I was in the hospital for two and a half weeks; most of the time I was pumped full of drugs that made me sleep and not give a damn about the world around me. But now, I was taking physical therapy and sleeping back in my own house...or that was idea. I was mostly over at Sean's when all I wanted to do was be alone, but I couldn't break it to him. I didn't want to be abandoned, but I couldn't help feeling...well...isolated but at the same time, I could barely muster up a smile. I didn't cry, I didn't speak, I didn't even care anymore; I was numb. The cops in the hospital told me that I had been brutally raped but I couldn't remember it. All I had to prove it were the scars and broken bones and bruises that were starting to fade. My ribs still hurt, but it was confusing because when I tried to think about what happened, it was blurry and my heart started to race so I just stopped trying to remember. The last thing I remembered about that day was getting into my car and driving into...into the city I think...I shuddered as I sat on the couch and Sean started to get up but I waved him off, flipping channels on the TV, really not interested in anything but watching the different colors play out on the screen.
Sean's phone rang and I shuddered at the sound, not entirely sure of why but it bothered me. Sean jumped up and ran to get it and while he was talking on the phone, I watched him. The sudden movement had made me really nervous and had my muscles itching to move, to get up, and to run away, to hide somewhere but I shook it off. My new psychologist noticed my heightened sense of everything around me and told me that it was hyper vigilance. Some sort of reaction that stemmed from my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I thought it was absurd; I wasn't suffering from anything. Nothing had happened to me...well nothing that I could remember at least. That was what bothered me the most, sitting here with a blank spot in my mind that seemed to sneer at me. I had begged the authorities not to call my parents; they would have been mortified and I couldn't handle the shame of even the thought of being raped. It made me feel horrible dirty and guilt ate at me every day; I felt like I was letting myself down not being able to remember what had happened.
Sean smiled at me as he talked and I smiled back (feeling like I was cheating because I didn't feel anything in the smile, it was more of a knee-jerk reaction), looking back at the TV to see a show playing. A woman was walking through a dark parking garage and she reached her car, a gold sedan, and was unlocking it when her phone rang and she dug it out of her purse. She answered it but then a white van screamed into the parking lot behind her and I shuddered, eyes glued to the TV. She was laughing with a friend on the phone when three guys got out of the van as it screeched to a stop and grabbed her. My eyes widened and my body started to shudder and I broke out into a gold sweat. When the woman on the TV screamed, my body tensed up and I started to smell...something damp, musty...sweat. I smelled sweat and...blood. I moaned and shuddered, that hole in my mind opened up as the woman kept screaming on the TV I covered my ears, wishing that she would stop and I clenched my eyes shut. I smelled...sex and blood...I heard...a clicking. The woman wouldn't stop screaming! I started to feel hands on my body and I jerked, fighting, my body kicking into gear and not even letting me think.
"ÁINE!" My eyes jerked open and the woman stopped screaming. I let out a sigh of relief and slumped onto the hard wood floor, sweating and trembling. Sean was kneeling next to me and when he touched me I jerked away. I didn't want to be touched, I felt wrong, I felt...I moaned and curled into a ball.
"Áine, baby, are you okay?" Sean asked, keeping his hands on his knees. I went to speak but my voice was raw and it hurt to talk. I frowned.
"What happened?" I rasped, shaking and breathing hard.
"You...you don't remember?" He asked, his eyes shining with worry.
I shook my head and pushed myself up off of the floor. Hadn't I been sitting on the couch before? I blinked a few slow times and swallowed, trying to make my throat stop hurting. Sean looked behind him at that TV and before I looked to see what was on, he changed the channel.
"You let out a little moan and then you started screaming like you were being murdered. It scared me half to death! You wouldn't stop screaming and you fell off the couch and started thrashing on the floor like you were fighting someone. I had to yell your name five times before you heard me and stopped screaming." Sean voice shook a little and I frowned at him.
"I was screaming? I thought the woman on TV was screaming..." I frowned...what had I been watching? I couldn't remember. I sighed and pushed myself to my feet, pacing around the room violently, watching cartoons dance around on the TV screen. I ran a hand through my hair and Sean watched me with a helpless expression, still kneeling on the ground. I felt my eyes start to burn and I walked outside to his front lawn. Sean came out, shutting the door gently behind him. I was crying because I couldn't fecking remember anything! I felt like a failure, like there was something wrong with me and I could do a damn thing about it.
"Do you want to talk to your psychologist?" He asked gently. I shook my head. The woman just made me feel inferior for not remembering anything. She talked to me like I was a child. I growled and started walking to my house, Sean following a little distance behind. He was always careful not to startle me. There was one thing noticeably different that I almost didn't mind. I seemed to know things before they happened. I could read people so well that I knew what they were going to do even before they did, I always seemed to know where everything was around me, even walking into a place for the first time, like my psychiatrist's office, I knew where everything and everyone was. My situational awareness was incredible.
