“Alright, let’s just jump right in. I want you to think about a time you reached out for help. Maybe that request was met with disappointment. Maybe expectations weren’t met at all. Take a deep dive and sit with that moment—when you needed help and your needs weren’t being met.”
The room fell silent.
It was a simple question, but one that demanded we scrape away the surface and begin peeling back the layers that made us such fragile humans. My thoughts drifted immediately to my father. It was an obvious place to land. He had been a good man, but only to those who never showed weakness.
In his eyes, I was weak.
Not wanting to sink too deeply into that spiral, my gaze shifted to Lennon. There was an expression on her face I hadn’t seen before—a distant trance, as if she were lost somewhere far from the room, buried in a memory. For a reason I couldn’t quite explain, it made me uneasy.
“Lennon,” Dana said softly, trying to draw her back.
Lennon’s eyes snapped up, irritation flashing across her face at being singled out. All attention landed on her. She stayed silent, staring at Dana as if silently pleading with her to not ask.
“Is there something you’d be willing to share with the group?”
The question landed like a blade. I could see it etched across Lennon’s face—the wound she was trying to keep hidden. Sheglanced around at all the watchful eyes trained on her, appearing almost unfazed on the surface. But I saw her.
“I…umm, I don’t really want to share,” she said. “I feel too…um—what’s the word? Exposed?”
Without missing a beat, Dana stepped in to guide her. “Vulnerable. And it most certainly is. But there is solace in knowing your peers are choosing to be vulnerable with you here, today. Why don’t you start with the very first thing that came to mind? You can let your voice guide you—or you can stop there if that’s all you have.”
The look on Lennon’s face held irritation—maybe fear, too. She cleared her throat and fixed her gaze on the floor, gathering the courage to reveal the secrets she maybe never allowed herself to speak aloud.
“My mom,” she began. “My mom came to mind, because every time I needed help, she was never fucking there…”
She stalled, but no one interrupted. The room went still, every person attuned to her because we could feel it building. The eerie silence that followed her words was thick and expectant.
She let out another exhausted breath. “I needed her so fucking badly. They were there, and I told them to stop—but they didn’t stop. I told her about it. I cried for her help. I screamed at the top of my lungs. And she just looked at me with disgust.” Her voice cracked. “Then she left. She just fucking left me there. I was alone with those animals while they mauled me.”
Her words tumbled faster now. “I needed her. I needed someone to care about me. But no one fucking cared. No one cared. No one cares.”
She was on the edge of hysteria, tears streaming down her face, uncontrolled and heavy. It was the first time I felt like I was seeing the parts of her she kept buried—the pieces she had locked deep down inside the depths of her soul.
Her breathing turned ragged, each inhale uneven. Her eyes were wide, the realization settling in of just how much she had revealed. She had only alluded to fragments of the trauma she endured—things she had buried so deeply for so long that she may have forgotten they were even there.
Then her eyes found mine.
That impossible green—bright, alive, almost violent in its intensity—met my gaze, like a world of photosynthesis unfolding right before my very own eyes. Before I could fully absorb it, she looked away.
* * *
The group ran longer than usual, everyone given the opportunity to share. None of their stories stayed with me the way Lennon’s did. The sorrow that clung to her features lingered, something I knew would haunt me for the rest of my days.
A scrape of metal chairs against the floor caught my attention as I watched Lennon slip out of the room, her movements careful, an attempt to go unnoticed. I hoisted myself up from my chair—awkward and rushed—and chased after her.
“Hey,” I called out, and as I approached her from behind, I leaned in slightly and said, “Little siren, we can’t keep meeting like this.”
Whipping around, Lennon lunged at me, “You know what, Asher, not everything is cute, and funny, and adorable. You can quit trying to act like nothing is fucking happening, as if you didn’t just hear the fucking sob story about how three men raped me!”
I lifted my hands in surrender—not confrontational, but open. The way someone did when they wanted to be a safe person for another.
“Lennon, I can’t even begin to imagine the kind of resilience it takes to get out of bed every day and come somewhere like this,” I said softly. “To talk about the things you’ve had to survive. I honestly can’t.”
She looked startled by my response, as if she had been bracing herself for an outburst instead.
“Lennon,” I added, my voice quieter now, “none of that changes anything for me.”
Her expression shifted from disbelief to confusion. “What do you mean none of it changes anything for you?”
