He strokes his cock, watching me as he spreads my legs wide. I’m unable to stop him. Being like this reminds me of sleep paralysis. I’m awake, but my body can’t move. I’m forced to live out the horror.
“So pink, Joanna. We’re going to feel so good together. I wish you could see what I see.”
“Stop,” I cry tiredly.
He backhands me across the face, and his hand presses against my throat. “Shut the fuck up, Joanna. Enjoy this. Stop playing hard to get. You know you want it. You know you want me. Shut the fuck up.” His demeanor completely changes, and his hand roughly grips my tit while the other dives between my legs and shoves my thighs apart.
I shake my head, trying to form the word ‘stop’, but my voice is numb.
Unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to scream, I cry.
And I wonder if fate has always had this in store for me as Brody takes from me and changes who I am for the rest of my life.
I was saved from this happening, and it happened anyway.
What kind of world is that?
It’s a world I don’t want to live in.
I wake up crying and choking for air as the memory of that night plays on repeat in detail. I move my hand to my throat, the other to my stomach as waves of nausea rolls through me. I jump out of bed and run to the bathroom, lift the toilet seat, and vomit. I almost suffocate from the rancid stomach bile in my throat because I can’t breathe from crying so hard.
Brody.
Brody did do it. I don’t know how I remembered or why, but I almost wish I hadn’t. I never want to feel the way I did in that memory again. So helpless, so weak, laying there as he fucked me while I cried into the mattress. I felt each grab of his hands, his moans breathing against my ear, his lust-infused voice whispering how beautiful I am, the way his cock speared me.
I’ll never be able to forget it now. I’ve never felt so betrayed. My best friend, the person who I talked to about everything, the person I studied with, watched movies with, the man who let me cry on his shoulder when he didn’t understand why I was crying, but he held me anyway.
He did this to me.
He … he… I throw up again, flush the toilet, and sit back. I no longer feel powerful, no longer feel that I’m on my way to being healed. I feel nothing.
I am nothing.
I reach for the toilet paper and rip off a sheet, wipe my mouth off, and flush it. I’ve never felt so lost before. I thought I was finding myself, healing, taking the days one step at a time, realizing that maybe I can be a mom, but how can I? How can I look at this child knowing what their father did to me?
And I know, okay? I know that child is innocent. They did nothing wrong, but a part of that child was forced on me.
I bury my face in my hands, wishing Brody would’ve killed me when he was done with me. Mentally, I’m not ready to take care of someone when taking care of myself seems like such a feat.
I stand on shaky legs and grab the edges of the counter. My hair falls in my face as I stare at the bottom of the sink. There’s a little toothpaste at the bottom, water pooled around the drain from when Eric brushed his teeth before he left earlier. Lifting my head slowly, my green eyes almost glow with how red the whites are from the tears. My lips are puffy, the tip of my nose is red, and my eyes are swollen.
What am I doing?
Who am I?
Why, for the life of me, can’t I claw my way out of this fucking darkness the universe has thrown at me?
I’m floating away from the world, and I’m surrounded by stars. I’m in space, reaching for earth, but the more I stretch, the more weightless I become and the further I drift away. Everything around me is beautiful, and I can’t enjoy that beauty because a black hole is sucking me in, sending me to a new dimension.
A place I’ll never be able to come back from if I’m not careful.
Desperate, needing to find release, needing to find a place to go that isn’t here, I open the cabinets beneath me and search. Shaving cream, Q-tips, cotton-balls…
Razors.
With jittery fingers, I pick up the unopen box and stare at them. Something in the back of my mind is telling me not to rip it open. Don’t do it. I can’t do it.
I have to.
I rip the box open, and the razors fly out from the momentum, bouncing against the wall, then settle at the bottom of the sink. The bathroom light shines against the metal, teasing me, tempting me to get further lost in space.
Slamming the toilet seat down, I take one of the razors between my fingers, and with raging tears and Brody’s face in my mind, I spread my legs and lay the razor against my thigh.
And I cut.
I watch old scars open and blood drip down my leg.
I’m draining Brody’s memory.
Another cut.
I hiss, thinking I’m draining the alcohol in my veins.
I press the razor higher and slice, whimpering when more blood leaves me, and I hope the drug he dosed me with is no longer tainting my blood.
I move to the other leg and turn the razor up and down like I did on my arm. I don’t want to get rid of the baby, but the baby doesn’t need a mother like me. The last thing to get rid of is me. I can’t do it. I don’t know how to be better. I place the razor against my groin and let out a painful cry when my skin parts.
I stop at my knee and drop the razor on the floor, watching the blood pour out of me quickly. I must have nicked my artery. I lean my head on the edge of the counter and close my eyes, but Brody’s face is still there.
His face will always be there.
In my dreams, in death, in the afterlife, he’s the black hole.
I’m sinking further into nothing, drifting to peace, and finally, I see Eric’s face.
“Fuck! Joanna, damn it, what did you do? What did you do!” I hear a voice that I don’t hear too often. I hear a whip of the towel coming off the rack and then pressure is applied to my thigh where I’m bleeding the most. A shirt is tugged over my head and then suddenly I’m lifted into a pair of arms. “What did you do? Doc is going to be devastated. He fucking loves you, Joanna. You can’t do this anymore. He fucking loves you.”
I manage to pry my eyes open from feeling so weak, and I’m surprised to see Badge out of all people. I never thought he liked me. He probably doesn’t. He doesn’t seem to have patience for people like me, people with problems. I don’t blame him.
I don’t like me either.
“I love him too,” I say as the warm air hits my face as we step outside. “I’m scared I won’t love my baby.” My eyes slip closed, and the doubt of what I just said slaps me in the face. I know I would love my child.
There’s a hint of resentment, but to who? Me? Brody?
“You’re pregnant? Damn it, he’s going to kill me if I don’t get you to him in time,” Badge says, running toward the clubhouse.
My head bobs, and a slight smile tilts my lips. “He’s better off without me. Who wants someone who’s pregnant with another man’s baby? I didn’t ask for it,” I start to cry.
“What do you mean? Hey, Joanna, what does that mean?” He shakes me, but unconsciousness is taking over.
It means I trusted the wrong person, and now I don’t know how to trust the right people.
I’m putting the final touches on Daniel, who’s still knocked out and handcuffed to the bed.