Her own vulnerability was very discomfiting. She knew everyone thought she was fragile, which made her even angrier.
The only place she could escape the watchful eye of her family—while also not putting herself in actual danger, in her own mind—was her bedroom.
Pushing herself up off the floor, she made some mumbled excuse about needing to go put her clothes away and escaped up the stairs.
Once she was in her room, she found that she really had left her new clothes in the bags on her bed, so she sighed and started taking them out, folding them or hanging them and putting them away. The comfy black zip-up dress she kept out, deciding to change into it after her shower since she was only bumming around the house for rest of the evening.
Once everything was put away, she sat down with her journal—another thing her psychologist considered a good idea—and set out to write. Several minutes later, pen poised over the notebook paper, she hadn’t written a single word. Considering she was still unwilling to write down what happened to her, she was unable to appropriately pinpoint why she was angry, and she settled for writing a bunch of synonyms for her feelings instead.
The exercise didn’t lead to any real catharsis, so she finally abandoned the journal and went to take a shower. The giant spider crawling along the shower wall had other plans, so she spun on her heel and debated how long she would have to deal with Ashlynn’s prying concern if she called her upstairs just to get rid of the spider.
Probably too long.
She didn’t need a shower that badly.
Instead she changed into her dress and pulled her hair up into a heavy, messy bun on top of her head—her hair was getting too long for that particular style, and she was debating chopping some of it off—not even going to a hair salon, just going to get the scissors, going into the bathroom, and chopping it right off.
The spider occupied the bathroom, however, and the scissors were downstairs, so that plan was shelved.
Sighing as she crawled into bed, she kicked the notebook in the floor and curled up under blankets, staring out the window. It was still light outside—only a little after 6—and much too early to go to sleep. Plus she was all wound up, and going to sleep like that would be impossible.
Still, she had no more use for the day. Going to sleep and wasting her evening depressed her a little too, since it meant one day closer to having to go back to school.
Going to sleep was always risky anyway. Her method of trying to control her dreams wasn’t infallible, and she wasn’t in the right mindset at the moment. The more she went to bed in a negative or anxious mood, the more she would dream about all the really bad stuff. If she got in bed and tried to think about nothing, she would invariably become anxious about the possibility of having a bad dream—then she would. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Since she was already in a bad mood, she attempted to color over the anger with nice thoughts. She was alive, that was something. She wasn’t being forced to spread her legs for money multiple times a night—another boon. Resisting the memories of people dying right before her eyes, she went for super positive—the school year would be great! She would simply ignore what had happened and focus on her future.
Finishing high school and going to college would be nice. Maybe she would even meet someone eventually, someone to wear her pretty dresses on dates with, who would understand without having to talk about it that she had intimacy issues even she didn’t understand, who would be patient—not even patient, because he wouldn’t even care. Yeah, he would be so in sync with her that he wouldn’t even need to discuss what happened or why she was the way she was. He would just get it—and accept it. He would accept every part of her. It wouldn’t hurt if he was also nice to look at, tall, strong—into martial arts or something, so he could kick Tito’s ass if she ever saw him again. Maybe he would even teach her, so she could kick Tito’s ass herself. He would probably have dark hair, a strong jaw—definitely. Really nice eyes, a sexy smile.
She smiled faintly, closing her eyes. Yes, that would be nice. She would feel safer when he was around, and he would like her new, mature way of dressing. Somehow she might even find her way back to being able to think about sex without having terrible images flash across her mind—she could create new memories with him, and eventually it would just be a thing that happened to her in the past that she didn’t need to think about anymore.
Then she remembered that “maturity” in even the oldest guys at her school wouldn’t entail any of that.
Oh well, she would have to wait for college.
In the meantime, she would have to come up with a more realistic way of achieving those goals on her own.
Sometime after daydreaming about scenarios in which she and her mystery college boyfriend—he was a junior or a senior by the time she fell asleep—would sit in coffee houses discussing life, philosophy and politics, Willow drifted off to sleep.
Suddenly the man named Chuck was standing in a dingy room, coaxing someone behind her. He reached over and pinched one of her breasts, causing Willow to cry out in pain, objection, humiliation. What was going to happen to her? She wasn’t a fool; she knew that most of the other girls had been “broken in” by at least one of the thugs—but not her. They couldn’t do that to her.
Then there was Ethan. Beautiful, terrible Ethan, unzipping his jeans as her heart pounded so loudly in her chest and her blood raced through her veins so rapidly that she could hear her body’s reaction. She felt herself trembling. Heard her mind crying out in denial—it couldn’t possibly happen to her, it couldn’t. Someone would save her somehow.
But then he was behind her, smacking her on the ass, and tears were welling up in her eyes. She was helpless, out of control, at everybody else’s mercy.
In front of them, the one called Lane spoke but his voice was her mother’s as he said, “You’re so lucky.”
She wanted to lash out, to scream, to fight, but then there was a gun pressed up against her temple. She was crying, shaking—she didn’t want to die. Not like that, not mostly naked in a dirty rathole surrounded by people she despised. People who didn’t give a shit if she ever drew another breath.
Dropping to her knees, she held out hope that somehow she would be saved. She didn’t know how, but she knew someone would save her—just like in the books or movies. The girl had to be saved—she didn’t belong there. Things like that couldn’t happen to her.
Except that it was happening. There was no hero to save her, only a room full of terrible people who placed no actual value on her life. People who probably wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if she gave them even a flimsy reason.
Maybe if she got him off, it would be over. It wasn’t like she had a choice anyway. She felt disgusting as she touched him, refusing to look above his waist—too humiliated to watch him as he watched her—if he was even watching her.
Then he was in her mouth, and she was crying, making a real mess of herself as she tasted him. It was impossible not to think about what she was doing to a perfect stranger, half naked, while other strangers watched.
Behind her, as she labored over a stranger’s cock, she heard Lane/her mother say, “You’re so lucky.”