by K. L. Savage
I tilt my head down and wrap my hand around the red solo cup. The foam hisses as the beer settles. Brody’s blue eyes watch me with interest as I take my first sip. I swallow, and a grin I don’t know how to explain takes over the kindness on his face. Brody’s arm wraps around my neck, and the cheap scent of his cologne has me lifting the beer to my mouth again.
If beer smells better than my best friend, then we have a problem.
“How do you feel?” Brody asks, his smooth jaw flexing with impatience as he watches me.
“Fine, why?”
“I knew you didn’t want to come tonight. I’m just making sure you’re having a good time,” he shouts.
“Yeah, wanted to see you. I want to leave early. You know this isn’t my thing.”
“I know; thanks for coming anyway,” he states as his hand drops to my hip, squeezing it. “You know, Joanna, I have something I want to tell you.”
I dodge out of his hand by spinning away and giving him my attention. I don’t want it to seem like I’m shying away from his touch, but something is different with him tonight, and it’s making me uncomfortable.
“What?” I take a bigger gulp of my beer, hoping it gives me the courage I need to deal with this conversation. As he starts to speak, his voice turns deeper, and his face starts to slant. “Wait,” I slur. I lift my hand to my head to stop the spinning.
“Joanna, you okay?” Brody’s tone becomes a deep baritone, like someone speaking slow motion in the movies.
“I fee—I feel—fu—” I can’t form the words that my brain is thinking. The cup drops from my hand, and the beer spills out, splashing all over my new flats. “Brody?” His name is tied amongst my tongue. My legs give out from under me, and Brody catches me in his arms.
“Oh, man. You said you were a lightweight, but I didn’t think you were this much of a lightweight,” he says.
“I … I don’t…” My head lulls to the side and rests against his shoulder. “Feel… so good.” I swallow, my mouth as dry as a cotton ball. As we pass people, their bodies sway and morph together. I can’t see their faces. I can’t move anything. I try to lift my head, move my arms, but I feel weak and paralyzed.
“You’ll be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you; you know that, Joanna,” he says calmy. He walks down the hallway and passes one of his friends. “Too much to drink. She partied hard.”
“Hell yeah!” The guy high fives Brody as if it’s an accomplishment for me to be this drunk. I think something was wrong with my drink. This isn’t normal.
“You can sleep it off in my room,” Brody says as he opens his bedroom door.
“Take… me home,” I manage to say just as he lays me on the bed. The mattress gives, and the blanket is cool against my heated skin. Oh, that’s nice. The room isn’t spinning as bad either. Maybe I will stay here for the night.
“No.” Brody strokes my cheek, and I squeeze my eyes and shake my head to clear the fog in my brain. “God, you’re beautiful. Do you know how much I love you, Joanna? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to tell you?” His hands slide down my neck and slip under the collar of my cardigan as he tugs it off my arms.
I try to fight him, but the only thing my wiggling around does is take the cardigan off. “Brody, stop,” I tell him, hoping he can understand me through my slurred voice. “We talk tomorrow.”
He lifts me up limply, hands in the middle of my back as he kisses along my neck. “No, I need to tell you now, Joanna. School is almost over. I know you feel this between us. I can take care of you. I have a damn good job. I couldn’t get you to listen to me. I’m sorry,” he says, leaning down and pressing a kiss against my still lips.
“Wha…” I try to form the words but whatever is happening to me is taking me further into darkness. “Brody—no,” I beg. “Not… like this.” My hands are cement blocks at my sides as I try to press against his chest to get him off me, but I can’t move.
“So goddamn pretty. You’d never let me have you otherwise. I have to have you. You don’t understand, Joanna. I love you.” He yanks my shirt over my head next, and the black abyss edging my vision threatens to take me under to the point that I won’t be able to defend myself in any way.
“St—stop it.” The demand is weak slurs. “No, Brody!” His name is the only word that leaves my mouth that I can understand.
“I can’t. Not when it comes to you.” He unbuttons my pants, pulls them down my legs, and moans. “Look at you, all this beautiful, soft skin. Mmm.” He bends over and presses a kiss to my navel.
I tell my muscles to move, but I can’t. Nothing is working. I’m frozen. I can see what he’s doing to me, but I can’t protest. I can’t move. When I try to speak, nothing comes out besides fearful whimpers.
I should’ve listened to my instincts and left when I first got to this party.
“Feel me. Can you feel how hard you make me? It’s like that all the time,” he says, taking my hand in his and pressing it against his erection.
Tears brim my eyes as I try to yank away from him, but he groans, thinking I’m trying to rub him.
“I can’t wait any longer,” he moans and rips at my bra, the material tearing until my breasts are free. My nipples bead from the cold air wrapping around them. “I knew you’d like this. You just needed to relax,” he praises my body’s natural reaction to air. He sucks a nipple between his lips and lets go with a rough plop.
