The Complete Irreparable Boxed Set

Waking with a gasp, it took Willow a moment to realize it had only been a dream. She wasn’t really back in that awful place—she wasn’t really being raped again. Only in her mind, like so many other nights.

Helpless tears welled up in her eyes, infuriating her.

She felt sick to her stomach. Her mind felt polluted—her sense of peace demolished. There was no healing. There was no getting better or moving past it. Nearly every night the same fucking shit—she experienced it over and over again. All the feelings were still there, even if it wasn’t real, because it was real. It had happened. It wasn’t just a bad dream.

To feel helpless was the worst kind of agony.

So she saturated her helplessness in fury—she deserved to be fucking furious. She had been wronged, her suffering did not spring forth from a vacuum—it was the result of her body and soul being violated, her ability to control what happened to her ripped away.

And for what? She didn’t even know. She only knew that it wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing she could do about it.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

Reaching for her cell phone, she lit it up, wincing at the brightness and impulsively going to her text messages.

She rolled her eyes at the name Shelly, deceptively posing as Ethan. Without bothering to check the time or consider his family, she rapidly typed out, “Tonight my mom told me how lucky I am that I wasn’t raped while I was in captivity. I sure am fucking lucky!”

Well, it ended up saying she was “ducking” lucky because autocorrect was a prudish bastard, but he would get the gist.

“Fuck you,” she said to her phone, throwing it down beside her on the bed.

Just lying there thinking about it, she could feel her face heating up, her rage building. She needed to release her anger, but that felt impossible.

Her phone vibrated and lit back up.

Picking it up, she read his message. “Are you okay?”

“No I’m not ok. I’m furious. I thought I was doing better.”

He promptly replied, “Do you need to talk?”

“There’s no one to talk to,” she stated.

“I thought you were seeing a counselor?”

She couldn’t remember if she had told him that or not, but she sent back, “Can’t tell her.”

She watched the screen for a minute, but it only dimmed and faded to black. He didn’t seem to have a response to that one.

Dropping the phone back into the cushion of her blankets, she covered her face with her hands and tried to find her way back to a more peaceful mindset.

Her mind wasn’t having it. The dream was too vivid, too real.

Then her phone went off.

She wasn’t sure what

she expected it to say, but she did not expect what she read. “Are you able to meet me somewhere?”

For a split second, she was so surprised that her fury was delayed, but then she remembered that she was afraid to go outside after dark, and even if she ran to her car, she would have to face the terror of running to it, then the terror of running back inside when she returned. It wasn’t worth it.

“No,” she sent back. Then she elaborated succinctly, “Afraid to go outside alone after dark.”

The phone indicated he was typing, then he sent back, “Is your family asleep? I could pick you up.”

She didn’t respond. It surprised her, and she wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about it.

Then he added, “Or I could just come to make sure you get to your car safely.”