I couldn't stop thinking about it. Those past few days had resurfaced a lot of memories I had tried to avoid, and now I was kept awake thinking about them. In my head I saw Annissa laying beside me in bed with her black eye, and crying while we made love. I turned on my side and closed my eyes, and images from the hospital came to my mind in short flashes. I saw a bird's eye view of myself, black and white, shuffling down the hallway, then Angel's big blue eyes. I sat upright in my bed, my breath hitching in my throat, but I soon realized where I was and relaxed. Alex shifted beside me, and I put my arm around her when I settled back in the sheets.
"I was fucked by a man in the LAP," I whispered in her ear. It was the first time I had ever spoken those words and they fell upon deaf ears. I didn't want her to respond. I didn't know whether it was because I didn't want to her to hear or if it was because I didn't want to hear what she'd say. The emotion in me was strong, and I had to continue. Her body heat next to mine was support enough to keep it going, to silently cheer me on.
"He had obsessive compulsive disorder, among other things. I don't remember really, but he definitely had power and control issues. He jerked off in the showers when everyone was in there. I mostly ignored it.
"I don't remember much about that place, really, but I don't really know if I'm supposed to." I said, "Isaac told me that I was in intensive care for a week. Did you know that?"
"It was three days before I came home, remember? I was finally getting the fuck out of that place for good. I walked into the shower that afternoon and the monitor was on the floor unconscious. When I looked up, Steve had Angel pinned to the wall. I don't really know what I was thinking - Angel had come through so much, and this was the last thing he deserved. Angel was crying, I didn't know what to do... so I tried to stop Steve, but he just knocked me over."
I squeezed my eyes shut and tears were forced out, tears that I had ignored, a pain I couldn't feel. "I stood up. I placed my palms on the wall, and I said, 'Fuck me, fuck me, leave him alone and fuck me.' And he did. Then he left. Then Angel left. Then I cried."
Suddenly there was a release, and tears began pouring from my eyes. I didn't doubt that she was awake while I clutched her, crying profusely.
"And I couldn't feel a fucking thing. My hips were bruised from banging into the wall, and I couldn't sit down properly for three days - but the only sensation that I recall having was complete numbness.
"He told everyone what had happened, well, his side of it anyway. I didn't care. I spent the past two years convincing myself that I had asked for it, and that I shouldn't feel like I do. But I do. I felt violated and sick. The Stripe saw me in the shower crying but never told me that he knew. I know he did though, he let me cry and watched me throw up in the bushes but didn't tell my doctor about it.
"All I could think about were all the times a fan copped a feel, like I wouldn't notice or something. Or unwanted gestures from old executive men from L.A. when I was fourteen. Or Annissa's father squeezing my balls until I was crying, until I complied with what he wanted. Every time someone touched my shoulder I wanted to just shoot myself. I didn't want to be touched anymore."
I was gripping her hands now, thumbs running roughly over her palms. "Angel told me that he was gangbanged in a locker room at juvie. They made him lean over the sink as they did it. One of them made him suck his dick and he kept throwing up. Annissa cried the first time we made love. She was shaking, even though I was going slowly. I never thought about the pain before, I never knew how much it could hurt. I didn't want to hurt her.
"All I wanted to do was to go home to you and Isaac and just be away from there. I was sick of it, and it hurt so badly, I just wanted to get away. I finally did. Angel was the only one who knew, really knew, that is. Now you do," I cried, "If only you were awake."
I leant my head against her shoulder. I knew she was awake. "But don't say anything." I whispered, "Just tell me tomorrow."
With those words I stopped speaking and let the tears die out slowly until I fell asleep.
I woke that next morning to Alex stroking my chest with her fingers and staring at me lovingly. The room was still dim with morning and I knew no one else was awake yet. The only two thoughts in my head were how wonderful her hands felt and how long I could lie there until Theo forced one of us, or both of us, to get out of bed. What I had said the night before had already completely left my mind.
"Your eyes are so blue." She said, dropping her chin down to kiss me on the cheek. "Did you know that?"
I nodded, "So I've been told."
"They're beautiful."
"Not as beautiful as you are." I took a piece of her hair and wound it around in my fingers.
