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And because my ego is dick-shaped, I told Nicole she was nothing when she came to find me.
Just after she was brutalized by that fucking scum.
The small supply room’s walls close in on me, and I have to breathe deeply so as not to agitate her further. That’s what I do with clients with a fragile mental state—I become the anchor they can hold on to. The only difference is that I’m detached enough to do that with them.
I can’t be fucking detached with Nicole.
Not when her pain is bleeding in my fucking veins.
“Why didn’t you ask Astrid for help?” I ask, my jaw clenched so hard, I’m surprised it doesn’t dislocate.
“I wasn’t sure I saw her. I think I had…a concussion, and uh…I don’t know, but I was bleeding after he was…done.”
“Did you go to the hospital?” My voice imitates the calmest monk while my insides roar with a burning fire.
She frantically shakes her head. “I got better after a few days on my own.”
“Fuck, Nicole, fuck! Why didn’t you file a report?”
“I couldn’t!” Now she’s the one who’s screaming while she sobs. “Mum would’ve been so disappointed in me.”
“Your mother was a fucking criminal. She had no bloody right to be disappointed in you.”
“She was my mother. I didn’t know anything about what she’d done at the time, and what did you expect me to say? I asked a boy over and he raped me? Who would’ve believed me?”
“They would’ve believed the medical rape kit the doctor would’ve made. You said you were fucking bleeding.”
“It wasn’t worth it.”
“What?”
“Dragging Mum and Uncle Henry’s names through the mud wasn’t worth it. Christopher was a deputy commissioner’s son. He would’ve gotten away with it. They would’ve said I asked for it.”
“But that’s not the case.”
“Maybe it was!” She pushes me away, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Maybe I was stupid and obsessed and was blind to invite a predator to my house. It happened, okay? It all happened, so what was the point of making a report?”
“Fucking justice, Nicole.”
“I didn’t need that.”
“Clearly. Judging by the way you have panic and anxiety attacks whenever you’re touched sexually.”
“Then stop touching me!” She turns around and flings the door open. “I was doing just fine before you came back into my life.”
And then she’s running outside.
I catch up to her in no time and practically pick her up and shove her into my car. I remind myself that I need to be more gentle. That she just shared a traumatic experience she never told anyone about.
She tried to tell you back then, too, but you rejected her like a sorry cunt.
Is there a way to reach out to eighteen-year-old me and choke him to death? To make him aware of who stood on his fucking doorstep that night?
It wasn’t only Nicole. It was Nicole in need of help. It was Nicole traumatized, vulnerable and weak, and the last thing I should’ve done was shut the door in her face.
The evening Astrid told me she saw Nicole and Christopher having sex, I remember seeing black. I remember it so well.
It’s the moment that shaped my arsehole self and turned me into a blonde-hater.
