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“Mr. Layne, we’re sorry to bother you during this sensitive time, but since we can’t ask Avery, we need to know if you have any suspicions of who you think might have done this to her?” a deep masculine voice asks my father.
“I’m sorry, officer, her mother and I have no idea.”
What?He sounds distressed and convincing.
“In Kensington County, we take rape very seriously. The sooner we can catch and prosecute who did this, the better. Please give us a call when she wakes up.”
Rape.
My ears start ringing and chills crawl across my skin.
“We will,” my father assures them. “Thank you for stopping by.” There’s a shuffling of movement and the sound of footsteps as they leave the room.
I tighten the muscles between my legs and feel the leftover soreness. This isn’t a new soreness—tender intimacy flew out the window between us quite some time ago. Chris takes. He’s been taking from me for a while now, but hearing someone define it in such a harsh way has my chest closing in on me. I feel ashamed and completely degraded.
No. I can’t think of it as such, and will not acknowledge it as that. I don’t even care what that says about me or the false sense of reality I’ve allowed myself to believe. The joining of two people is supposed to be beautiful, and they’re just trying to make it ugly. I don’t want it to be ugly. And if I admit to it, then I’m admitting to the monster that he’s become. For so long, I’d been hanging on to hope. Hope for us.
Us.
There will never be an “us.” Never again.
An extreme sense of helplessness consumes me. I feel more vulnerable and out of control than I ever have in my whole life. Any last vestiges of strength drain from my body and I’ve officially lost all trust in everyone and everything. An unwanted sob escapes me and the machine starts to beep faster.
“Avery.” It’s my mother’s voice. It’s weak and pathetic. A creak from the door being pushed open bounces around the room. “Oh, sweetheart, you’re awake.” Instead of maternal concern, I hear pity. I don’t want her pity. I just want to be loved.
Moving to wipe the tears off my face, my fingers hit a bandage where I expect my face to be. Wincing from the slightest touch, I can tell there’s a lot of swelling.
“What is this?” My voice is almost nonexistent, shredded to a raw whisper by his chokehold. Swallowing, more pain slides down my throat. I attempt to open my eyes, but only one cracks open. I decide it’s best if I don’t see what’s around me anyway and let my eyelid fall shut.
“Your cheekbone was shattered, and they had to put a plate in. But don’t worry, they went in through the gums above your back teeth, so there’ll be no scarring.”
A gasp escapes me and my lip pulls. My lips feel huge. Running my tongue across the inside of it, there are the rough and foreign bumps of stitches. Moving my tongue to my back teeth, I feel the stitches there too.
Only my mother would be worried about physical scarring. Why doesn’t she see the emotional scars are the ones destroying me?
More tears leak from my eyes.
“What else?” I ask, not really wanting to hear the answer.
“There’s a lot of bruising and a hair line fracture in your ankle,” she says softly.
Bruising. I’m certain there’s more than that. Between the driveway, teeth, and fingers, I’m certain that I’m covered in bruises, road rash, scrapes, and who knows what all.
Tears.
Lots of them.
Other than the beeping, silence fills the room.
My fingers twist in the sheets as an overwhelming sense of worthlessness presses down on my chest. How is this my life? How could Chris think so little of me after all this time? Does he know what he did to me? Does he even care? I never want to see him again, and the worst part is, I warned them.
Attempting to turn my head toward her, it won’t move; it’s been braced. I feel trapped and my heart gallops in my chest.
“I told you and you didn’t do anything.” My voice is hoarse but accusatory. My throat aches even more from the strain of the emotions running through me.
“Andyouaren’t going to do anything either,” my father chimes in with his domineering, don’t-question-me-on-this, lawyer voice.
“What?” They can’t possibly think that I’m going to return to him as if nothing happened.