She shook her head and then rested it on my chest. "Thank you," She said, then paused. I looked down at her, stroking her shoulder with my thumb, "For what you said last night."
For a second I had almost forgotten, was that a dream, or was it real? Had I really held her hands and told her all of that? I got choked up at her comment, and asked, "You were awake?"
"Yes."
"The whole time?"
"Yes," She whispered, "You told me not to say anything, so I didn't."
Tears welled up in my eyes. Everything. All of the pain took its heavy locks and flew away. I took Alex in my arms and hugged her. My naked skin felt warm against her; her fingers traced over the knots in my back. "Thank you," I said, "For listening and still loving me."
She smiled and I felt her hands in my hair, which caused a tingle down my spine and goose bumps. I sighed and we lay that way all morning. Peaceful, happy, only waiting for Theo to summon. I moved in to kiss her, and we both jumped, surprised, when the door flew open and Isaac came strolling into our bedroom with a toothbrush in his mouth.
I sat up in bed, pulling the sheets over me, "What the fuck are you doing?"
"I'm sick of using a pocket mirror because the only mirror in the house, beside the one in your bedroom, was smashed." He said, rolling his eyes at me.
"What? Get out of my room." I commanded, "You could have at least knocked!"
He walked out momentarily and I sunk back into the sheets, sighing. I was about to get up and shut the door, but no sooner had he left he returned, shaving cream on his face, a towel draped over his arm and a toiletry bag readily available.
I sighed, miserably, "You can't wait to do this? Theo's only just waking up right now!"
He ignored me, and went on with his shaving in front of my mirror, wiping his razor off on a towel periodically. "No, I can't." He said, eventually. "I'm an early riser, okay? I like to look presentable, even though I know that you don't give a crap, or anything."
"It's six in the fucking morning!" I moaned.
He slipped out, presumably to wash his face and I sighed, swinging my feet over the side of the bed, in somewhat preparation to get up. I was not a morning person. Alex groaned next to me and then bolted from the room. Morning sickness. Somehow I was convinced that it wasn't healthy.
Isaac came back in the room looking ready to primp and I could hear Theo crying down the hall. When the fuck did this morning explode, again? I was sure now that Jessica would be in a horrible mood when she woke up, it would only be perfect.
I grabbed Theo from his crib and we waited patiently outside the bathroom door for Alex. Well, I waited patiently, anyway - Theo was squirming and screaming directly in my ear. This house was roomy but it only had one bathroom. I hardly noticed, usually, as it was just the three of us and I was used to sharing a bathroom with a lot more people - but with a screaming child in your arms who just pissed all over the front of your T-shirt, time seems to go slower.
"So much for diapers that don't leak." I sighed, holding Theo out in front of me to examine the damage. I decided, that at this point it really didn't matter anymore, and all that I wanted was a diaper. Seeing Alex barf wasn't something that I had never seen before, so I took it upon myself to let me into the bathroom, only to discover Jessica was on the other side getting ready for a shower.
"Taylor!" She shrieked, covering her body with a towel.
"I'm sorry, I just need..." Then the door was slammed in my face, "...a diaper." I growled, and returned with a wet Theo to his room. I decided to relieve him of some of his misery and changed him out of the sopping wet (worthless) diaper. We were trying to potty train him, but a morning like this made everything impossible.
I searched around the room for a fresh diaper, and Alex came in when my head was buried under the changing table. "Tay! What are you doing?"
"What does it look like? I'm trying to find a diaper for your kid."
"He's my kid when he's grumpy?" I looked up at her, and she had her eyes narrowed at me. She tossed a diaper in my direction. "Did you think of checking the baby bag, genius?"
I grunted, taking the diaper. "It's six in the morning!" I reminded, and she rolled her eyes. Once he was dressed he seemed much happier, which was a plus, until he started complaining about being hungry.
I handed him off to Alex, and banged my fists into the bathroom door. "Get out of the shower! I need to use the bathroom!"
"Taylor. Stop being rude." Alex scolded from down the hallway.
I growled and slammed into our bedroom, pulling clean clothes out of the drawers and muttering under my breath. Jessica came into my bedroom, once again uninvited, and brushed her hair in front of my mirror, dressed in only a towel.
