Page 21 of Bitter Truths

I don’t want to talk about Griffin, not here and maybe not ever. It’s hard enough to put it back in the box, and now he wants me to open the lid? Besides, how can I make him understand when I don’t get it myself?

“I see. You know I’m here for you. Why didn’t you say something? It’s my job to ensure you’re surrounded by safe and supportive people,” he tsks.

“I did, sort of. I moved out when I felt unsafe. You helped me.” I can’t help my sour tone because I feel like a chastened child. Why don’t I have the right to deal with my issues on my own? How is this progress if I’m depending on him to make my problems go away?

He sighs, and, in that sigh, I hear a wealth of disappointment. Where before I would have felt bad for it, I find I don’t care. I’m not here to make him feel better. I’m here for me and what I did was what I chose to do. Since my choices are so often stolen from me, I can hardly regret having the fucking opportunity.

“Okay,” he says, changing the subject, thank fuck. “Have you had any run-ins with Mr. Macklemore?”

Pressing my leg to the floor, I will away the vicious need to squirm. “No.”

In this, if nothing else, I can be grateful to Griffin for paying a lawyer to file an injunction against Jason after he threatened to release videos from that night.

That whole debacle sent me down a rabbit hole of fear and shame that I’m still recovering from. I don’t know who’s seen them. I don’t know what they might have done with them. For all I know, someone jacked off to the worst moment of my life, and with those thoughts, my fucking skin crawls again.

At least, there’s now a court order mandating the dick to stay far away from me, and blissfully I haven’t heard from him since. The reminder softens my heart toward Griffin, but I shore that shit back up because one good deed does not undo the other transgressions.

“This is good. I’m happy to see you looking better. Relaxed. But I think we need to discuss Mr. Hathaway. Your mother mentioned in the notes that he may have impacted your second inpatient stay?”

My brain freezes, my thoughts sailing back to his face when he admitted to baiting Jason. It was pain, visceral pain, that darkened his eyes, but it didn’t matter because he did it. Just like I can’t take back what I did in this mess, neither can he, and I’m fucking tired of everything leading right back to this.

Me, crazy Halsey, stuck in her pain and unable to move. It’s like quicksand. The closer I get to safety, the more I sink.

Turning my head away, I say quietly, “He did something that hurt me. And yes, it was devastating.”

“I see. And what did he say or do?” Dr. Marks steeples his fingers before his mouth.

With a silent sigh, I admit, “He confessed to daring Jason Macklemore to, um, sleep with me.”

“What does that mean? He . . . dared him to hurt you?” he asks, cocking his head to the side.

Shifting uneasily, I glare at my hands. “No, nothing like that. He just . . . baited him about me.”

“Halsey, why do you think you need to defend Mr. Hathaway?”

“I’m not.” When he glances down at my hands, I unclench them and smooth them over my jeans.

I know I’m defensive, but I don’t believe Griff intended for me to get raped. I don’t. Not that it changed the outcome.

“Okay, so say it out loud,” Dr. Marks says firmly.

Raising my eyes to his, I ask through a throat thick with unease, “Say what?”

“He baited those boys into raping you.”

“I—”

“Say it.”

I stare at him blankly. Can I say it? Do I believe it?

But it doesn’t matter what I believe because if I’ve learned anything throughout my treatment, it’s that I don’t know how to make this feel better. I have to give it over to this guy and hope he’s as knowledgeable as he thinks he is.

“Griffin baited those guys into raping me,” I whisper before sucking in a breath because my chest feels like it might explode.

“Very good,” he says, but I don’t hear him past the pain that’s pulling me under.

How do I let this go? Why did he do it? And how do I show him how much it fucking hurts?

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