I grabbed the mail from the mailbox and tossed the junk mail to Sean who grinned at me. I didn't get bills, they were forwarded to my parents...I think they were in Kenya right now. I didn't know and I honestly didn't care. I opened a letter from Lily. She had started writing to me since every time my phone went off, Sean said that I had a fit and started screaming. He answered the phone once and it had been Lily who heard me crying in the background and he was forced to tell her what had happened or she would have called the cops. Lily was writing about Switzerland, she had met up with our schoolmates and was skiing with them. She met a cute Swedish boy and her life sounded beautifully normal. I sighed and put it in the back pocket of my jeans. I liked wearing pants more than skirts now; I didn't know why...I just did. It was like I was changing against my will.
There was one other piece of mail that wasn't post marked. I frowned and started to open the manila colored envelope that had absolutely no writing on the outside, no stamp, no post mark, nothing. I tore open the seal and looked inside. There were heavy white sheets, they looked like photograph paper. I frowned. Maybe they were from my parents and the post office ruined the packaging so they repacked them. I smiled a little and pulled out the five sheets inside. They were 8 x 10's and when I flipped them over I saw a yellow sticky note that said "thinking of you." It had to be from my parents. I took off the large sticky note and looked at the first picture.
My heart started racing, my hands shook, and my lungs ached as I started breathing faster. They were photos of me... The first picture was me alone; I looked at my body tied up by my wrists and my eyes strayed to my wrists and the healing wounds there. My ankles were tied as well and as I looked, my ankles started to itch and burn. I was dressed in a blue shirt and white skirt that exposed my stomach. My horrified fascination turned to dread as I saw the laceration on my side, bleeding and seeping into the white of my skirt. Not much of the background could be seen, just cement walls and cement floor.
I flipped the picture to the back and in the next photo I saw me, tied up with my skirt now pushed up around my hips and a man with his cock buried into me. I was crying, you could see my tears in the flash of the camera and there was blood staining my thighs. Anger tore through me as I started to loose feeling in my fingertips and my brain started to feel fuzzy. I tried to look at the guy's face but it had been cut out of the photograph. I felt a tingling in the back of my neck and then suddenly the world disappeared around me and my hands felt tied above my head like in the photograph and I felt something inside me. I smelled blood and sex and sweat and my body started clenching and I could see flashes of a room. I screamed as whatever was inside me kept thrusting and I felt the blood on my thighs like was in the photograph.
"ÁINE! Áine, stop screaming baby, you're okay, you're okay!" I opened my eyes, my body trembling and I started to cry. I saw the photos on the ground next to me and I saw Sean look but I reached for them and turned them over, holding them against my stomach, almost feeling the paper burn my skin. It was shameful, it was wrong; he couldn't see...he couldn't see... I sobbed and curled away from him but Sean wasn't taking it this time. He picked me up off of the ground, walked into the house with me, pictures and all, and made me stand up as he put me down.
"What are you holding?" He asked roughly.
I cried and shook my head, backing away from him. I had been raped...I still couldn't remember anything but what I had seen in the photos. The photos proved it all; I couldn't deny it any more... I sobbed and closed my eyes, holding the pictures to my body when I wanted to throw them away from me and burn them to cinders.
"Áine!" He barked my name and I sunk to my knees. Sean walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. I cried harder at his touch but he didn't remove his hands. "That's enough!" He ordered. I tried to stifle my sobs but it didn't work and I started hiccupping.
I felt him grab my hands and pry the photos from them. He took them from me and I screamed violently and started attacking him with my eyes closed. He grabbed my wrists and pressed them into my stomach. I couldn't kick him, he was too close and my legs were pressed against my body. Sean sighed unhappily and grabbed my face in his hands. I opened my eyes and when I saw him glaring at me in furious concern, I broke. I threw my arms around him and he stumbled back a little at the force but immediately wrapped his arms around me. I sobbed against his chest and begged him not to look at the photos. It was dirty and wrong and I hated myself for it, I was worthless, I was less than nothing and those photos proved it. I hadn't even looked at the other three and I did and didn't want to at the same time. I wanted to know what had happened to me, but I didn't want to re-experience it and that seemed to be the only way that I could remember. Even now, I could feel that monster inside me, that faceless monster from the photo.
"Áine...Áine baby, its okay, just breathe..." Sean crooned. I sobbed and felt as his arms extended behind my back. He was looking at the photos. I begged him not to look but he just rocked me in his arms, telling me that it was going to be okay.
I knew the moment that he saw the horror in those pictures. His entire body stiffened and he grew warm under my skin. His heart started racing under my ear and he shook in my embrace. I started crying harder as Sean swore vilely under his breath. I heard him flipping through the photos because his hands were trembling so badly. I moaned in shame and kept crying. Sean threw the photos across the room violently with a growl and I let out a yelp of surprise at the sudden movement. He probably thought that I was dirty, that I was a disgrace...that I was less than nothing. That was how I felt, how could he feel any differently?
"We'll get them, Áine; we'll rip them to pieces." He whispered fiercely into my hair.
