Page 71 of Pain
"Am I too old for a nightlight?" She played with a loose string on her pant leg.
"I don't think so. I know adults who leave a light on. It's not a bad thing to want to see in the dark. Do you think that will help?"
"Maybe. My room's so dark and there's shadows on the walls that scare me. I keep thinking it's them coming for me again."
"We can get you a light. I'm sure we can find one you like. I bet if we look hard enough, we might even find one that's a zebra."
"I'd like that." She grinned.
"I want you to know that there is nothing wrong with being scared. I was too for a long time. A lot of men hurt me. So many that every time I'd have to leave the house I was scared I'd see one of them. Every day things got a little easier and I wasn't so scared. It took time, just like it will for you, but I promise, it will get better." He wished he could make it all okay now, but that wasn't going to happen. "Would you like to maybe learn karate or something? Would that help make you feel safer if you learned how to fight?"
She chewed on her lip. "Can girls do that?"
Xander laughed. "Girls can, and they do it well. I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anyone I told you."
She looked up at him as she nodded.
"I was in the Army, and during training, there was this one girl. She was amazing. She grew up learning all kinds of things like karate and other stuff. She beat all of the boys in training. None of us could win if we had to spar with her."
"Spar?"
"Play fight. You fight to practice, but you don't really hurt each other."
"And she beat you?"
Xander nodded. "She beat all of us. It took her a lot of practice to get that good, but if you want, we can talk to your dad about signing you up for classes."
"I'd have to go alone, right?"
"You'd learn with a group of people, and your dad can be there in the room with you. It's like a gym class at school kind of." He didn't have any idea how to explain it to her.
"Maybe, as long as I wasn't alone with people I don't know." She bit her lip again before looking up at him. "Will I have to go back to school?"
Xander nodded. "It's kind of important to learn." He had no clue what Matt's plans were for that. "It's summer now, so you have time to figure out what you're going to do. I think there's still a month or two of summer vacation left. A lot can change in that time. Have you seen any of your friends yet?"
"Melissa called and I talked to her, but she asked a lot of questions about what happened, and I didn't want to talk about it."
"Did you tell her that?"
"No, I felt bad."
"Don't. Just be honest with your friends. They should understand. Get together and just play like you used to before all this happened. It will help." He had to remind himself how recent all this happened and be careful not to push her too hard.
Faith sat up, swinging her legs down off the couch. "Will you tell Dad what we talk about?"
Xander was already asking himself the same question. "Some of it. Like maybe your fear about going back to school, and you wanting a nightlight, and maybe about karate, but I won't tell him anything you don't want me to."
"I don't want him to know what they did to me."
"You know that the police told him? That the doctors had to tell him about your exams and stuff, right?"
She nodded. "I know he knows, but I don't want to have to talk to him about it."
"That's okay. You don't have to. You can talk to Katie or anyone else you're comfortable talking about it to."
"How long will I have to see Katie?"
Xander shrugged. "I still see Katie."
