Page 37 of All Your Pucking Secrets

My hand continues to fly across the notepad, taking on a frantic edge. “Yes.”

She glances at my bag, probably wondering if I have my anxiety medication in there in case I panic. Although I’m sure she has some in one of her cupboards too.

“Is his presence bringing up memories of the assault?” Her tone is gentle. “And the trauma that followed?”

I snort. Trauma.

In some ways, it’s such an inadequate word for what I went through following The Incident. The rejection. The name-calling. The way everyone turned against me the instant I accused one of their golden boys of rape.

They said I was a liar.

A slut.

An attention whore.

They spat at me, threw insults like knives, and ostracized me completely.

I had to finish my senior year listening to recorded classes in a small, isolated room near the principal’s office. As if I had the mental capacity to learn without being able to ask a teacher questions when it was all my overwhelmed mind could do to get me through each day.

I was lucky the school hadn’t kicked me out, but I supposed that expelling an alleged rape victim wouldn’t have been a good look for them. Especially not after the jury passed a guilty verdict. Although even then, a large portion of the community seemed to believe the jury had gotten it wrong.

“Echo?” Dr. Rodriguez prompts.

I drew in a slow breath and exhaled to the count of six—long enough to ease the constriction in my chest.

“Yes,” I reply. “It’s brought up some old memories.”

“What, specifically?”

I consider this. The memories are never buried deep. They’re always right there, beneath the surface, which makes it difficult to pinpoint any changes.

“Honestly, not the parts you might expect.”

She cocks her head. “Go on.”

I sigh. “It just makes me think about how nice it would have been to have a support system. Someone who believed me and stood by my side. I had Mom, but that was all, and no matter how hard she tried, sometimes it wasn’t enough. I was so alone.”

I’d survived The Incident on my own. At first, I’d fought as hard as I could. When I’d been injured and overpowered, I’d closed my eyes and prayed for someone to save me. I’d imagined Tyler showing up at the last moment like some kind of white knight, but it hadn’t happened.

No one had come. But I’d gotten through it anyway. Surely it shouldn’t have been too much to ask for someone other than my own mother and our attorney to stand by me in the aftermath.

Dr. Rodriguez glances at her voice recorder, which she chooses to use rather than writing notes while we talk because she thinks it makes the conversations flow more naturally. I appreciate that. I’d feel too much like a science experiment if she was scrawling notes. As if she was weighing and judging everything I said.

“So, it’s not the assault itself, or even the breakup that’s on your mind?” she clarified.

I shrug. “I mean, that’s there too. It always is. But it’s not the main issue in my head at the moment.”

“So, how can we ensure you have a support system in place now?” she asks. “How can we limit how often you feel alone and abandoned?”

I bite my lip. Dr. Rodriguez knows I haven’t told my friends what happened, and she’s said more than once that she thinks it would be good for me to share, but I haven’t done it. Three years into a friendship feels a little too late to be dropping bombshells like, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, I was raped in my senior year.’

“I have Mom,” I say hesitantly.

I don’t like to lean on her though. She had a difficult time with separation anxiety after The Incident and it took over two years and a lot of therapy on both our parts before she’d agree to stop calling me every morning and every evening. Now, we talk two or three times a week. That’s closer to what most people would consider normal.

“And…?”

I picture each of my friends in turn. Anita has shown that she’s willing to coddle me, but her overprotectiveness reminds me too much of my mom. Cassie—as much as I love her—is too self-centered to devote much time or emotional energy to anyone else.

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