Ashlynn nodded sadly, and Willow made a beeline for her bathroom, closing and locking the door, then leaning against it and closing her eyes.
I’m fine, she repeated, that time in her head, only for herself.
After she stripped off her clothes and turned on the shower to warm up, Willow looked at her naked body in the mirror. There were a few bruises here and there, but nothing to indicate what she had gone through. Nothing to indicate she was any different.
Foolish tears began to well up again so she turned to test the water and stepped into the shower. She pulled the curtain closed, hugging herself, squeezing her eyes shut as the water beat down on her. Behind her eyelids—images of everything that had happened that night, the dead girl bleeding all over the cold floor, the PI nearly being shot in the face. The split second before she grabbed the lamp, when she considered letting it happen. The fear coursing through her veins when she turned on Willow, and it occurred to her that attacking someone with a gun with a lamp probably wasn’t the best idea. The PI awkwardly thanking her. The discomfort of realizing she had risked her own life to save her rapist.
She opened her eyes.
The water wasn’t hot enough—she wanted it to be scalding—so she turned a little more heat on and waited, flinching when the water made it through the pipes and started hitting her. After a moment, her body adjusted to the heat and she turned around, wanting it to wash over every inch of her.
There was a purple loofah hanging off the shower hook—the same one she had used before—and she grabbed it, pouring way too much soap on and then rubbing it, lathering it up. She dragged it over her skin roughly, not satisfied until every square inch was red and agitated, and really not even satisfied then. As she washed between her legs, she was hit with a flash of that night, the man’s hands on her hips, on her butt, between her legs… There was a quickening in her chest, a fluttering of nerves. She couldn’t think about that. She scrubbed and scrubbed, but there was no scrubbing her brain. Even opening her eyes didn’t help that time. The mental image was gone, seeing the audience watching her be assaulted, nobody lifting a finger to help. But the memory was there, whether her eyes were open or closed. The one called Chuck squeezing her breast, trying to entice the other one to rape her.
The pain when he pushed past her hymen.
The blood on her thighs as she tried to will herself to go to sleep that night.
It was all too much. Part of her wanted to get out of the shower to get away from the thoughts, but it wasn’t the shower, it was her mind, and she couldn’t get out of that.
At least in the shower, her tears were washed away as quickly as they fell, so it felt less like crying.
She tried to refocus her attention, to think of anything else. She even grabbed her shampoo bottle and read the directions on the back just to keep her mind occupied, but since it was the last thing she wanted to relive, her brain kept going back to it.
After running out all of the hot water, she knew she had to get out.
When she did, she wished she hadn’t looked in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot, red-rimmed from crying, and her face was a puffy mess.
She hoped Ashlynn wasn’t still sitting outside waiting for her.
Somehow the smaller space of the bathroom felt safer than the bedroom. It was only her bathroom, no one else ever came in there, so instead of returning to her bedroom, after she finished pulling clothes on with considerable effort, and brushing her teeth until her gums bled, she sat down in the corner, leaned against the tub and the wall, and pulled her knees up to her chest, pulling her body in as much as she could.
She just wasn’t ready to face the world.
She leaned forward, burying her face in her arms, and welcoming the quiet, dark bubble that she felt like she had enveloped herself in.
She wished that she could stay in the bathroom until everything was back to normal.
But she wasn’t sure anything would ever be normal again.
When Ethan woke up in his own bed with his wife curled up beside him, he thought for a moment he was dreaming.
Even after realizing he was awake, it still felt as reliable as a dream.
When the police had released him, he had been genuinely confused. Relieved, but confused. He wasn’t sure how or why, but as he high-tailed it out of the police station, he hadn’t questioned his luck.
Rolling over, he spotted the baby’s pack-n-play over by Amanda’s side of the bed, his son happily snoozing, his little face so peaceful.
I shouldn’t be here, he thought. Couldn’t help thinking it.
He actually hadn’t dreamed about it that night, but he’d thought about what he had done before he fell asleep, reliving it all in his mind as Amanda nursed the baby at 3 am. There, in the familiarity of his bed, there was a level of disbelief that hadn’t been there before.
He could not believe what he had done. It didn’t feel real.
But the memories did.
The girl on her knees in front of him, bent over and crying, the bloody condom. Not nice mental pictures.
Willow.