which all came back negative.
For days it went on. And I could do all of it because I was still numb, because nothing had unfrozen inside me yet.
This was me. Going through the motions. Pretending to be human.
My dad has a sprawling estate outside the city, and I went there afterward. My mom died a few years ago—I don’t think I’ve mentioned that yet—but my dad tried to be there for me now. He even took a week off work, something he’d never done in my entire life.
He felt guilty, I’m sure, since what happened to me was because of him, but I couldn’t be angry with him. I couldn’t feel close to him or comforted by him either, but the part of my mind that could still make reasonable connections recognized that he was trying.
The justice system moved the way it normally does. Slowly and not very satisfactorily.
They rounded up the entire Albanian gang, mostly thanks to Gideon’s work undercover.
The Albanians aren’t like the Italian mafia, with a clear, organized hierarchy.
It’s more like loosely related clans, often connected transnationally.
Gideon’s operation was able to take down the US network of one of those clans.
I’m explaining this for clarity—not because it mattered to me at the time. I didn’t care about any of the nuances of Albanian gang culture or about the success of any of the FBI’s organized crime initiatives. The only thing that mattered was the specific men who had hurt me.
Those men pleaded out on the rape charges, with minimum consequences because they were needed to testify against men higher up the food chain.
That’s how it works. If you want to take down an organization, you have to overlook smaller criminals to get to the bigger ones. The men who raped me would go to prison, but a US prison would be a cakewalk compared to what they’d probably lived through growing up in the Balkans when they did.
I’m not sure anything that could happen to them would be bad enough to make me feel better.
There didn’t seem to be any feeling better for me. Just the hope that numbness would continue to cover the pain.
In the hospital, I’d asked about Gideon—because I really did want him to be all right. They told me he was pretty beat-up but he would be fine, and that he was going through a required, extended debriefing, which I guess was pretty intense.
He’d been undercover with the worst kind of men for eight months. I’m not sure how that would affect you, but I’m sure he needed some recovery and orientation time afterward.
When I was out of the hospital and at my dad’s place, he started to call me.
I didn’t recognize the number the first time, so I didn’t pick up. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I hadn’t seen any of my friends since it happened and I hadn’t gone back to work, so I wasn’t about to talk to someone on the phone whose number I didn’t recognize.
He left a brief message on my voice mail, saying he was just checking in to see how I was doing. He gave me his number and asked me to give him a call when I felt up to it.
Hearing his voice did something strange to me. It broke through the safe numbness that had wrapped me up for so many days. Just a crack, but it was enough to send a surge of panic shooting through me.
I remembered details about that room, about what happened when they’d dragged me out, about how it had felt when they raped me.
I didn’t just remember. I experienced it all again.
And that brief moment of reexperiencing it was so intense and so horrifying that it was like demons had taken possession of my body.
I didn’t call him back.
He kept calling. Not often enough for it to be creepy but enough so I couldn’t forget about him. Sometimes he left messages, and sometimes he didn’t. After a while, there was an edge to his tone. Not anger or even frustration but almost desperation.
I didn’t understand. I appreciated everything he’d tried to do for me. I really did. But he was never a part of my life before, and it was ridiculous to think that such a horror should somehow make him a part of my life now.
He made me remember the horror more vividly—his voice caused demons to rise—and that’s what I couldn’t let happen.
It happened anyway. However safe it feels, that numbness just can’t last forever. And then it’s nothing but the pain.
And eventually it feels like the pain is everywhere, everything—like you’re nothing more than how much it hurts.
Some women are strong and they can go on with life, despite the pain. I’m not strong, and I couldn’t.
For two months I put on a pretty good act.
My dad worked most of the time, so I could fool him when I saw him.
I’d known the couple who kept his house since I was a baby, and they were incredibly kind.
But they were domestic staff, so I could keep my distance.
I talked to my friends on the phone as often as I could stand, and they seemed to think I was starting to heal.
I hadn’t gone back to work, but my boss said I could take all the time I needed.
