Lila must have made a face because Ms. Feinberg laughed. “I know, I know. Easier said than done. But it is true. There isn’t anything wrong with you. You aren’t stupid. In fact, you’re obviously very strong and resilient to break away and change schools. You came here to get some help in dealing with something that is enormously stressful. That takes guts.”
“I feel like I failed everyone. Like I let everyone down.” Lila wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye.
“Everyone?” Ms. Feinberg raised an eyebrow.
Lila scowled. “I feel like I let myself down.” The words came out grudgingly. “But he wasn’t always like that. When we first started dating, Tyler was so nice. He was considerate and kind and a good guy. The kind of boy you’d be proud to take home to meet your parents. I just…” she trailed off, unsure of what she wanted to say.
Because Tyler had been wonderful at first, Lila thought that might have been why she stayed with him for as long as she had. He was sweet and polite, always holding open the door for her and helping her with her coat. He made her laugh. He brought her favorite lunch to school for her every Friday. He knew the kind of books she liked to read and would drop off one at her doorstep when she least expected it. He taught her how to throw a curve ball.
Sure, he’d had his moments of moodiness and had said hurtful things, but who hadn’t? They were in a relationship and Lila hadn’t expected perfection. She knew she could be irritating and that everyone had a bad day every now and then. But when had the bad day turned so horrible? Had she missed something, some kind of sign? When had it become okay for him to hit her?
Ms. Feinberg was still speaking, so Lila shook herself out of her thoughts and tried to pay attention. “You’d be surprised how many young women are assaulted or abused by someone they know—even if they seem charming and attentive—while in high school and college. It’s a tough time for a lot of people. You’re trying to find your way, figure out what you want to do with your life. There are a lot of decisions to be made. For some, it’s the first time they’re out from mom and dad’s eye and really on their own.” She clears her throat. “Did you ever feel isolated from your friends or family in the time you were with him?”
Lila sat chewing on her lip. She hadn’t had many friends when she was at State. Most of the people she kept up with were at other schools, like Gretchen. It’s easier to lie to someone in an email. She’d had her roommate and a few acquaintances, but nothing like the group of friends she’d had in high school. And it had been hard to get home to see her mother without Tyler. He’d had a car and she didn’t. So whenever she went home, it was usually with him. And with his practice and game schedules, he didn’t make it home very often.
“I guess.”
Ms. Feinberg nodded, as if this confirmed what she’d already discovered. “We see this frequently in domestic violence cases. Young men who become physically abusive are often controlling and manipulative as well. Believe me, you’re not the only one to go through this.” She paused. “Do you have a support system now?”
Lila wasn’t sure whether to feel grateful or appalled. She wasn’t alone on the boat, hurray! But the fact that she was in the boat at all, and worse, that others were too, really bothered her. Still, she nodded. “I’m living with my best friend. We’re off campus. I changed schools. It was partly because they didn’t have my major at my old school, and partly to get away from him. I’ve managed to make some good friends here.”
“And your roommate, she knows about your ex-boyfriend and the abuse?”
Lila nodded once more. “Yeah. She’s one of the few people that know everything.” Most everything, anyway. “It was her idea that I talk to somebody.”
Ms. Feinberg smiled. “She’s absolutely right. It is a good idea to talk to someone about what you went through. You’ve gone through something very traumatic and talking about it can help. Once out of a hurtful relationship, lots of women find they are dealing with some difficult aftereffects, which are completely normal but can become unhealthy if you don’t deal with them.”
“Okay.” Lila wasn’t entirely sold on the idea yet, but it couldn’t hurt.
“Are you experiencing any feelings of depression, anxiety or hopelessness? How about being able to concentrate in classes? Have you noticed any changes in your eating or sleeping habits? Are you having any nightmares about your ex or about the abuse?”