"Why did you bang on my door like that?"
I ignored her, and grabbed my things. "Are you done in the bathroom?"
"Yes." She said, and I walked in and tossed my clothes in. All of the towels from the week had been tossed in the hamper already, and there were none left for me to take a shower. I went back into my room, where Jessica was still standing, and I grabbed her towel off of her body, leaving her screaming over being naked or something... but I didn't care. I had a towel now.
Isaac was already cooking breakfast when I got out of the shower, and Theo was seated in the high chair at the table. I felt much better now that I was clean. I sat down next to Theo and noticed that he and Isaac were just chattering away at each other. Theo was going on and on to Isaac in baby babble, and Isaac was talking back to him as if he knew exactly what he was saying. Alex walked into the room from our bedroom, and Isaac casually carried on with Theo as I peeled the label off of a bottle of ketchup. It took her a minute to realize he wasn't talking to me, and she soon burst out laughing.
I looked up at her and smiled, but she was already ignoring me and showering Theo with attention. She kept asking him "Who's the cutest boy on earth?" And he kept saying, "Tee! Tee!" My head was splitting, and I just wasn't in the mood at the moment to listen to Alex talk in that annoying voice she used when she asked him the 'cutest boy' question.
I frowned, I could tell without even looking up that there was a dark stormy cloud over my head, I could feel the oppressive force of it in my sinuses. Jessica sat down directly across from me with a pissy look on her face. Well good. At least I wasn't the only one in a pissy mood this morning. I already knew that her pissyness was going to be funneled directly at me, so I didn't know why I was congratulating myself.
I got up and opened the medicine cabinet for some aspirin, and Isaac announced that the eggs were ready and began scraping them out on plates. I sat down for breakfast and Isaac served us all eggs, sunny side up, with bacon.
"Taylor, what's wrong?" Someone (Alex) finally asked me.
I grunted, and continued eating my breakfast, only finishing half of it before I grunted something about time to think, and retreated to the bedroom and locked the door, no one was going to interrupt me, this time. This morning was giving me a headache, and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. I flopped down on my bed and covered my face with a pillow. Maybe if I pressed hard enough I could suffocate.
I lay completely still, and then decided I would feel better if I jerked off. Maybe I was just sexually frustrated, Jessica and Isaac put a quick halt to our regular fuck schedule (for the time being), and the tension was just building up. Yes. That was it.
I fantasized about Alex and I on the beach during our honeymoon, my thoughts soon interrupted by an irritating knock on the door. "Go Away!" I shouted.
"Tay!" I heard Alex trying the door knob, "Come on, this is Jess and Ike's last day in the city! Let's take them somewhere, come on. Stop being a prick!"
I sighed. "Five minutes."
It may have been longer than five minutes, but eventually I rolled out of bed and dragged myself into the hallway. "Alright, I'm here. Where are we going?"
The day got better, honestly, it did. We all started off our day rather pissy, arguing about everything from where we wanted to go to whether we would sit down for a few minutes. Jessica was still angry with me about what happened at the club the other night and Isaac just seemed more bent on pissing the rest of us off than actually annoyed himself. Even Theo was grumpy, and it was a cloudy day. After lunch we were sitting in a park, talking as if we were obligated, and it all came down to a one on one head knocking with Jess to pick our day up.
Isaac and I were debating some stupid political hot issue, Jess was pulling grass out of the ground, and didn't appear to be listening. I said, "Well I don't think that that's necessarily wrong."
And Isaac said, "Well, what makes it right?"
Then Jessica said, "So would that justify grabbing someone by the hair and ramming their head into the wall?" Everyone had their heads turned to look at her, now. "That's right, Taylor. That was directed at you."
"No, Jess, there were reasons for that. Don't even bring that up, again."
"He didn't hurt me."
"He had his hands on his belt! You know what? Forget it. I'm not talking to you about this here." I muttered. I stood up and walked down the way a little, expecting her to follow.
"I think I could have handled it, Taylor." She said from behind me. She did follow me. "I'm not a little baby anymore, I can take care of myself. I could have handled it."
I shook my head, "You are a baby. You don't know anything if you think he was unobtrusive. Jess, I'm a guy, all right? I saw what he was doing and he wasn't going to stop just because you were saying to... he didn't when you said to once, what makes you think he will when you said to later!?"