He’d hired some temporary help. To prove to everyone else that I was getting better, I even started spending some nights alone in my old apartment.
Those nights were the worst.
I couldn’t sleep unless I took pills, but even then I would wake up with nightmares. I didn’t tell anyone about those.
I know I wasn’t dealing. I wasn’t getting better. I wasn’t taking the help I was offered. I wasn’t doing anything I should have done to heal.
The thing is I didn’t even want to. It was too long and too hard a journey out of the darkness. I just wanted not to hurt.
So, one night, I was alone in my old apartment, where all my once-loved antique furniture mocked me with their triviality, their meaninglessness.
I might as well have been sitting on the cold concrete floor of that empty basement room.
I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t cry and I couldn’t stop the world from hurting me. And I was holding in my hands a way to make the pain end.
A brand new bottle of the pills I’d been taking to sleep.
It felt like someone else was sitting on my bed, opening the bottle.
I swallowed the regular dose with a gulp of water. Then I stared down at more of them in my hand for a really long time.
Then I was taking them.
I don’t remember how many I took. Most of that evening is a blur to me now. I don’t remember much except lying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, hoping all of it would finally end.
For some reason, I kept picturing Gideon. I’d been a stranger to him, and he’d fought to protect me anyway. For some reason, it mattered to me now more than ever.
I picked up my phone and started listening to the string of voice mails he’d left me over the past six weeks, starting from the beginning.
“Hi, Diana. It’s Gideon. Gideon Walker. I hope it’s okay for me to call. I wanted to see how you were doing. If you get a chance and you’re up to it, maybe you could give me a call back.”
“Hi, Diana. It’s Gideon. Just calling back to see how you’re doing. It’s really fine if you’re not up to talking yet. I’ve just been thinking about you. I hope you’re… Anyway, just wanted you to know I was thinking about you and thought I’d check in. Give me a call if you can.”
“Hi, Diana. It’s Gideon again. I hope you don’t think I’m bugging you. Maybe I am. I’m really sorry if I am. I just feel like we should… I don’t know. I’d love to hear how you’re doing.”
“Hi, Diana. It’s me again. Gideon. Checking in to see how you’re doing.”
“Hi, Diana. It’s Gideon. I don’t know if I should even be calling you anymore. Maybe you just don’t want to talk to me. But I keep thinking about you, and… No, that’s it. I’m just thinking about you.”
“Hi, Diana. It’s me. I guess you don’t want to talk to me since it’s been a month and I haven’t heard from you.
I think I can understand why. I thought it might help if we could talk.
I mean, I don’t really know why it would help.
I just feel… I don’t know… connected to you somehow, and I can’t seem to get past it. ”
“Hi, it’s me again. I hung up after the last message and was afraid it might have sounded kind of creepy. I really just want to hear how you’re doing. I promise I’m not asking or expecting anything from you. Sorry if the previous message freaked you out.”
“Hi, Diana. It’s Gideon. I wasn’t going to call again.
In fact, I was told that I needed to stop since you obviously don’t want to hear from me.
Anyway, if you don’t call me back after this, then I won’t call again.
I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I’m really sorry that I couldn’t stop it from happening.
I’m really sorry I didn’t do more. I know I don’t know you very well, but I could tell even from the short time we’d spent together that you’re really sweet and you’re really brave and you have a really…
a really good heart. And something like that shouldn’t have happened to you. It just shouldn’t have happened. And—”
“Hi, I got cut off before I could finish the earlier message, so this isn’t another call—just a continuation of the last one.
Sorry about the rambling. What I mostly want to say is that I really liked the person I met that…
that night, and I’d like to get to know you better.
But only if you want to. If you don’t, I can respect that, and I won’t call again. ”
That was the last message. He hadn’t called again.
I stared at the phone in my hand, realizing that my mind was starting to get fuzzy. But I suddenly felt an overwhelming flood of guilt. Gideon had been beaten to the floor in that row house, in that room. For me. All he wanted now was a call back, and I hadn’t even given him that.
Without thinking, I found his number and hit send.