“Kate?” Annie whispered softly, hoping her sister could hear her. She felt her way down the wall towards the bedroom and softly tapped on the door even though it was open.
“Kate? Are you in here?” She continued softly, stepping into the room gingerly as if she wasn’t sure the floor was still going to be there to hold her. She squinted and scanned the room, finally finding her sister.
Kate was still lying in bed, it had only been about three hours since the stranger had left but she hadn’t been able to move, partly from fear but mostly from pain. She had called her sister on the bedside table phone and begged her to come immediately. She hadn’t said much, so Annie was still unsure of most of the details except that she knew her sister needed her. She hadn’t told Annie about the pain or the beating or the fact that if she lost anymore blood, she wasn’t going to be able to come back from this.
Kate’s body couldn’t look at her sister because her eyes were swollen shut, but Kate was still laying in bed with herself, holding herself even more tightly at the idea of someone walking in and seeing her body this way. She knew she should have just called the police but she couldn’t imagine letting anyone see her like this. Annie was the only person in the world she could trust to see her in such a vulnerable place.
Annie could see that her sister was laying in her bed and heard her whimpering, but it was too dark to see much more than her silhouette, so she stepped over to the nightstand and pulled the cord on her lamp. She was alarmed at how bright the light was and quickly grabbed a piece of clothing on the floor and draped it over the lamp to soften the room.
She collected her breath as she turned to look at her sister in the light for the first time. As she looked at Kate, she sucked in her breath violently and felt her knees weaken as she dropped to the floor, kneeling next to the bed. Annie began crying immediately, not knowing what to do or say.
Kate had pulled the sheets around her, but she was still nude except for some ripped clothes still hanging off her body. Her eyes were swollen almost shut and there were cuts and bruises all across her face and upper body. Her lip was cut open and had bled down her cheek. The sheets beneath her were a stained brown where blood had pooled underneath her. As Annie’s eyes traveled down her sister’s body, she saw that one of her sister’s legs was exposed and it was smeared with blood. Her eyes began to tear up as she saw bite marks on her sister’s thigh and a larger pool of blood beneath her hips.
Kate said nothing as Annie reached over to gently stroke her hair, she was still crying as she continued to caress her hair.
“What do I do, Kate? What happened? I just, oh my god, I have never seen you look like this, what do I do?” Annie cried into her hands that were now stained with Kate’s blood. Kate had always been the one to take care of Annie, never the other way around. So, Annie was at a loss how to help or how to respond because when things were tough she had always turned to Kate for the answer, but now Kate was turning to her.
“Can you help me clean up?” Kate said, strained and soft, after a moment of clearing her throat and trying to find her voice.
“Yes, yes of course!” Annie jumped up to go get a washcloth, but then stopped and turned back to Kate, “What about calling the police? Don’t they need to collect evidence? Or shouldn’t I take you to the hospital?”
“No, no police,” Kate begged, whimpering, “Just help me clean up, then we will go to the hospital. But no police.”
Annie nodded, her head swimming with emotions and concerns. She ran into the bathroom and soaked several hand towels with water and grabbed a dry towel as well. She opened the vanity trying to find anything for Kate’s wounds, but couldn’t find anything.
She rushed back into the bedroom and gingerly sat at the edge of the bed next to Kate, hoping to not disturb her with the movement. Very slowly and cautiously she passed the wet washcloth across Kate’s face and wounds, down her bruised neck, and then her chest and arms. Annie hesitated at moving the sheet to clean her any further. Kate nodded that it was okay, so Annie pulled the sheet aside and began to squeeze water from the wet towels across her thighs and stomach, hoping to wash off some of the blood. Annie started silently crying as she saw the extent of the pain her sister must be in. Kate was clenching her teeth, trying to breathe though the pain of each touch.
After about thirty minutes, Annie had slowly cleaned off a good portion of blood from Kate’s body. She held Kate around her waist as she helped her stand up. She went to her closet and found the most baggy t-shirt and sweatpants, then gently helped her sister pull on the clothes. After she was dressed, Annie looked at her sister and tried to smooth some of her hair down.
“Can we go to the hospital now?” Annie asked and Kate nodded in agreement. Annie wrapped one arm around Kate’s waist and then one of Kate’s arms across her shoulder as she helped her walk across the apartment and down the stairs to her car waiting out front.
Kate’s body sagged into the passenger seat of her sister’s car as Kate slid into the back seat, watching herself and her sister from behind. She noticed that the sun was about to come up any moment, the dawn of a new day. Kate watched the horizon out of the car’s back windows in anger as if it’s shimmering colors were an insult purposely aimed at her.
Annie couldn’t look at her sister slumped in the seat next to her, couldn’t say anything because nothing seemed right to say. They rode in silence, just watching the sun rise as they drove towards the hospital. Annie driving nervously, clutching the steering wheel, Kate’s empty body slumped in the passenger seat, and Kate in the back seat with her arm’s folded, angry at it all.
~~~~
When Kate woke up, she was immediately conscious of how much pain she was in. She groaned loudly and heard someone rustling next to her, causing her to jump which only hurt more.
