The steam slowly coming off the top of the chocolately-looking coffee wrapped itself around my thoughts and held them closely as a security blanket. Dr. Sontos was sitting in her chair again, gulping down a bottle of water and wiping sweat from her brow with a small hand towel. I had interrupted her work out, I suppose. It was a Friday, after all, and she didn't have the office open on Fridays. Staring at the coffee seems to calm down my nerves and I seem to stop shaking all on my own. I had walked the whole way from Austin's old apartment to the office. The whole time I shivered as if walking through a blizzard in a bikini. I felt the warmth of the sun, but it couldn't melt the ice barrier around me.

"Tell me what happened, Cameron," Dr. Sontos starts, but I can tell she is still out of breath. She looks like she ran half a marathon.

"Do you have any sugar?" I reply without missing a beat. Looking up, finally, I watch as she slowly starts to gain her professional appearance once again. I'm beating around the bush, I know, but I don't like my coffee without sugar and this is fresh out of the pot.

"Cameron..." She doesn't say anything other than my name, and I wince. Her tone reminds me of Austin, and any thoughts I have of Austin right now hurt me. "What are you not telling me?"

"A lot of stuff," I blurt out, not really meaning to, but I'm glad I did. Finally I can lift the weight of Gielle's words off my shoulders.

Dr. Sonto's doesn't reply for about a minute before she puts down the notepad and water bottle and comes to sit on the couch beside me.

I just then realize that I'm crying.

"I don't know who to trust anymore," I confess to her. I gasp for a quick breath as my throat tightens and catches. "I feel like all I'm being fed is lies. I can't trust anyone anymore."

Dr. Sontos wraps one of her arms around me, rubbing my bare shoulder. I shiver, and run my finger over the slightly raised skin of my tattoos. It calms me more than any meds and anything Austin could do. "You can trust me, Cameron, I'm here for you to trust. If you can't trust anyone, I'm the one you can. Please, tell me what's going on."

I broke up my sobs to the best of my ability.

"I met with Gielle, Austin's ex-wife," I start, as that is the only place I could possibly start. Dr. Sontos nods, having enough experience and knowing not to interrupt when one of her patients begins to spill their guts. “We were friends a few years ago, that’s how I met Austin. They had just started dating. I wasn’t around her too much to really know what their relationship was like. I really only spent time with her sister, Addison.”

My hands move, cupping the coffee mug to feel the warmth as it makes my fingers tingle. The tears that prickled at the corner of my eyes disappear.

“I never wanted to get to know, Austin. We were just faces and names to each other. I never meant for us to know more than that, but something happened along the way and I found myself lost in the dark and he was the little flickering candle that helped me out into the daylight.”

There’s a pause, and I wish to drink my coffee but I need sugar or else I’ll spit it right back out.

“Truthfully, if I had been raped at any other time, I don’t think Austin would have been in the apartment, and I do believe that things happen for a reason but sometimes I question if it was really worth it. Was me getting raped worth me finding Austin again and using him as my crutch to get through the scarring that would be there for the rest of my life?”

Now, I’m angry. I’m so angry, in fact, my hands clasp the mug so hard that I hear the handle crack. All I see is red now, instead of the cream carpet or the dark brown coffee.

“Why me? Why did he have to pick me? There were at least four other girls that had walked down that same street. Why did he pick me? I have so much going for me in my life. I was happy, I was content, and then he had to go and hold a knife to my throat because he couldn’t keep his goddamn dick in his pants. You know, they still haven’t found him.” I look up at Dr. Sontos as I tell her this. “Even after all the DNA they found on me and the finger prints and the vivid image of his face in my head, they still can’t find him, it’s like he’s disappeared from the world.”

That is what makes me the most angered. Suddenly, I stand and throw the cup of coffee on the floor. It doesn’t shatter like it would if there had been concrete or wood flooring, but the handle breaks off and the coffee makes a permanent stain in the soft fabric under our feet.

“Why did he choose to rape me? What’s so special about me? There isn’t anything special about me! That’s why I can’t understand the way I feel about Austin and how he feels about me! He’s always there trying to help me and make me feel better, but my head just gets filled with more questions and I can’t stand not knowing the answer to things!”

Dr. Sontos does not move from the couch as I walk away and then I find myself pacing, fiddling with my phone in my hand. I have it on silent, but I see as Austin begins to call me again for the sixth time in the last hour. I’m still freezing in my tank top and yoga pants even though it’s over eighty-degrees outside. I shiver and rub at my bare shoulders, trying to create friction but it only makes me colder.

“And then Mitch has to go and be an idiot and drink and drive and now I have Jolie and Kena to deal with on top of this! Jolie can’t even get out of bed long enough to take Kena to school now, Austin or I have to do it so she doesn’t miss any more days. And on top of all that, I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant!”

The word rings through the air, and I’m no longer cold. I hear Dr. Sontos gasp in surprise, but it’s not as loud as the wordpregnant ringing through the air. Maybe my body is just attacking itself because I’m still healing from the whole ordeal, or maybe I’m just going crazy, but I know something is wrong with me and it has nothing to do with what Gielle has told me about how Austin would act towards her.

