After a minute, Ashlynn slowly rose, simply asking that Willow come talk to her if she needed to, even if she wanted Ashlynn to just listen and not speak. Willow told her she would, succinctly thanked her, and then closed the door behind her.
---
It had been three weeks since Willow’s homecoming.
Despite the wishes of her family, she did not magically recover once she had some time to “digest” everything that had happened.
Although she wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do, Willow attempted to track the case to find out what would happen to the people who had kidnapped her.
Honestly, she was just trying to figure out why it had happened. Why her? Just because of who her father was? She knew so little of his world that she wasn’t even sure how important he was, and she definitely didn’t know why it had happened, why they thought she would be a good way to get to him, if that was the case.
A little over a week after she was home safe, her father had sent over a vase full of flowers with an iTunes gift card where most people put a little note card.
The articles online weren’t very helpful. It seemed like nothing had changed, and she didn’t see how that could be true. They were obviously very dangerous men who stole people and sold them like old clothes. She may not know a lot about the law but she did know that was not okay, and there must be extremely harsh punishments coming their way.
The one they called Tito was never mentioned in the articles, at least not by that name. There were a couple of names she didn’t recognize though, so she thought Tito might be a nickname.
There were still articles about her online, and they had attached pictures, which she didn’t appreciate. Not like everyone at her school didn’t know what had happened to her—or some version of it anyway—but having her face plastered all over the internet so some douche named Bob in Nebraska could remark on how he’d like to kidnap her, too…oddly enough, it didn’t help.
The article contained lines like “the family is asking for privacy at this time,” and “the police have declined to discuss specifics of the investigation.” There were some generally nice comments, offering thoughts and prayers, then one guy talking about if she would have had a gun, that wouldn’t have happened to her; some unhappy looking woman commenting that she was probably in on it and lying, because she looked like a criminal, and because the photo they chose to use of her in that article showed her in a mini-skirt (which seemed like an odd choice, given that she could count on one hand how many photos there were of her in a mini-skirt); one asshole saying they probably just thought she was a hooker and they should “go easy” on the guys; another valiant gentleman remarking “I bet she got gangbanged.”
There were more comments, but Willow was too thoroughly disgusted with humanity to read any more of them.
Just because she knew herself well enough to know she would look it up again later out of morbid curiosity, she crawled under her desk and unplugged the power cord.
When she first got back, her friends were all eager to show their support. As time passed and she failed to return to normal or “get over it,” they began to lose interest. Their lives hadn’t changed, but Willow had, so they started calling less and less.
Her boyfriend was the only exception, and it seemed that nobody in the world annoyed her more than he did. Mostly she suspected it was because he seemed desperate to pretend that it hadn’t happened and everything was normal, and she couldn’t do that.
Consequently, she spent a lot of time by herself. The temptation to look up articles on her phone was still there, and seeing her friends leaving inane comments and statuses all over the place was frustrating her, too, so she finally just turned the internet off her phone altogether.
She could feel herself withdrawing from everything. Her tennis lessons had gone on without her, because she never went back. She didn’t care about any of the things she had cared about when she left—that would require caring about something, and she didn’t.
More time than she expected was devoted to reliving what had happened, piece by piece, every single day. Even when she slept, different versions of the same things would happen, sometimes mixing in people that she knew in real life, sometimes sticking to the real cast of characters. The previous night, she had dreamed of watching Ethan make out with one of the other girls, wanting to tell them not to do it, but she had no voice and no real reason to tell the girl what to do, other than the fact that she considered it unwise.
It was still difficult to think about the sex. She didn’t want to think of it as anything else—didn’t want to think of it at all, but she couldn’t help it.
Since she hadn’t reported it, she hadn’t gone to the hospital for any testing. He had used a condom, plus he was married, so she assumed he hadn’t given her any diseases.
It wasn’t like she would be having sex with anyone anytime soon anyway, so she saw no urgent need to ensure her sexual health. Logically, she knew that she should go get checked out, but the idea of going to a gynecologist and having someone poking and prodding at her made her feel senselessly rebellious.
It was one thing she could control, and as stupid as it seemed, she didn’t care.
She felt like her life was never going to be normal again. Like she was never going to be normal again. And not even knowing who to blame did not help matters. Sometimes she felt angry at Ethan; other times, after thinking it over, she felt like he had been a victim, too. The latter made her feel worse, so she tried to think of him as a bad guy, just without intent.
It was very complicated, but it made her feel like she had some power, choosing whether or not to forgive him.
Her mothers were on opposite sides of the reaction spectrum. Lauren was determined to remain cheerful and positive, ignoring Willow’s surly moods and trying to cycle through all of the suggestions she had read about in some online article about how to reclaim your life after surviving a kidnapping. Instead of dealing with it, she wanted to distract Willow, to sweep her up in the present in some foolhardy expectation that one night in the city going to dinner and seeing one of Willow’s favorite plays might simply wipe her memory, at least for the night.
When it didn’t, the ride home was quiet, Lauren’s disappointment palpable.
It made Willow feel even worse.
Instead of trying to ignore everything that happened and get Willow back to doing the things she used to enjoy, Ashlynn suggested the opposite. After the dinner with Ethan, Ashlynn became very pushy about Willow seeing a counselor. Willow resisted. She went on to suggest maybe Willow should try something new to get out of the house—not her old activities, but something completely different. Maybe a kick-boxing class or Zumba.
Needless to say, Willow didn’t want do any of that, but the weight of their expectations grew heavier each day.
Then one night Scott wanted to come over for dinner and bring one of her favorite movies to watch. The bastard was smart enough to suggest that before leaving, standing inside the house within earshot of Lauren. So when Willow said she wasn’t up for it, her mother came in and insisted, saying that sounded nice, and reassuring Willow that she would love it, that it would be just like before.