We both turned to where he’d been stood, but Brandon wasn’t there. The fact that he’d left without a word showed he had his own demons to contend with and he needed space away from us to do it. I understood that more than anyone. I’d always faced my demons alone. Sometimes, it was the only way to quiet the voices and dull the pain.
I turned back to look at Effy, my Effy, trying to hide the way her hands were shaking and the unsteady breaths she was struggling to keep under control.
“Do you still want to be with me?” I couldn’t help but ask the question that had plagued me since the day I’d laid eyes on her. Would she want to be with a guy who’d been raped? A guy who was abused as a child and still carried scars that were as fresh and painful as the day they were inflicted. A man who felt hollow, broken, not a man at all. Well, not one worthy of love, anyway.
“This changes nothing,” she replied defiantly, lifting her chin and giving me a resolute smile. “If anything, it makes me love you even more. You’re a fighter. The ultimate warrior. A silent warrior, but I don’t want you suffering alone and in silence, Finn. We’ll get through this together. There is no you and me anymore, only us.”
Her words were the glue I needed to help me begin to mend my broken soul, my fractured mind and my splintered heart. No more hiding in the shadows, I had to heal for her and for me.
?
??I was the lucky one, really. Alice was abused so many times I lost count. For me, it only happened twice. Once when Alice had to stay overnight in hospital when she had her tonsils out, and the night before he was arrested for armed robbery. I got off lightly.”
“No, you didn’t. You’re a victim just as much as Alice is. Don’t undermine what you went through or belittle your ordeal. An adult in a position of trust abused you, took away more than just your security and safety, he stole your innocence, your childhood. It’s no wonder you don’t like to be around people.” She’d hit the nail on the head. In a world of over seven billion people, how did I manage to find the one that truly understood me?
“I like being around you.”
I nudged her shoulder with mine, feeling that even though we were opening up, getting somewhere on this road to recovery, tonight… I had done enough. I had admitted what happened to me. And now, I wanted to lose myself in the way she made me feel; like there was hope and light in my future.
“I’m glad you like being around me. I like being with you too, and I’m telling you right now, I’m not going anywhere.” I pulled her closer to me and she sighed. “I’m so proud of you.” She kissed my cheek and then rested her hand against my jaw, forcing me to face her. “You’ll always be my hero.”
I didn’t understand why she was proud of me. What had I done? Hidden abuse, let myself get blackmailed, and let all my friends down, Brandon the most. But I didn’t say anything. I leant over and buried my face into my favourite spot on her neck and breathed her in to help calm the storm raging inside my head.
We stayed on the dirty, dusty floor of Brandon’s changing room, holding each other. Both of us shedding tears and gaining comfort from the other. I wasn’t ready to talk about everything that’d happened, but I told her a few things, like how I used to screw my eyes shut and wish myself away from that room, transporting myself to far off places every night. The silly dreams that I used to replay in my head over and over again like a movie to block out the bad memories. The art I created to help me deal with the anger building up inside of me. And the loneliness. The feeling that no one else had gone through this and no one would ever understand. Alice did, but that’s because we shared a secret we never wanted anyone else to find out about. Not our friends or other kids. Not the teachers at school. We wanted to blend in; be normal. We didn’t want to be labelled as those kids. The ones with the issues. The ones no one would want to befriend because they were tainted. Broken.
Effy listened without judgement. When she spoke she said the right things. Things that made me feel like I wasn’t a freak. Words that started to slowly break through the mental barriers I’d create over the years that had always told me I was in some way responsible for it all. I’d always believed that because I hadn’t helped Alice, it’d happened to me too. I’d brought it all on myself.
I knew I had a long road ahead of me. It wouldn’t be easy to find peace after living with a raging black hole of noise in my mind for so long. But that road was ahead of me now, and I’d taken a step on the journey. As Alice always told me, ‘Take each day as it comes.’
It was all I could do.
“I’m guessing that message you got, the one that told you to get Brandon to throw the fight, was from whoever’s been blackmailing you?” she asked, and the reality of my situation suddenly reared its ugly head again, crashing down on me like an anvil.
“Shit. I need to get that sorted.” I jumped up from my spot on the floor.
“Was it your uncle who sent it? Is he behind it all? I heard you talk about the soldiers, but are they working with him?”
Neither one of them knew about the videos. As far as Effy was concerned, my uncle could’ve been trying to play with me, but I decided to come clean. No more lies.
“The soldiers are evil. They’ve been holding my uncle at some warehouse and torturing him. They send me videos and then ask me to do stuff. If I do it, they torture him some more.”
Her eyes widened in shock and disgust.
“And you’ve gone through all that on your own? You didn’t tell anyone?”
“I didn’t want to drag anyone else into my mess.”
“Your mess is our mess. That’s how this works.”
It was hard for me to accept that I had a support network for this after living with it for so long. I guess coming to terms with it would be easier said than done.
“I need to find Brandon,” I replied, changing the subject. “He can’t lose that fight.”
“Of course he will. He’d do anything for you. Didn’t you see the look on his face when you told him? He’s hurting too.”
Effy was right, but I still had to try.
“I can’t let him do this.”