“Kate? Are you awake?” It was Annie’s voice, Kate could recognize it anywhere. Her sister stood up and sat at the end of her bed, looking down at her swollen body propped up in the hospital bed. She smiled at her sister, clearly seeing how sleep deprived and puffy eyed Annie was. She was touched at how much her sister would do for her and had done for her. Kate’s body moaned, but didn’t move, it still hurt too much.
Kate stood up and walked out of the hospital, leaving herself and her sister alone. She took in all the faces of the nurses and doctors she passed, all seeming to be occupied with something intensely critical. Kate felt bad for them, because she just felt so calm. When she stepped out of the hospital, she felt the sun hitting her face and smiled at the warmth. There was a hillside by the hospital with a tree towering at the top of the mound. It looked so idyllic that Kate felt that she had to wander over to it.
Kate leaned against the thick tree and then slid down against it, sitting at the bottom, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them tightly. She glanced back at the hospital and tried to guess which window was the room where she was laying next to her sister right now. It didn’t matter, she didn’t want to be there.
She reached down into the grass next to her and plucked a blade of grass, lifting it up to her face so she could inspect it closely. She wondered why she had never really looked at a piece of grass before. It was strikingly and surprisingly beautiful- sharp and pointed with a leathery green cover and one tiny droplet of dew still perched on it. She held the blade of grass in one hand and drew it across the wrist of her other hand. She watched as the blade slid in a sharp line across her skin. If only it could be that easy.
But no, Kate was still alive. She hadn’t died. She had survived. She was barely holding herself together, but she had survived. She wasn’t sitting on this hill enjoying the sun. She was laying in a hospital bed, beaten, bruised, and violated, barely hearing her sister talking to the shell of her body. Sighing, Kate picked herself up from the grass and shady tree, then headed back down the hill and into the hospital, retracing the steps back to herself.
~~~~
“Kate? Can you hear me, Kate?” Annie said to her sister,
holding her hand. Kate walked back into the hospital room as she watched her sister try to elicit a response from her body. She walked over to herself and laid down, slipping back home.
“Hey.” Kate groaned, softly, as Annie stood up excited.
“Hi! Kate, how do you feel?” Annie asked, hovering over her like an overprotective mother. Kate scanned the room and realized that she had several IV’s sticking out of her arm and a monitor next to her, beeping, as it received impulses from the electrode stuck to her chest.
“Tired. What time is it?” Kate asked.
“You mean what day is it. It’s Tuesday! You slept literally for 30 hours, but that’s okay because you needed it.”
“Oh no, what about my work? Can you call them?” Kate asked.
“Already did, don’t worry. And I didn’t tell them what happened, I just said you had a car accident and were going to be out until you recover. They send their apologies and hope you get better soon. Some of your coworkers wanted to visit but I said the doctors didn’t want anyone but family here. Don’t concern yourself with anything, I am on top of it. Lenny wanted to come too but I told him you didn’t want any visitors and that I would let him know when you were home, he said take all the time that you need. He got you those flowers over there.” Annie rambled, anxiously, as Kate quietly absorbed the details of her life that she had missed. Annie pointed to a very large bouquet of assorted flowers on the windowsill that must have been from Lenny. They were beautiful and she wanted to smile but her face hurt too much to move.
“What about Derrick?” Kate asked.
“Oh well, that’s the only thing I didn’t know. I couldn’t find your cell phone anywhere and I don’t know what his number is, how do I reach him? And what do you want me to say to him?” Annie asked, nervously.
Kate didn’t know what she wanted to tell Derrick. Since it was Tuesday, she knew she had already stood him up for their lunch date yesterday. Kate closed her eyes as she contemplated what to do.
“Later, okay, not now?” Kate said, “His number is in my kitchen drawer on a green post it note.”
“You want me to call him tomorrow? What do you want me to say?” Annie asked.
“No, call him today. Just tell him that I am here if he wants to see me. Don’t tell him what happened, Annie,” Kate’s eyes widened with fear,
“Don’t tell Derrick about, about what happened. Just tell him I was mugged. Tell him that. Just don’t tell him what happened. Please, Annie.”
“It’s okay, calm down, don’t worry.” Annie said gently, petting her sister’s hand,
“I won’t tell him. I will just tell him you got mugged, that’s it, okay? I am going to head back to your place right now then to get that number, okay? Oh, and I will take care of Boo, don’t worry about her, last time I checked on her she was perfectly fine. ”
Kate nodded as she watched her sister gather her jacket and purse. Annie came and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead and then rushed out.
~~~~
Annie had only been gone for about thirty minutes when Kate heard a knock at the door and a nurse entered and walked up to check her IV’s and vitals.
“How are you feeling, honey?” Her name tag said Cindy Marie and she was a middle aged woman around fifty years old with long brown hair braided into a long twist down her back and thick bangs across her forehead. Her eyes were soft and her hands were a bit swollen and looked like she had cared for a lot of people.
“Everything hurts.” Kate said, trying to turn onto her side in a manner that would hurt the least.
“Well it probably will for a few more days, sweetie. I will get you some new pain medications though. How’s that?” Kate nodded in agreement.