Lila wondered if there was a checklist that Ms. Feinberg was working from, and if there was a metric for how crazy she might be. Something like, five checks and you go straight to the loony bin; three and you get the happy pills. “Nightmares sometimes. I’m a little jumpy, I guess.” She thought for a moment. “School is going good. I love my classes. It’s nice to have something to look forward to, you know?” Wow, that sounded deeply and abidingly lame-the best thing going in her life was classes. “I’m doing a little singing with a band, so that helps too.”
“That’s wonderful. Having friends and a number of interests is important. I bet you weren’t able to pursue your own interests at your last school.”
“He liked me at all of his games and practices. I was his good luck charm.” Lila refrained from shuddering. She was a person, not an ornament.
“Lila, did you ever need to call the police or make a report to campus security? Did you ever have to go to a doctor or the ER for any injuries by your ex-boyfriend?”
This is what she hadn’t wanted to talk about. She wasn’t ready to share that, not with someone she’d just met. Lila tried to give the least detailed answer possible. “I had to go the emergency room for my hand, but that was an accident.” She took a deep breath, and continued. “But when I told him I was leaving, he pushed me down some stone steps and I wound up in the hospital.”
“And was a police report filed?”
Lila picked at a rough cuticle on her index finger. “No, it was listed as an accident.” She met Ms. Feinberg’s eyes squarely. “His dad is a lawyer—a big one. My mom is his paralegal and my ex threatened that if I said anything, he’d have her fired. And he threatened to make my younger brother’s life hell in school too.”
Ms. Feinberg, if anything, looked more sympathetic. “Did you tell your parents about what happened?”
“It’s just my mom and brother and me.” Lila glanced at the clock, wondering how much longer this session was going to last. “And I did tell her before I left for school. She wanted to call the police then, but I wouldn’t let her.”
Ms. Feinberg folded her hands on her desktop, smoothing the blotter down with the side of her fists. “I am so sorry you’ve been through this. No one deserves to be abused—emotionally or physically—by someone who is supposed to love them. You don’t have to deal with this alone. We have a couple of different counseling and support options here. For instance, we have a few groups that meet on campus to offer support for students.”
“Like group therapy?” Lila wasn’t sure if she wanted to share so much of herself with a bunch of total strangers. “I don’t know.”
Again the faint nod. “There are also private sessions, much like what you did here with me today, if those are more comfortable for you.”
Lila’s hands twisted into shapes in her lap. “I suppose I can do one or two private sessions.”
Ms. Feinberg stood and went to a tall filing cabinet behind her. “Excellent. I’m going to give you some information and some forms I want you to fill out before your next session. You don’t have to read it all right away, but I do want you to work on the safety plan I’m going to give you. Think you can do that?”
Lila nodded, accepting the sheaf of papers that she was handed. “I’ll try.”
Chapter Twenty
Gretchen got another beer out of the fridge and handed it to Lila. They were polishing off the first of two six-packs, drowning their respective sorrows. Shonda and Gretchen had had a fight—about what, Gretch wasn’t saying—and Lila had been reliving a lot of her past with Tyler since going to see th
e counselor. Today had been particularly bad.
“Thanks,” Lila said, taking the bottle from her. She was feeling languid as she sat on the couch, almost as if she were moving in slow motion.
Gretchen plopped back into the chair, her own bottle in her hand. “God, what a shitty day.”
“Yep,” Lila agreed, taking a long swig.
“I’m sorry I told Van about you and Tyler,” Gretchen said, completely out of the blue. She peered blearily at her roommate.
Lila waved her apology away. “You already apologized for that. Don’t worry about it.” She paused, then looked at her roommate curiously. “Are you going to tell me what you and Shonda fought about?”
Gretchen rolled the bottle between her hands. Her hair fell into her face and she didn’t bother to push it away. In a low voice, she said, “You.”
Leaning forward, Lila forced her mind to work at the word Gretchen had just said. “Me?” she asked incredulously. Gretchen nodded. “Why?”
A sigh. “She thinks I spend too much time with you. That I care more about you than I do about her.” She put her beer on the coffee table and ran her hands through her hair, pulling the blonde curtain behind her shoulders. “She’s jealous.”