Tears leave my eyes as I think about Eric. I don’t know why my mind is concentrating on him, but he’s the only peace I can think of. Maybe he’ll be able to help me after this? Doctor’s do that, right?
“Bro—dy, no,” I struggle once more. My eyelids hood, forcing themselves shut, and when another small burst of energy takes over, I open them wide again. It’s pointless—whatever was in that drink is going to be the death of me.
Eric will never want to touch me now.
I’ll be ruined. Sloppy seconds. Used goods.
A girl who went to a party and had sex. That’s all I’ll ever be.
Brody’s nails dig in my sides and scratch down my ribcage, leaving red lines in my rapist’s wake.
I shake my head and try to roll over, to see if maybe I can gain enough momentum to roll off the bed.
But I don’t.
I physically can’t.
His palms fondle my tits, and he kisses his way down my stomach until he reaches my panties. “N … n … no,” I try to yell, but I can barely hear my weak plea. Another tear sounds and he hums in sexual satisfaction when he can see me head to toe, naked.
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.
“Doc!” Badge yells from the top of the stairs.
What now? We have church in thirty minutes. I don’t have time for this.
“Everyone wants a piece of Doc today, huh?” Skirt asks as he stares at the staircase to see what Badge is bellowing about. I told him to go get my phone from the house but to be careful not to wake Jo. I want her to rest. Now that I think about it, I was selfish last night. The doctor at the hospital said she needed rest, and I definitely did not let her rest last night. Damn it, I should have.
“Shit, Doc!” Skirt slaps my arm to get my attention, and I look at the staircase to see Badge carrying a very limp, very pale, Jo.
I drop everything in my hands, and they clatter to the floor. My heart is dead in my chest when I see the amount of blood flowing down her leg. The towel is soaked red.
“What the fuck happened?” I snatch her from his arms and cradle her to my chest while I carry her over to another bed. The only empty bed I have left. When did this become an emergency room all of a sudden? “Jo, baby? Hey…” I shake her a bit to try to get her beautiful green eyes to open. “Jo-love, please answer me. What happened, Badge? Tell me everything.” I unwrap the towel from her leg and wince when I see another vertical cut. She’s nicked her artery. She’s going to need another transfusion. Goddamn it. “I asked what happened!” I bellow as I run to the fridge to grab a bag of blood.
“I … I don’t know. I grabbed your phone from the top of your desk like you said, and I heard sniffling. I wanted to make sure she was okay, and I found her like that on the toilet. I swear, I don’t know. Doc, she said she was pregnant and didn’t ask for it. What does that mean? Do we need to find him? We’ll kill him.”
“I’ve been asking her about it. She hasn’t remembered.” I hook her up to an IV and place the bag on the hook. I don’t bother wheeling her into the surgical room. I start to operate on her right then and there. The pain doesn’t wake her up.
“What happened to her?” Moretti asks.
“Don’t act like you care. I don’t have time for you right now.�
�� I see the bleeder, it’s a small nick, but it definitely would have killed her if Badge hadn’t found her when he did. With her artery cauterized, I suture her skin, pressing it together and try to make small, even X’s. No matter what I do, the scar will be bad. It’s long, so fucking long, and I’m taken back to only a week ago when I found her with her arms slit.
God, has it only been a week? It feels like an eternity with everything that’s gone down.
When the last stitch is in, I clean off the wound and put another bandage over her leg. I don’t understand what could’ve made her do this. I’m stumped. I thought everything was going great, but then again, I’m not feeling what she’s feeling. So I’m not going to understand. I just want to protect her. I want to shield her from this kind of pain. I want to be the safety net that catches her when she falls so she knows there’s someone there waiting with their arms open.
“Can someone keep an eye on her while I go clean up?” I say in a monotone voice, tired, spent, and unhappy. “I need my phone.” I hold out my hand to Badge, who’s soaked from head to toe with blood. “Wait,” I say, stopping him from giving it to me. “I need to check the heartbeat of the baby and see if it’s still there.” I rub my temples with my fingers, forgetting that I have her blood all over my hands.
I’m not sure how much longer I can deal with being a doctor down here all by myself, especially when I know Jo is going to be taking up so much of my attention. That isn’t a complaint. I want her to.
I love every fucked up part of her.
And I won’t let her be fucked up alone.
With tired steps, I walk toward the cabinet and open it, pulling out the portable ultrasound machine. I wonder if it matters. Does she care? I care. I want her which means I want this baby. That asshole, whoever took advantage of her, gave up his right as a father when he raped her.
I’ll take care of what’s mine.
And they are mine.
I stride to her side, and she starts to ruse. I know she’ll be in pain because I didn’t have time to put her under. She was unconscious. Before I check the heartbeat, I open the drawer for some morphine and stick it into her IV bag, something I should’ve done earlier.