“Now, honey, I have to talk to you about what you want to do in this situation. We cleaned you all up and stitched everything, but while you were under we did collect a rape kit just in case you wanted to give it to the police. We didn’t get too much because you cleaned up a bit before you got here, but we did get a few good samples that might help the police catch this guy. But, I can’t give it to the police unless you sign this consent form saying you want me to do that, okay?”
Kate looked at Nurse Cindy Marie and contemplated what she was saying, but didn’t know what her decision was going to be.
“You don’t have to decide right now, sweetie, okay? I will just leave it here on the nightstand and you can think about it. Just to let you know, the police have been waiting to talk to you. They went home last night but I called them just now when you woke up so they will be here shortly to ask some questions. Okay?”
“I don’t want to talk to them.” Kate said.
“Well, why don’t you just see how you feel when they get here, okay, sweetie?” Nurse Cindy Marie finished writing on her chart, then gently patted her leg, and left. Kate hugged the blankets against her chest as she lay curled up on her side. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
~~~~
Kate awoke to hearing voices outside her door, she opened her eyes slightly but didn’t move.
“Is she in this room?” She heard a woman’s voice ask.
“Yes, she is. I think she drifted off a little but we can go wake her up if you all promise to be gentle with her. She has been through a lot and doesn’t need to be interrogated.” Nurse Cindy Marie’s voice was distinct and soft.
Kate heard a tapping on the door as she watched the nurse and two detectives walk into the room. The detectives were in full uniform, each one wearing a shiny badge and hanging onto the guns on their hips.
“I said I didn’t want to talk to the police,” Kate said quietly, as she pulled herself up into a sitting position with the nurse’s help in raising her bed.
“We just wanted to check in on you, Kate. I am Detective Snow and this is my partner, Detective McCraig.” The female detective introduced herself and pointed to her male partner.
McCraig looked like he had once been in the military from the way he was standing so stoically and seriously, his hands folded behind his back. Snow looked much more relaxed and pulled up a chair to sit next to Kate.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Snow asked her, sitting in a chair next to her bed and pulling out a notepad.
“I don’t want to press charges, I just want to get better and move on. I don’t want to do this.” Kate said firmly, frustrated.
“Well, Kate, I can understand that you feel that way but whoever hurt you needs to be held accountable for their actions. We want to make sure you get justice and that he isn’t free to harm anyone else.” Detective Snow said this last part a bit gentler, but Kate felt it’s sting.
Detective Snow thought that Kate would be responsible if he did this to someone else if she didn’t cooperate with the police, at least that was the message Kate had gotten from her comment. Kate’s face slowly turned red as she felt ashamed for not wanting to pursue this, then she began to cry. Detective Snow handed her a tissue from the nightstand.
“I don’t want to do this,” Kate sobbed, “Please, not right now.”
“Kate, it’s best to do it now when it is freshest in your memory, I know it’s hard but-“ Detective Snow was interrupted as Annie walked in, returning from running home to fetch Derrick’s number.
“Excuse me, who are you? I heard her say she didn’t want to talk to you, so that’s that, you need to leave.” Annie said firmly, standing by her sister’s bed.
“Hello Miss, we are Detectives Snow and McCraig, we are assigned to Kate’s case and we just want to get her statement about what happened as well as her consent for us to take her rape kit for further testing.” The female detective stood up from her chair, backing away from Kate’s bed so as to give them space.
“Well, I am sorry, but she said she doesn’t want to talk about this right now. If she changes her mind, she can call you.” Annie said, gesturing towards the door for them to let themselves out.
“Okay, no problem.” Detective Snow said to Annie, putting her han
ds up in surrender, knowing that she wasn’t going to get any further with the sisters today. The detective then turned to Kate,
“I hope you get better quickly, I am very sorry this happened to you and I really hope you will call me about trying to catch the person responsible for this terrible ordeal. He deserves every punishment our justice system can think of.”
Kate nodded but didn’t look up at the detectives as they left, she just protectively held her little sister’s hand as Annie guarded her like a shield. The detectives handed their card to Annie and then were gone.
~~~~
A few hours later, Annie was flipping through the television shows on the TV over Kate’s hospital bed.
“There is nothing on to watch here.” Exasperated, she plopped the remote down on the nightstand.
“Hey, I know, Derrick might come by today since I left him a message a few hours ago. How about I brush your hair, maybe fix you up a little?” Annie smiled encouragingly at her sister. Kate managed a small chuckle as she smiled,
“I don’t think there is enough makeup in the world to hide this, Annie.”
“Well not makeup, but we can at least brush your hair?” Kate nodded in approval as Annie eagerly dug around in her purse for a brush. After a few moments, she finally found one and pulled it out triumphantly. She gently began to brush out the tangles and then pinned Kate’s hair back into a small braid that went down the back of her head and then slipped across her shoulder, dangling down her chest.
“Beautiful!” Annie beamed, “I do good work.” Kate chuckled again at her sister’s self-compliments. Annie was trying her best to act like everything was normal, which Kate really appreciated.
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