One year later
“So, how have things been between your parents? Have you felt any of those feelings you had before around them?” Marcy, my therapist, asked from the stiff chair across from me.
Her office was bland and outdated, filled with oak cabinets lining the walls and an oversized couch right in the middle. Her desk sat off to the side, always so neat and untouched, I was sure she never used it. Across the couch sat a very stiff plastic chair she spent most of her day on. It was fitting for her personality, really.
“They’re fine.”
My mom returned to work at the bakery about nine months ago, after her sabbatical. She was lucky she came in when she did, because I was making up a job description for hiring someone else to take her place. The night she traipsed into the front door after hours was one I’d never forget.
The annoying bell above the door rattled through the empty storefront, signaling to me a customer had just arrived. That door should have been locked twenty minutes ago, but I was elbow deep in pink buttercream frosting and hadn’t had a chance to make my way up there to flip the sign yet.
Releasing a huge puff of air, I pulled away from the intricate wedding cake that was consuming my night and walked through the kitchen doorway, stopping in my tracks when my eyes connected with her expectant hazels.
“What do you want?” I asked, holding my arms up and out in front of me to avoid getting frosting anywhere.
“It’s after hours. Why’s the door still open and the lights still on?” my mother had the nerve to scold.
My eyes rolled back as I shook my head incredulously, turning away from her to walk back into the kitchen. I wasn’t in the mood for her condescension right now.
“Well, I can’t do everything myself,” I replied sardonically.
I heard the echo of the lock slipping into place and the ‘OPEN’ sign rattle against the glass door when she flipped it. On her way toward the kitchen, she flicked the light switch and darkness fell over the storefront.
“Good thing I’m back,” she huffed, adjusting the straps of her oversized name-brand purse. Apparently, Lynn upgraded her style from thrift store finds to the real deal while she was away.
“Oh, you think you can come back just like that?”
Who did she think she was? My life didn’t have a revolving door where she got to decide whenever she could swing in and out of it.
“Yes, I do. And you don’t get to tell me otherwise. You’re clearly in need of some help in here and beggars can't be choosers.” She boldly stuck her nose in the air, tightening her grasp on her purse straps.
Our relationship was still rocky, and she barely interacted with me outside of work anymore. When she was forced to be around me, she stared like I was a stranger and she was just waiting for the old Luna to return. It was the exact reason why I didn’t want to tell her in the first place, but Liam reminded me I needed to give her time to get used to the new dynamic.
He got along with my parents perfectly. It was even to the point now where they called and wanted to talk to him before bothering to talk to me. My mom naturally assumed the position of his mother, taking on the role with ease and treating him how she used to treat me. She wasn’t trying to replace Karla, but she was providing him with the maternal figure he’d been lacking since his grandmother died. I guessed that was why he was so lenient with her about her cold behavior toward me.
My dad welcomed me back with open arms, not even acknowledging my attack or the change in my behavior. We both had the same unhealthy approach: avoid, avoid, avoid.
He was ready to accept me however I came, in any form—even the tough shell. I wondered if telling him from the beginning would have saved us a lot of heartache, but always came back to the conclusion that if I had done that, I might not have ended up with Liam. The thought alone stole the air from my lungs.
“And how about Cara? Have you two been able to work on your relationship any more since the last time we spoke?” Marcy’s nasally voice interrupted my thoughts again.
“Yeah, things are pretty much back to normal,” I replied in a dull tone, staring out the window to avoid her intrusive stare.
Marcy encouraged me to do a session with Cara to help us talk out our issues. She wanted to do the same thing with my parents, but I was adamantly against that. Cara in a therapy session, I could handle. My mother? Not a chance. I wouldn’t get through the hour of fingers pointing in my direction without jumping out the third-story window.
Cara enjoyed our session so much, she ended up making her own weekly appointments to see Marcy. In the beginning, I had seen her just as often. Now, it was hard for me to fit her in once a month with how busy I was at the bakery.
In truth, I liked my time with Marcy. I was appreciative of the role she had in my recovery. It was important for me to get out the feelings I had been experiencing since the attack. At least that’s what my support group said. She, along with every other victim of sexual assault I’d come across in my meetings, assured me that what I did in the months following my attack were completely normal, despite the fact my family didn’t think so.
“Luna, you experienced something exceptionally traumatic, and you never truly got the chance to overcome that. Isolating yourself, managing uncontrollable extreme emotions, lashing out—those are all very normal things for you to have experienced. What we need to do now it work through all of that, so it doesn’t happen anymore in the future.”
In three sentences, she explained and excused the past year of my life, and then offered me a chance to push through it. I was beyond grateful. I just had a hard time showing her that today.
Cooper was murdered in his cell last week while he was awaiting trial. When I shared the news with Liam, he practically burst out of his skin. He knew it was the Reapers’ doing. They were protecting themselves from any kind of fallout that might come from this. There were rumors that he was being offered a deal and he could get let off on his rape charges if he gave up some information about his dealings as a Reaper. Liam insisted that Cooper didn’t know enough to make that worth their while, but for whatever reason, they ended him just the same.
If I was being honest, I was relieved. I didn’t feel like recounting the entire story in front of a jury and full court room—hopeful they would believe me over him and keep him in jail—would help me get past the attack. I couldn’t say if the other nine girls who were willing to come forward felt the same way, but I saw it as a blessing. An opportunity to put this whole thing to rest. It still left me in a funk, though, unsure what my next move should be.
After a long, uncomfortable pause during which Marcy stared at me and I stared anywhere else, she broke the silence between us. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I played dumb. “About what?”
She sighed. “You know what.”
I mimicked her sigh. “What’s there to say?”
Right on cue, she tapped her pen on the notebook in her lap impatiently. This was our pattern, and she never grew sick of it. She surprised me by responding, “I guess nothing,” before writing something down.
My eyes lifted to the ceiling, examining the cobwebs and peeling paint. This place was a dump—nothing I would expect her to work out of if I had met her off the street and she’d told me she was a therapist. It was so anti-Marcy. “I’m relieved,” I finally conceded. “I’m relieved that a man died, and that makes me feel horrible.”’
“That man did some bad things to you.”
It wasn’t an excuse or a crude reminder. Just a fact to consider.
“But did that earn him the death sentence?”
“No. And it didn’t. He was involved with vigilantes, and that is ultimately what got him killed.”
She said the word like it was sour on her tongue. She had no idea I slept next to one of those vigilantes every night. That the stormy blue eyes of one of them captured her within moments of meeting—because that’s what Liam did.
My head shook. I don’t know how she was going to help me through this when she didn’t even know my full story. “I still shouldn’t feel relieved.”
Just then, the loud buzzer beside her went off, signaling the end of our session. Sixty minutes spent avoiding Marcy’s eye contact. It seemed like a solid therapy session, although she looked a little disappointed that it had to end.
“I wish we could keep talking, but I have another appointment in five minutes. Please, make a point to come back next week so we can talk this through. I really want to hear your thoughts a little more.” She seemed sincere, and that was why I always came back. Because she actually cared about what I had to say.