Lila blinked. Why on earth would Shonda be jealous of her? Gretchen was crazy about Shonda. “Does she know I’m not gay?”
Gretchen rolled her eyes. “Yes. Of course.”
“So what’s the problem?” She set down her beer as well.
“She thinks I have a crush on you.” Gretchen didn’t look at Lila when she said it.
Lila leaned even farther forward, trying to get her roommate to look at her. “Do you?”
Gretchen’s eyes jumped to meet hers, the brilliant blue shadowed and dim. “You’re my best friend.”
“And that won’t change, Gretch,” Lila said, reaching out and taking her hand. “But that’s not an answer.” She swallowed. “Is Shonda right?”
Gretchen squeezed her hand. “No.” Her smile was a sad and broken thing. “She’s not. Not anymore.”
Squeezing back, Lila asked, “But you did—at one time?” When? Had she missed some signs? Had she inadvertently hurt her best friend?
She took a drink then set the bottle back down. “It was back when I was first figuring out I liked girls.”
“That was years ago!” Lila couldn’t believe Shonda could feel threatened by a crush that was over and done with at the beginning of high school.
Gretchen shrugged and pulled her hand away from Lila. “I know and I told her that. But she doesn’t understand why I spend so much time with you if I don’t have feelings for you.”
Lila sat up, wishing she wasn’t quite so buzzed. She felt like she was going to mess up somehow, say something wrong since she wasn’t sober. She didn’t want to hurt Gretchen, especially not after everything she’d done. She had a thought. “Have you told her about Tyler and me?”
She shook her head. “You asked me not to say anything to anyone.”
Lila smiled wryly. “And we see how well that worked out with Van.” She gave her roommate a push, sending her toppling back in the chair. “You didn’t have to go into the whole stupid story, but you could have told her the basics.”
Gretchen pulled herself up from the depths of the marshmallow armchair and scowled at Lila. “After the hissy fit you had about Van?” She tossed her hair out of her face. “You think I wanted to risk the silent treatment again? No thanks.”
“I didn’t expect you to drop the knowledge on a guy I liked!” Lila raised her hands and shook them. “Ugh, never mind that. Forget about Van! Just tell Shonda what’s going on. I’m sorry I caused any problems between you and your girlfriend.”
“There you go, doing it again,” Gretchen practically shouted.
“What am I doing?” Lila was exasperated. She clearly wasn’t going to be doing anything right in this conversation.
“Apologizing again! Do you realize how often you say you’re sorry on a daily basis? It’s like you’re apologizing for even existing!” Gretchen managed to get to her feet. “When are you going to stop it? You’re not dating him anymore!”
Lila was suddenly glad that she wasn’t completely sober. Ordinarily she would have pushed down her anger and apologized, or deflected, or some other defense mechanism that had become second nature to her. Now, though, she pushed herself to her feet, pacing away from the couch and table to go and stand by the front windows. She crossed her arms over her chest, her whole body feeling flushed.
“Don’t you think I know that!” she shouted at her roommate, eyes filling with tears of frustration. “Don’t you think I wish I could suddenly be like I was before I met Tyler, that I could flip a switch and I wouldn’t be this way? Don’t you think I hate what he made me? What I let him do to me?” She ripped her hand through her hair, closer to screaming than she’d been since she’d woken up in the hospital. “I know you want me to get over it. I’m trying! But do you even know how hard it is to get out of bed some mornings? To just keep going when you feel like you’re never going to be right or happy, ever again?” Her voice was raw from yelling and from holding back sobs. Tears were streaming down her face. “God, I am so sick of being like this!”
Gretchen stared at her, blue eyes wide and horrified. Her mouth opened and closed like a landed fish. “I…I didn’t know.” She swallowed. “You’ve never said anything like this before.”
“Yes I have,” Lila snapped, still angry, but at whom she wasn’t sure.
