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I talk her through my breathing exercises. They’ve always helped me stop the shaking. I take deep breaths to show her how to breathe, hoping she’ll mimic me. There’s nothing that I can do about the tears falling from her eyes, but I can help get her heartbeat back to normal.
“I… I… um… I’m sorry,” she mumbles in embarrassment.
“It’s okay, Cele. It was just a dream,” I repeat, not knowing exactly what to do now that she’s fully awake. I’m not good at coddling, but I’m not sure if I can shrug it off either. So I just sit, waiting to see what she’ll do next.
“Is it?” she asks doubtfully. “What if it wasn’t a dream? What if it’s just a replay of events that won’t let me go?”
Fuck.
She hasn’t spoken to me about what happened on that video, but I’m pretty sure that’s what she’s referring to. Okay, I can do this. I can be her friend. She deserves that much.
“Do you wanna talk about what had you screaming?” I ask. I’m fairly certain that’s something my sister would say.
“Does talking help? I thought you were anti-talking? Isn’t that why you hate going to therapy and never want to share anything with me?”
Sigh.
“Yes and no. I don’t know what the right answer is here, Cele. Yes, I hate talking about things, but I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t gained anything from going to therapy. I’ve also been seeing therapists on and off for years—some good, some not so much. I think it boils down to trust. If you trust the person, talking helps. If you don't, then it won’t.”
“Is that why you won’t talk to me about your life? You don’t trust me?”
I rest my head back on the recliner, staring into the shadows, wishing we could just go back to sleep. But she’s wide awake and acting like I hold the answers to the universe. At least with my face shadowed, she won’t have to watch my struggle.
“The short answer is yes. In my life, trust is earned, not given. And to be fair, we haven’t known each other long.” It’s not a complete lie, so I just run with it.
She lies back on the recliner. We both just lay there, staring at the ceiling, wondering what to do next. In the silence, I can feel my sister waiting—no, pushing—for me to keep talking to Celeste.
“How about this? I’ll ask you questions, and you can decide whether or not you want to answer them.”
More silence.Did she fall asleep?
I glance over to see her still staring at the ceiling, contemplating and most definitely not sleeping. So I go back to doing the same.
“Can I ask you questions, too?” she asks.
Crap, crap, crap.Breathe, Evelyn.
I audibly sigh.What choice do I have?
“Fine. You can ask me questions, too, and I’ll decide what I answer. Okay?”
“Okay,” she whispers, and I start asking her questions in the dark.
“Were you dreaming about being raped?”
She sucks in a breath. “That’s such an ugly word.”
“It is. Would you rather I say assaulted or violated?”
“I would rather you not say it at all.”
I smile in the dark. Life isn’t that simple. We can’t magically make things disappear by simply not talking about them. God knows I’ve tried. I wait in silence for her to answer the question. I’m not going to pepper her with more questions or push her. We’re gonna have to do this one question at a time, at her pace.
“It was like…” she begins. “Before the video, I could pretend that it didn’t happen. Justin was around, and as long as I focused on how much I wanted to be with him, I could believe that it was a figment of my imagination, like it didn’t really happen.
“Now, no matter what I do, I can’t forget. There are black spots in my memory from that night, just not the ones that matter. I can’t remember how I ended up on a bed, but I can’t get the feeling of him inside me out of my head, and it’s my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
