Page 99 of Riding the Pine

My trauma doesn’t think so.

Turns out, after a traumatic event, your body can often react in ways we don’t want it to and have no idea how to fix. The whole attack is still playing in my mind on a loop, but as though it was happening to someone else, not to me.

I remember the warm feeling of the urine as it seeped under my freezing cold ass on the hospital gurney, the deep shame and embarrassment as the all-female nursing staff checked every inch of my skin for signs that those animals had defiled me, the bottomless agony in Scott’s eyes as he stared down at me, lying on the grass.

But the attack itself, the step by step, the finer details of the assau—rape, those flashes are as though I’m watching a horror movie, and a woman who looks just like me is the unfortunate victim of the show.

There’s a lot to unpack there, that the woman in the movie in my brain is a victim, but the word itself makes me feel like I’m about to break out in hives.

The boys tell me that I could wait before jumping into therapy, that they weren’t rushing me by having names ready less than twenty-four hours after I was raped. But why bother waiting and giving those images in my brain the chance to plant roots and fester? Surely, it’s better to get the jump on working through what I experienced and hoping to move toward some kind of, I dunno.Recoveryfeels like the wrong word, I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from what just happened.

Maybe I just want to get out of the apartment, get back outside and into the real world. Part of me wants to stay in here, safe and sound, protected, and never leave again. It’s comfortable in here, no one stares at the bruising on my face, there’s no pointing and whispering about who I am or what happened to me. But most of all there’s no chance I’m going to walk into my attackers on the street.

My heart skips up a few hundred beats per minute at the thought.

Of course, someone at the hospital talked. The story broke on the internet before I’d even spoken to Savannah, or Edith, or any of the girls really. Apollo is working on finding out who that was and grinding their bones into dust. He says that’s a joke, he won’t really grind their bones into dust, but right now, given how high tensions are and how I haven’t seen any of them blowing off steam, I wouldn’t put it past him.

Or maybe Artemis would be more likely.

It’s always the quiet ones.

“Remember, hermana.” Apollo helps me toward the door. This boot might be clunky, but I can manage just fine, though I don’t shake him off.

Sometimes I think they need to help me more than I need help, and who am I to take that from them?

“If this one doesn’t work out, if you don’t like something about them, we have a dozen more for you to try. And you don’t need to try them all in one go, we can spread it out.”

What he’s not saying is that this isn’t a quick fix, this will take a long time to mend even a little. He’s right though, while the short list had three names on it, there are any number of trauma specialists across the country.

Scott chews at the inside of his mouth. He’s the one who has had to endure my nighttime accidents over the past two nights.

Seems I’ve regressed all the way back to my childhood, and my flippant comment about not wanting to wear diapers when calling Scott Papi, may need to be considered for other reasons if I can’t figure out how to stop wetting the bed.

To his credit, he hasn’t said a single word. He’s helped me out of bed, put me in the shower to rinse off, and changed the bed both nights in a row without so much as an uttered word of complaint.

I really don’t deserve him.

Apollo and Scott help me downstairs. I don’t make eye contact with anyone, but I also don’t miss the audible gasp of one of my neighbors in the elevator. Despite the sizzle of embarrassment in my skin, I don’t lift my head.

I know without checking that whoever it is, is looking at me. It’s hard to ignore the massive bruises covering most of my face. They’re probably scowling at my brother and Scott right now too, like it’s their fault this happened to me, like they might be responsible. It’s an instinctive reaction, to blame whoever’s standing next to the injured person for the carnage still making my body swell.

Everything hurts. My joints are stiff, muscles sore, skin is swollen and hot to the touch. I’m getting another scan on my foot tomorrow, and from how painful each step is, even with the boot underfoot, it’s probably fifty-fifty as to whether or not it’s broken or fractured like my arm.

The therapist’s office isn’t too far away, maybe ten minutes, fifteen at a push, and despite my suggestion to play rock, paper, scissors to see who gets to come with me on my merry adventure, neither man is willing to step down.

Pretty sure if I say only one can come, there’ll be a battle to the death.

Tempting.

But there’s already been enough spilled blood, and I don’t really care if they come along with me. If anything, I need Scott to get himself in front of a doctor as well, he’s traumatized too. Though I doubt he can pretend this happened to someone else other than me. I bet in his mind he sees it all in high-definition picture.

The journey to the therapist’s office is quick, and Apollo finds a space to park right outside the building. It’s next to a popular,local coffee shop, so with all the to-ing and fro-ing, it must be our lucky day to get parked right out front.

Apollo opens the door for me while Scott reaches his hand to me to help me slide out of the car.

I feel it almost before I see it, there’s a chill that meets my face as a shadow moves into view. At first, I can’t place the features I’m staring at, but when the voice meets my ears, my blood runs cold.

“Athena de la Peña, so nice to see you up and about. Feeling better after your little accident?” His voice is saccharine-sweet, dripping with false concern. It’s Brock, one of the two men who violated me only three nights ago. He’s holding a donut with a bite taken out of it in one hand, and in the other, he’s got a coffee of some kind.

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