“No.” Gretchen got up and walked over to her roommate, but stopped when she was still an arm’s length away. “You never said anything like that before. You barely talk about how you’re feeling—I still don’t even know everything you went through! You don’t talk to anyone and I really think you need to.”
Lila gave out a strangled laugh, then put her hand over her mouth. She could feel the sobs shaking her body, but was unable to stop them. She slid down the wall, her chest heaving, her hand still pressed to her mouth. Gretchen followed her down, grabbing her free hand and holding it tight. She didn’t say anything, just waited out the storm of Lila’s tears.
Eventually Lila stopped, pulling in a wet, deep breath. With a hiccup, she wiped her eyes with a sleeve. “Sorry,” she said with a sheepish smile.
“We’re making a pact right now,” Gretchen whispered, keeping her head close to Lila’s. “No more saying sorry, either in this apartment or out of it. Neither of us has anything to apologize for. Deal?”
Lila looked at her roommate, eyes wide. “I don’t know if I can do that. But I’ll try.” She squeezed Gretchen’s hand. “Deal.”
Gretchen stared at her strangely for a moment, then took a deep breath. “I want to ask you something.”
Lila felt her eyebrows draw down, not liking the serious expression on her roommate’s face. “Okay,” she said, drawing out the word a little.
“Did Tyler,” she paused, as if trying to figure out how to ask her question. “Did he ever rape you?”
Lila felt like the room was closing in on her. She didn’t know how to answer that; she hadn’t even been expecting a question like it. She let her breath out in a gasp, and leaned her head back against the wall. “I…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “I don’t know if you can call it rape.”
She felt Gretchen tense against her. “What would you call it then?” Her voice was soft, pitched low as if she were afraid of scaring Lila.
Lila closed her eyes. “I mean, it wasn’t like he held me down and forced me to have sex with him.” A shudder ripped through her. “He’d be drunk and wanting to have sex and I didn’t want to. But,” she trailed off, remembering one really bad night when she’d tried to stop Tyler. “It was just better if I didn’t tell him no.”
“You mean he wouldn’t hit you.” Gretchen’s voice was flat.
Lila nodded, biting her lip. She wouldn’t look at her roommate. She drew in a shuddering breath. “God, I sound so pathetic.” She hadn’t thoug
ht she had any more tears left in, but she felt a few more spill from beneath her closed lids.
“Hey!” Gretchen’s voice was suddenly hard, a short bark. “You’re not the one who’s pathetic. I don’t want you to ever say that again. He’s a douchebag who hit you and put you in the hospital. He’s the pathetic one.”
Lila managed a weak laugh. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Come over here so I can give you a proper hug, please,” Gretchen ordered, a smile in her voice.
Lila scooted over and let her roommate wrap her arms lightly around you. “You need to fix things with Shonda,” she reminded her.
“I will.” Gretchen rested her chin against the top of Lila’s head. “But right now, I’m good right here.”
“Me too.” Lila held onto Gretchen’s forearms, leaning her back against her friend’s chest. She felt better. Like she’d released something she hadn’t realized she was clinging to. “Thanks, Gretchen.”
“Any time, Li. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Lila sat stiffly on the couch in her therapist’s office. She had come prepared with her completed safety plan, as Ms. Feinberg had requested, and she’d read through all of the material provided to her at their previous meeting. She was nervous for some reason, as if there was still some test she might have to pass to continue on with the therapy.
“How are you doing, Lila?” Ms. Feinberg asked.
“Okay, I guess. Good days, bad days.” She didn’t really know how to explain everything she’d been feeling lately. “I’ve been sleeping a little better.” She passed over the plan she’d filled out. “I hope I got it right.”
Her therapist placed the plan on her desk, resting her hand on it. She only glanced briefly at it. “We’ll get to that in a bit. What I wanted to talk to you about today was your breakup with your boyfriend. I understand if it is painful, but I’d like to hear about it, if you’re feeling up to it.” She smiled gently, as if afraid Lila might break.
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