“I’d love some.”
I took the grounds from the cabinet and grabbed the pot to fill with water. But I had to wipe my palms on my pants in order to open the canister because I was such a clammy mess from nerves. Once I pushed the button to start brewing, I told Autumn I’d be right back and went to the bathroom to wash up and brush my teeth before returning to fill two mugs.
“Here you go.”
She’d sat on the chair, not the couch, which I overanalyzed in my head as a bad sign. In law, the seat a client or attorney selects often tells you a lot about the person or their power position. Autumn sitting to keep distance between us troubled me.
We were both silent as I sat. She stared down at the floor, while I watched her intently. Eventually, I couldn’t take it and spoke. “Are you sleeping? You look tired.”
Her eyes lifted to meet mine. “Off and on. I stopped taking the Ambien completely a few days ago. I looked it up, and insomnia is common after you stop. My body is basically going through withdrawal after years of use.”
“You slept pretty good the night I stayed over and you forgot to take it.”
She smiled sadly. “I think that was because you were in my bed.”
I smiled back. “Well, if I can be of any assistance… Sleep is important, you know.”
Her smile was more genuine this time. She sipped her coffee and set it down on the table. “I want to tell you some things about what happened six years ago. I told you the parts I thought you needed to know, but I wasn’t exactly open about how I handled things afterward.”
My brows furrowed. “Okay…”
She took a deep breath. “I didn’t actually go to the police two weeks after Braden raped me. I mean, I did speak to them, but it didn’t happen the way I might’ve led you to believe. They actually came to me.” Autumn looked up and met my eyes. The pain swimming in hers caused a stabbing pain in my chest. “They came because I’d attempted suicide. My father found me unconscious and called 9-1-1. After they got the drug out of my system and my vitals stable, a policewoman coaxed me into telling her what happened.”
I tasted salt in my throat and swallowed. Reaching out, I took her hand and squeezed and didn’t let go.
She tried to force a smile before continuing. “I’d gone to my regular doctor and told her I had trouble sleeping, and she gave me a prescription for Ambien. I’d researched that it would take a lot of pills to overdose—more than I had, unless I chewed them and forced them into my bloodstream all at once.” She took another deep breath. “So I put the contents of the bottle into my Magic Bullet and then snorted the powder.” She laughed, but not in a funny way. “I’d never done cocaine in my life. My first white lines were Ambien.”
Jesus Christ. I just wanted to wrap her in my arms and hold her, but her body language told me that was not the right thing to do. I also suspected this revelation wasn’t the only thing she wanted to share…
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter how you reported it. What matters is that you’re healthy and you made it through.”
“I thought I’d made it through, too. I was honestly beginning to feel like I was moving on and the past was behind me. But it wasn’t. A few days after we ran into Braden, I started to spiral again. That animal was walking around like nothing had happened, and here I was unable to sleep and eat again, and you’d been arrested. I felt really low. One night I took the bottle of Ambien into my hand and sat with it for an hour, staring at it.” Autumn looked down. “I never really contemplated taking them again, but it hit me that I had a lot to deal with. Not fully dealing with things last time had only made things worse. I needed to get myself in the right headspace. I didn’t want to wind up in a bad place again. So I went to my therapist a few times. We talked a lot about closure, and then…” She took another deep breath and looked into my eyes. “I went to see Braden.”
When my eyes grew wide, she shook her head and her hands.
“No—don’t panic. I went to see him in his very full office and made him leave the door open. I was always safe.”
While I was relieved, I still couldn’t breathe very well. “What happened?”
“He was snide and thought I was wearing a wire trying to record him admitting to something—pretty much what I expected. But I didn’t go there to get anything from him. I went for myself, because I needed to say some things to him.” She shook her head. “I don’t even remember everything I said, but I wanted him to know he’d ruined many years of my life and made me not trust anyone or myself, how much damage he had done—not that I think he cares. But I needed to look him in the eyes and call him a rapist.” She smiled. “I also told him to rot in hell, which, surprisingly, felt more cathartic than the rest of the stuff I said.”