Page 82 of In the Light of Sin

I lost myself.

“Alcohol numbed it all.” I still felt numb as I told Sarge more of my past. I was beginning to get fidgety as I remembered the pain that came with the next morning. “I don’t remember it happening, but it happened. And I wanted to forget it did.” Pressure built up in my eyes, letting the tears escape as I tried my best to hold in a sob that was escaping. “I was scared if I was sober, I would remember it.”

Sarge was silent, his body rigid. He was more like a statue than a living being. I looked to my left, shame settling in as his shadowed face was in my direction unnervingly still. My lips trembled as the corners tilted down, trying to hold myself together. I almost lost the fight as Sarge lifted me, mechanically putting me beside him before

“Tell me.”

His voice was so calm, like a deadly precision. “Tell you what?”

“Tell me his fuckin’ name!”Sarge roared, making me jump back slightly, taking in the way his body was breathing erratically like he was about to lose control of himself.

“D-Douglas.” Saying his name felt like poison on my tongue. My body trembled to see this side of Sarge. I’ve seen him like this in the beginning, but now that it was directed at me, it was terrifying. It was different than the Catacombs, which was calculated anger… this was unhinged. “I don’t know where he is… he took off after Tyrant and Knight told him to.”

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him,” he growled before he stomped towards the door, making me stand up to run after him. I didn’t want him to go. I wanted him here.

“Sarge, stop!”

His body was twitching, and his voice sounded possessed as it was consumed by the unadulterated hatred he had inside of him. “Don’t tell me to fuckin’ stop, Joslyn. He doesn’t deserve to steal the fuckin’ air you breathe.”

“But—”

“Don’t you dare.” His body turned fully, wanting me to hear the impact of his words. The truth he spoke made me accept that my hopefully grim imagination was my unfortunate reality. “You were raped, Joslyn. Any motherfucker who thinks they can do that to you and still have their dick attached to their bodies, let alone still have breath in their fuckin’ lungs, is going to find out that they’re very fuckin’ wrong.”

Trauma is a strange thing. I never told myself I was raped because if I didn’t say it, it didn’t happen. Hearing it from someone else made it feel more real like you couldn’t avoid it and pretend it didn’t happen.

But it did.

I was raped.

I was stolen from myself at sixteen years old.

My heart plunged into my stomach as my knees hit the floor, but I didn’t feel the impact. Just the numbness spreading throughout my nerves as disbelief and denial set in at Sarge’s words, making the impossible an absolute.

You were raped, Joslyn.

I didn’t feel like I was in my body. The world around me felt still as the memories of that night came rushing back. With each memory of his unwanted touch, another tear slid down my cheek until I felt as if I was going to flood Sarge’s home with the overstimulating misery pouring out of me.

I barely felt as arms were wrapped around me, fingers tangled intimately in my hair as I was pushed into a familiar chest. I tried to focus on his touch. The urge to push him away was there, but I didn’t have control of any part of myself. My brain just repeating the words that made me want to vomit.

“It’s not your fault.” His hushed comfort made my eyes sting. Sarge was usually ruthless and blunt with his words, but he was careful with how he spoke to me in my delicate state. “I don’t look at you any different.”

“B-But—”

“Don’t care.” He held me tighter, attempting to stop my trembling in his arms. “You’re mine. Nothing will change that.” His arms pulled me in tighter, his warmth comforting around me. “You’ll never feel his touch again. You’ll only feel mine.”

“I don’t believe you…” Who could love me after that? I didn’t even love myself. Who would want to be with someone who couldn’t accept the reality of what happened to her and ruined others along with her? I was too blinded by forgetting that everything I was working for didn’t matter to me. High school. College. Career. My dream family… all destroyed one drink at a time.

“He’s already a fuckin’ dead man, Joslyn. Him and Brian and anyone else who knew what he was doin’ to you and didn’t fuckin’ stop him.”

“I need you.” I didn’t know what to say. My emotions were catching up to me. I felt a sob bubbling in my throat as fresh tears fell from my eyes. My voice lowered to barely a whisper, “Please don’t let my past mistakes make me lose you too.”

“Shh, baby. I’m not going anywhere.” He hugged me tighter to him, constricting my breath slightly. But I didn’t care. I needed to be fully consumed by him. I wanted Sarge to take all the memories. All the hurt. “Nothing you do can make me walk away from you.”

I wanted him to take me to that night in Hellbound when he gave himself to me fully like I was doing with him now.

He held me as I sobbed to the point of exhaustion, but the memories wouldn’t let me rest. They would haunt me, awake or asleep. I couldn’t escape them no matter how hard I tried to forget alcohol was the only thing that made them go away, but those had consequences.

Douglas was only the first part of my story…

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