"You didn't have to do what you did. You could've just hit him once and walked away."
I slumped, "Well, maybe you're right. In fact, you probably are right. I got a little carried away. But that wasn't just for you, you know. It was for anyone else he touches." I stopped for a second, the words rolling off of my tongue before they hit home, "There was a lot I shouldn't have done, and I'm sorry. I should have called the police."
Then I lit a cigarette, swallowing the lump in my throat. I choked on my smoke and went into a coughing fit. Jess patted my back.
"Are you okay?"
I nodded, then turned away from her, sighing as I continued to walk down the path, Jessica right on my heels.
"Tay?" She asked, jogging after me, my strides too long for her. It was the first time she sounded compassionate all afternoon.
"I'm sorry." I reacted angrily, and it wasn't her fault... it was mine. "There's a lot of shit on my mind these days okay? Be fucking thankful for what I did. I saved you a hell of a lot of fucking grief. Don't tell me I don't understand, because I understand. I understand more than I would ever, ever, want you to know."
"Taylor, what are you talking about?"
"Listen," I said, stopping in front of her and staring into her face. "I know people that have been raped. I would have rather you endure the death of your best friend over some cheap disgusting fuck in a grungy hallway at a venue. No little sister of mine is going to have anything like that ever happen to her, not while I'm around, and I know I'm not the only person that feels that way."
She started to retreat, and I started to soften my glare a little, "God only knows how many girls I fucked in dirty venues, that probably didn't want to, or maybe did, then regretted it. I never raped anyone, but that stuff gets messy. I just didn't want you to get hurt. Please just understand that. Looking back, it would have done me a lot of good to have someone ram my head into the wall."
I knew deep down that none of this was about that. I wanted to tell her exactly all of the reasons I had done what I did but I couldn't, so I tried the best to explain it to her another way. To at least make her understand my concerns. I couldn't tell if she was receiving me by the look on her face, so I just let out a sigh and sit down, my cigarette was nearly burnt out with an inch of ash on the end of it. I kept trying to gather and re-gather my thoughts into words. I wanted to tell her it was Annissa's father at the other end of my fists, but I couldn't. Eventually, I just gave up and broke down crying, shaking my head back and forth at the memories that were stuck in my head.
At first, I don't think she noticed I was crying, but she joined me on the grass and wrapped her arms around me, and it was then that I looked up at her and she saw me. "Tay..."
"There's so many things that I can't tell you, and I wish I could. It wasn't you, it wasn't you. There are some things you never retell, and this is one of those... please understand, please."
"I do." She said, rubbing her hand up and down on my back, "I didn't realize..."
"It's okay," I said, "But thank you for stopping me. You saved me from a lot of trouble, I would have killed him."
"I'm surprised he wasn't unconscious."
"So am I." I wiped my eyes, and sniffed, the tears going away.
With a sigh, we both calmed down, and it seemed that our fight was resolved. When we said goodbye at the airport I squeezed her hand and reminded her to stay strong for me, no matter what. Isaac was flying back to New York where he now lived with a new girlfriend of his, but Jess was taking the Tulsa route. She had one more year of high school before she could escape into the world. We all hugged our one last time before we had to go our separate ways, and all of the events of the morning, and the past few years seemed to fade away. They were my family, and we were meant to be together.
After we put Theo down for the night, Alex gave me a sponge bath and I shaved her legs. It was so relaxing, rejuvenating. When we got out I lay down in bed, and she sat next to me rubbing my shoulders, putting me right to sleep. I slept better that night than I had slept in years. No nightmares, no interruptions, and no insomnia, in the morning when I woke up, feeling well rested, I thought for sure that I was ready to die. But I shook my head when I noticed Alex sleeping sound next to me with her slightly rounded belly showing through the sheets. No, I was not ready to die, I was ready to start a new life.
That night in the tub, I was cleansed of all of the guilt, all of the pain. I shed it like an old skin and flushed it down the drain. It was that night that a part of me died, and the rest of me realized that I could go on, for real this time. Put the past behind and relearn how to live my life another way. And it didn't look so bad after all.