Page 54 of Sinful Scars

“I’m serious, Lucia, I don’t want to keep having this conversation every time I see you.”

“Fine.”

“I want you to promise.”

Lucia hesitates, and I can see it in her eyes, how much she doesn’t want to let this go. But after our close call during dinner, she decides not to fight me on this.

“I promise.”

After I say goodbye to Lucia, I make my way home on foot.

The idea of ordering an uber makes me uneasy, so I convince myself that the fresh air and exercise will do me good.

Most people would be worried about walking home alone at night, and I used to be one of them.

But not anymore.

I knowhe’s out there, watching me.

I bury my nose in my scarf, trying to shield myself from the cold, as I quicken my pace. I’m desperate to get home, to see ifhewill want to pick up where we left off last night?—

I stop dead in my tracks.

I let a complete stranger, who is yet to tell me his nameor show me his face, sneak into my bedroom and get me off, not just with his fingers but with his tongue.

And I want him to do it again.

If that’s not a cry for help, I don’t know what is.

Maybe Lucia is right after all…

I make a mental note to email my therapist as soon as I get home. I haven’t spoken to her since I graduated nursing school and my life got so busy that I gave up therapy, but she always used to make time to see me whenever I needed.

I’ve spent countless hours sitting in her office, talking through the trauma of losing my parents and brother with her. Which was difficult, considering I remember nothing from the night of the fire.

Losing them was hard enough, but not remembering the last words I spoke to my brother before we went to bed, or the story that my mother would have read to me that night, hurts even more.

I spent so long being angry at myself for not being able to remember, even though Dr. Mills explained that it's a completely normal response to a traumatic event. It’s my brain's way of protecting me from the pain, of stopping me from reliving that night over and over.

But I’m yet to see the benefit.

Not remembering only makes me feel worse. It makes it feel like none of it was real, like I imagined the whole thing.

So often I’ve wished that I would wake up one morning and those memories would have miraculously resurfaced. That eventually my brain would deem me strong enough to cope with them that they would be dug out of the tiny pocket in my mind where they’re currently being stored.

But that day is yet to come.

Maybe my lack of appropriate response to my stalker is another way of my brain protecting me.

Instead of feeling fear, my mind is twisting that emotion into something that resembles…lust?

I’m not too sure what I’m feeling, but Lucia is right. It’s not a normal response, and I’m worried that whatever emotions my brain is clearly trying to repress are going to suddenly bubble over somewhere down the line, and I’ll end up in a psych ward.

It’s time to give Dr. Mills a call before things get too far out of hand.

16

LEV

---