Page 14 of Under Fyre

I don’t even know what I’m reading, but I barely finish before he closes the document and opens another.

Charlotte Ash.

Presents with P.T.S.D. after sexual assault.

…sessions of cognitive processing therapy were abandoned after the patient refused treatment claiming the assault had never taken place.

After the third document, I put my hand over his. There’s a hard lump in my throat, a perpetual coiling in my stomach.

I wrack my brain, forcing myself to go back to the day I escaped. I remember it so clearly. It’s like a movie playing in my mind.

Running through the woods, my feet bruised and bloody by the time I hit the tarmac. My relief at having reached civilization, then my dismay when I realize there’s no one in sight. The tattered joy when I saw two pinpricks of light coming toward me.

And then…nothing. A few brief memories of the hospital. I remember the pain when I sliced through my arm with a scalpel I’d found after rummaging through a hazardous waste bucket in the E.R. Can’t remember how I got there, or how I even survived, but I did.

And then…Doctor Pittman. Calm, intelligent, somewhat bored-sounding Sharon, my therapist. Was she my first…or my last? I don’t remember the other therapists at all, or any of these therapy sessions I apparently attended.

“Why…why don’t I remember it? Any of it?”

Fyre sighs as he closes the lid of the laptop and sets it down on the nightstand.

“Some of the medication you were given can affect your memory,” he muses, staring off into space. “But I don’t think it’s that. I think you’re exhibiting an abnormally vehement form of avoidance. Your mind is trying to erase your time with Peter as if it never happened.”

Mytimewith him, like I was a guest at a ski lodge.

I drag my fingers through my hair, and let out a low laugh. “But I know it happened.” My voice grows thick. “Why would I make myself forget?”

“Because it was unpleasant. Because it reminded you too much of what you’d lost.”

“But Idoremember,” I whisper. My eyes close involuntarily. “I remember so much more than I want to.”

“You spent a week with him, Charlotte. If you could remember every detail, every minute of every day, you’d be catatonic. Which is ironic, because recalling that trauma, reliving it so you can rewire it in your mind as a harmless memory…that’s the only way I can heal you.”

My eyes open, flicker to him. “How would you know? Maybe what I remember is all there is.”

His throat moves as he swallows. “Because, Charlotte. Before I killed Peter, I made him tell meeverything.”

Chapter Eight

Charlotte

After he leaves, locking me inside the bedroom, I sit for a while with my ear pressed to the door.

I can hear him talking faintly, either to himself or his dog. Twice I hear his dog walking down the hall, coming to sniff under the door. The second time I don’t jump away. I force myself to bend down and put my fingers by the gap.

The snuffling pauses, and then becomes frantic. Fyre calls the dog away, and I thankfully retrieve my hand and shake off the feeling of its damp breath on my skin.

When it becomes obvious that Fyre isn’t leaving his house, I take a shower. As much as I don’t want to think why there’s a closet full of perfectly fitting clothes, I take out a pair of sweats and put them on anyway.

They’re good quality, comfortable and warm, and neutral colors. This set is a dark gray.

My hair is wet, and there’s no hairdryer in the bathroom, so I wrap a towel around my head and snuggle under the covers.

I didn’t really feel any effect from the tea, but I do doze off for a while.

* * *

I wakeup when the door opens and Fyre comes in with another tray.

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