Page 44 of Sugar Coated Secrets

“If you’re done, you can leave,” the nurse says firmly.

Detective Fisher nods, hands me a card, and says, “If you remember anything, you call me right away.”

I nod. “Thank you.”

“I’ll be right outside when you’re ready to be discharged to give you a ride home, Miss Webster,” Officer Mays says with a nod and follows the detective out the door.

“My name is Sharon. I’m the registered nurse assigned to you. I’m not sure if the charge nurse told you, but I need you to take these,” the nurse says, holding out a cup with water and another clear cup with pills. “The antibiotics are just in case andhelp fight any infection. You’ll be sent home with a prescription to continue taking them when you’re discharged. It’s important that you finish the course of antibiotics. Your lab results so far are negative. We have to wait for the rest of the results.”

Nodding, I take the cup of water and pills and swallow them in one go. I wince when they slide down my throat. It feels like a sharp nail scratching me on the inside. “When can I go home?”

Your discharge papers should be ready for you to sign,” she says and gives me a concerned look. “If you don’t want the examination and the rape kit, will you please see your primary doctor? It is important. I’m sure he or she can do one there.”

The last thing I want is to be touched or prodded. “What you just gave me…”

“It’s an antibiotic to cover the basics. If anything doesn’t look, smell, or feel normal, you come back right away.”

I lower my head. “If I get a fever…”

“Right. I’m sure the charge nurse and the doctor went over it with you when you came in, but I’m making sure you understand. The number for the hotline is in the pamphlet. It’s free. If you need to talk to someone. This is important. I overheard what the officer said, and I know you’re scared, confused, shocked. It is why…”

“You urged me to go to my primary and have the examination there.”

She has no idea how I feel. She is just doing her job. Empathy is what they are taught to feel. Not sympathy. She will go home tonight and talk about me to her boyfriend or husband. Feel pity. I’m stupid for refusing an exam and that she would’ve made better choices if she were me. But she’s not me, and she can’t know how she’d feel if something like this happened to her.

“It’s important to go as soon as possible. It will help the police catch whoever did this.”

“The way this town is, people will know…”

“Maybe, but the police will catch whoever did it since you can’t remember.”

“They don’t have a suspect. The law to test hasn’t passed in the state. They will leave it on a shelf somewhere, or someone will make sure it stays that way,” I blurt.

It’s all over the news the law they are trying to pass to test the rape kits that have no suspects or enough people to test. There are hundreds of them. Hundreds of cases. It’s best I keep quiet for now. Maybe I will remember if I go home. If I open my mouth and say the wrong thing, my grandmother will find out. My life will get worse. Everyone at school will blame me. Chris, Trent, and Ford. Their families run this town. They all have money. It will be me against them because they are the ones who left me there for it to happen. Their parents will come after me with everything they have. I’m eighteen.

A shiver runs through me. “I don’t…”

“You’re still in shock. Are you sure you’re okay to go home?” Sharon asks with concern etched in her features.

I have to. Mary needs to get home to her family, and my grandmother can’t wake up alone or, worse, find out what happened. This will crush her.

“Yes. I want to go home.”

Present

There was no reason for me to look up different types of wild animals in the area to report like the detective asked because a coyote or a bear didn’t attack me, but a man—an animal of a man who made sure to keep what he did a secret.

I went one step further, trying to get a close look at the small house to see if someone lived there because, to this day, I don’t remember. But my body remembers. It remembers what myeyes can’t see, what my mind can’t figure out as panic grabbed me. I vividly recall my breath becoming stuck in my throat and refusing to escape. As if engulfed in a black hole, the world around me shrank until I could make out nothing but the pain. With a trembling palm, I reached out for anything solid, but all I could feel was empty space and the crushing realization that I was completely alone.

The sound of a loud, powerful engine cracks through my focus. As I turn back around, I see a flatbed tow truck drive around my van, parking in front of it.

I hear a door slam, followed by the rattle of a chain hitting metal. His stomach hangs like a teardrop over dirty jeans caked in grease. His white beard is long like Santa Claus decided he wanted to tow cars in his spare time before Christmas.

He grabs a pair of gloves and slides them on. “Dulce Webster? You called a tow?”

I sigh in relief. “Yes, my van made a funny noise and then died.”

He nods, looking at the white van with rust caked in the corners. “Okay. Where do you want me to take it?”

---