“I won’t let anyone touch me,” I tell her, dropping my arms to my sides. “I fear what it will feel like. I keep thinking about him, grapping me, holding me against the wall with a knife in one hand and the other on my hip. I still have a bruise. I won’t look in the mirror, no matter how hard I try and see if I’ve healed any. And they still haven’t found him…”

There’s a hand on my shoulder, and I turn quickly, still fearful of someone coming up behind me. It’s Dr. Sontos and she wears a pitiful look. I hate that look, and make myself turn to face the wall again. There’s a bookshelf two feet from me, filled with leather bound books that are clean of any dust. The phone in the front office rings for a minute before I hear the voicemail automatically pick up the call.

“Do you feel better?” she asks me.

I answer with missing a beat, “I feel worse.”

I’M A FUCKING MONSTER

I ended up staying with Jolie and Kena that night because I couldn’t bring myself to call Austin to pick me up and take me back to his new apartment. I’m sure Alan moved the rest of his things, and I’m sure the group was going out tonight to celebrate the complete move-in, but I knew Austin wouldn’t enjoy the celebration as much as he would if he knew where I was or being right by his side. Gielle was right about one thing so far, he was clingy. Well, clingy was a bad word, but that was all I could think of when describing the situation.

Kena, Jolie and I were all spread out on the off-white couch in the living room, with our eyes glued to the television as a random cartoon played over the screen. Jolie was barely paying attention to it, hugging one of Mitch’s pillows to her chest as Kena devoured the bag of popcorn I popped for the three of us. I wasn’t hungry, and while I wasn’t paying much attention to the cartoon either, I didn’t feel right here. I needed to be with Austin to make sure he knew that I was better now because I had finally given in and let out everything that was eating me up from the inside out.

My cousin’s daughter seems to move closer to my side, making me wince slightly when she presses against the bruise on my hip. I move her so she’s in my lap, and off the tender spot. Kena doesn’t seem to mind as she cuddles closer to me, her eyes now half-lidded as she tries to stay awake and continue to watch the cartoon. However, her small, tired body gives out and she’s fast asleep in five minutes, the bag of popcorn still grasped in her hand.

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” I quietly ask Jolie, and she’s shocked from whatever trance she was in. Her eyes, usually perfectly coated in eyeliner and mascara, are red and puffy and died looking. While she and Mitch had their ups and downs, they were a match made in heaven. Only death could part them, like it had.

Jolie, slightly confused by my conversation starter, gives me a look. “What?”

“I asked what you were going to do for Thanksgiving,” I repeat to her. “It’s two weeks away.”

“Oh,” is all she says before looking down at her thin fingers. She continuously plays with her wedding band. It breaks my heart to watch her do this, because even it has lost its shine. "I haven't really thought about it, I've been so caught up in the funeral and Kena's therapy sessions and trying to make myself go back to work so I can pay for all of it, but it's just so overwhelming and- Cami I don't know how I'm going to get through this."

Jolie begins to quietly sob. I let her do so, making sure she's calmed down before I speak again.

"You're going to get through this. You wanna know how I know?" She looks at me and nods. "Because you're Mitch Lucker's wife, that's how I know. You can do any and everything because you have a daughter that loves you along with a group of men that would drop anything and come running to help if you asked them. You're not alone, Jolie, let us help you."

"I feel so horrible," she tells me, but finally the tears are gone. "You're having to deal with me begin a cry baby as well as having to heal from that dick that jumped you. How do you stay so strong, Cami? How do you find a speck of light in this overwhelming darkness?"

I smile softly at her, before looking down at Kena to brush her light blonde hair from her face. She's peacefully asleep, continuing on without a care in the world. Without even realizing it before it's too late, Austin enters my head again. His smile is bright and shining and I don't even want it to go.

He's my light.

I move Kena slowly out of my lap and onto the cushion beside me. She just rolls over to face the back of the couch and falls into a deeper sleep. I stand from the couch and reach for my phone. The screen shows that Austin has called me another ten times since my session with Dr. Sontos. I don't even get through a full dial tone before Austin picks up.

"Cameron?"

I take a deep breath and look over at Jolie. "Hey, Austin."

"Dear god, Cameron, you gave me a heart attack earlier! I was so scared when you walked out like that. Are you okay? Did you go see Dr. Sontos?"

"Yeah, I went and saw her. She helped me figure out a few things."

Austin sighs thankfully. "That's good to know."

"Can you do me a favor?" I ask. Austin makes a small noise telling me he's listening. "Can you come pick me up? I wanna talk to you about a few things."

"Sure, where are you?"

I tell him Jolie's address and he promises to be there within ten minutes. My eyes watch the clock as Jolie looks at me confused but doesn't say anything. I don't move until I hear the soft rumble of Austin's engine and the crunch of gravel from the sidewalk as he walks up.

Notes

Please comment! I love comments. <3