Page 23 of Was I Ever Free

“Don’t make me answer that, Luce. I don’t have a good enough reason.”

Not when the very tone of my voice sounds like it's craving her touch.

For half an irrational second, I convince myself she won’t listen and her hand will find its way back to my skin. But then I hear the mattress creak beside me and I don’t need to look to know she’s rolled over.

Listening to her even breaths, I stay stuck in the same position for most of the night. On my back and staring at the ceiling, unwilling to acknowledge why falling asleep feels so dangerous. Why, if I close my eyes, I’ll wake up in the morning with another body to mourn.

12

“It’s time, Lucy,” Imogene says with a too-soft voice that makes me want to curl up on myself. “I think you’re ready.”

I have been seeing her twice a week for six months now. I trust her. But what I do not trust are the memories desperate to be left alone. Because if left untouched and unspoken they cannot become this living, breathing thing. And maybe, hopefully one day I can just forget.

But if six months of therapy has taught me anything, it is this: Trauma never forgets. Trauma simply slumbers, burrowed deep inside its host, waiting to be heard. And it will be heard, whether it be now or decades later, it does not matter. Trauma has all the time in the world.

I simultaneously pick at the skin on my thumb and bite the inside of my lip, trying my hardest not to let the sinking feelings pull me even deeper still.

“When Lenix ran away, I was betrothed to Patrick in her stead,” I mutter softly, looking out the window at the tree outside. I focus on how the rays of the sun peek through the leaves instead of the darkness hovering all around me. “I had just turned twelve.”

I hear Imogene shift in her chair but I do not look away from the sun, the leaves, the tree.

“My brother Frederick, who was twenty-one at the time, became our shepherd when father died. And… well.” I wring my hands, unsure how to continue. “He was now God’s vessel and—and… it was his duty to take my maidenhead before I lay with my husband… my own brother…”

All these years and I am still desperate to normalize it, to convince my subconscious that what happened that day was holy. I never truly connected all the pieces until Lenix and I spoke about it, a few months ago. How our father had wanted to do the same to her before her wedding to Patrick, but instead she fought back and accidentally killed him. Somehow she understood what kind of battle was raging inside of me when I realized she defended herself and… and I did not. “You were much too young to understand, Lucy,” she said into my hair, her voice cracking while she held me tightly in her arms. “You were much too young.”

Slowly, I turn my gaze to Imogene, and we sit in silence for a few seconds before she finally speaks. “You were raped, Lucy.” Again her voice is much too soft, too caring.

I did not even know that word existed before all this.

Before.

When I was sheltered and taught that Hell was Heaven on earth.

I close my eyes and let the tears fall. The sadness engulfs me and swallows me whole.

Instead of words, I simply nod and continue to mourn my innocence until I find my voice again. Opening my eyes, I take a deep breath and try to steady myself.

When I finally speak, my voice feels different, like a child’s more than the twenty-five year old adult I am now. “I thought it was normal… I thought all of it was normal.”

Imogene presses her lips into a waning smile and shakes her head. A simple gesture to convey so much. “It wasn’t,” she says softly. “None of it was.”

* * *

The next morning,Bastian is already out of bed when I wake up. I blink blankly at the ceiling remembering what I dared to do last night. I try not to cringe, but I am somewhat unsuccessful. I do not quite understand what came over me to be so bold. The urge to touch him, to prove he was not just a figment of my imagination had been too potent to deny.

My body had heated beside him, my breath quickening. But these feelings… they felt so foreign. And still, now, I struggle to describe them. To put a name to my actions.

I am not a virgin. Still, in so many ways, I am inexperienced in my sexual history. And never did I ever feel like this with Patrick.

Never.

All I know is that I desperately needed to feel Bastian under my touch. To taste him. Or to simply press my palm against his chest and listen to his heart beat all night.

I should feel ashamed. But oddly, aside from the mild rejection, I feel—good? It is not as if we will need to have an awkward conversation about what transpired between us. At least there is one good side to Bastian never speaking.

Shaking away remnants of last night, I climb out of bed and freshen up. I find him outside, a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“Have you even eaten yet?” I ask slightly disgusted, wrinkling my nose.

---