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Graham’s hands coasted up and down my back in long, gentle strokes. “With how violently you responded, I figured,” he said softly. “You should go see your therapist in the morning.”
I nodded in agreement. “I will,” I promised. “I need to brush my teeth. I know my breath reeks, but I don’t want to move yet.”
Graham squeezed me to him, and he moved one of his hands to my hair, combing his fingers through it in a slow, rhythmic motion. I clenched his hips with my thighs, clinging to him. “Then you stay right here for as long as you need, Sterling.”
Tears began to slide down my cheeks again, but he just continued holding me as I drenched his skin in my pain. In my torment. He never said a word, but I didn’t need him to. Being able to cry while resting in the safest place for me on the planet was cathartic.
Dr. Clancy’s brows were furrowed in concern as I stepped through the door that led into the back of her office building where each individual therapy office was located. “Random appointments twice in such little time is alarming, Sterling,” she said softly.
I nodded in agreement. “I know. And I’m freaking out a bit,” I admitted. I hadn’t been back to sleep yet, which meant Graham didn’t either. He just put on a movie last night once we crawled back into bed to keep my mind distracted and held me. He ran his fingers through my hair forhoursuntil Dr. Clancy’s office opened and I was able to make an appointment. Which meant we’d both missed our first classes of the day.
“What’s going on?” she asked once we were in her office. I took a seat on the couch and rubbed my palms together, feeling jittery. “You were doing so well until this incident with Darren.”
I knew that, too. I shouldn’t have pushed myself like I had, especially when I knew I didn’t feel safe with him. It had been careless and a stupid decision on my part. Now, I was dealing with the consequences.
And those consequences were terrifying the fuck out of me.
“I had a flashback,” I quietly told her. “It was just nightmares every night, but last night, that changed. Most of my memories from back then are blocked, but Iknowthat night happened. I felt the terror. The pain.Histouch. I felt it all. Recalled it. And now it’s stuck here,” I croaked, pressing my fingers to my temples. My leg began to bounce. “It won’t go away.”
“First, breathe,” she commanded. I sucked in a deep breath, even though it hurt to do so when my lungs were being squeezed so tightly. “Good. Keep breathing,” she ordered. “And ground yourself. I know you’re scared, Sterling, but you aresafehere, and you know that. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come to me.”
I knew she was right, but my mind wasn’t grasping that concept. I felt displaced. Torn apart. Vulnerable.
I pressed my fingertips against my eyelids, shuddering when I remembered them being taped open. I swallowed back vomit and forced my breathing to regulate so we could continue this appointment. I needed help. I was desperate.
“I want to try a new medication,” I rasped, looking up at her finally. Dr. Clancy nodded. “I’m desperate. I need help. I can’t live like this.”
“Okay,” she said gently. “I’ll write you a prescription for Xanax before you leave here today. Get it filled immediately and take it every night before you go to bed. It’ll help your anxiety, which will also help you sleep better and hopefully ward off the nightmares and flashbacks you’re having. Just be aware it may take up to two weeks to go into effect, Sterling.” She gave me a pointed look because I was one of those patients that expected everything to work immediately.
I nodded. “Okay,” I said quietly. If it wasn’t working in two weeks, I’d give up again. Butmaybethis one would work for me. Especially since I had to take it at nighttime rather than the daytime pills she’d prescribed me when I was younger, which made me feel all out of sorts. Some even made me feel like a zombie. I’d even taken one that made me drool, and I refused to go to school until it stopped.
“Do you feel like you can talk about the flashback with me?” she gently asked. “If you can’t, that’s okay. We can work our way up to it at your next appointment.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to,” I confessed. “But I will. Because I feel like that memory is choking the fuck out of me—excuse my language.”
She waved me off. “Free space in my office, remember? Sometimes, the added fuck is needed.”
I smiled a little. “I don’t know how old I was,” I told her. She linked her fingers together, all of her attention on me. “But my bed was wooden, and I had racecar bedsheets.” I blinked, shuddering. For a moment, I’d been right back in that room, and my skin crawled. “And my eyelids were taped open. The room was so bright. I don’t know why. But it felt like there were a billion fucking lights shining down on me.” I shuddered, a chill sweeping down my spine.
Right then, I was more thankful than I’d ever been that she kept her office dark.
“He was touching me. And I panicked when he rolled me onto my stomach because it always hurt.” Even now, my ass clenched with that phantom pain again like it had last night. “I was pleading with him. And then someone knocked on the door. There was talk about money, and the stranger asked where I was.” I rubbed the back of my skull where a phantom ache began at the memory of that man grabbing me by my hair and dragging me back to my bed. “I tried running, but it didn’t work.”
“What happened?” Dr. Clancy gently pushed.
I swallowed more vomit. I was surprised I could even throw up considering I hadn’t eaten anything in over twelve hours now. “He, um, grabbed me by my hair and dragged me back to the bed,” I whispered. “I woke up before I could live through any more of it, but I know what happened. I fuckingrememberit.” I gagged and rushed to the trashcan by her door, throwing up into it.
When I was done throwing up nothing but stomach acid and the little bit of water Graham had managed to get in my body this morning, she handed me a stick of spearmint gum, which I quickly shoved into my mouth. I sat back down on the couch. “I’d like to stop there,” I quietly requested.
Dr. Clancy nodded. “We’ll stop there then,” she said. “But I want to do this exercise with you before you leave today, okay?” I blew out a soft breath. Sometimes, her exercises drained everything out of me, but they helped. Even if I felt close to death afterward sometimes.
“Close your eyes, Sterling.” I did as she instructed. “It’s going to hurt,” I grunted, “but I want you to go back to that day in your mind—to the part you can’t tell me about.” I tensed, my stomach churning. But I trusted her, so I did as she asked. “I want you to wrap your younger self in your arms and hold him as he’s being hurt. I want you to make sure he’s not alone. It won’t make the pain go away, but it’ll make it bearable.”
Hot tears slid down my cheeks as I wrapped the younger version of me in my arms and held him as he was violated and raped. As he bled on his racecar bedsheets. As he screamed and begged for them to stop.
And fuck, I cried with him. Because no little boy—no human being on the fucking earth—should have to go through what he did. Whatwedid.
When I opened my eyes, Dr. Clancy was watching me with a proud look on her face. “You okay?”
