Chapter Seven
Jade awoke in yet another unfamiliar room to the sound of her cell phone ringing. She blindly fumbled around until the ringing stopped. As she drifted back to sleep the ringing started again. Holding the phone close to her face, she squinted at the screen but didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?” Too much wine and too many tears left her voice sounding like she’d swallowed a fist full of razorblades.
“Jade?”
“Who’s this?”
“It’s Jeremy. Why aren’t you answering the door?”
“What door?” She was so not a morning person.
“The door to your apartment.”
“Oh.”
Wait, what?
Sweeping the knotted clump of hair from her eyes, she bolted upright. “Are you at my door?”
“Yes. I’ve been knocking for ten minutes.” He sounded irritated.
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to see how you were today and I brought you coffee.”
Aww… he brought me coffee. She smiled. “Who made the coffee?”
“I bought it.” He exhaled into the phone. “Jade, do you think you could let me in?”
This is exactly why you need to get your life back to normal! Look what you’re missing.
She sighed. “I’m not there.” There was a long moment of silence. Still going. Silence. Nothing, but crickets. “Jeremy?” She looked at the phone but they were still connected. Why was he being so—
“Where are you?” he growled.
“I spent the night at a friend’s.”
“What kind of friend, Jade?”
She hadn’t done anything to deserve that tone. “A co-worker. Jeremy, look, it’s nothing you have to worry about. Dr. Bishop’s a—”
“It’s fine,” he interrupted. “I’ll just see you around.”
He didn’t sound fine, he sounded pissed. “Jeremy, wait a second—” The phone disconnected. Son of a bitch!
Despite her frustration, the idea of a jealous Jeremy did delicious things to her insides. She smirked and fell back on the bed, savoring the simplicity of normal boy girl politics over the much more complicated adult man woman bullshit. “He likes me.”
Jeremy observed everything but only spoke when there was something important to say. It was interesting to see his usually unfailingly confidence waver because she couldn’t recall ever seeming him anything but self-assured.
They really were polar opposites. She was elegant but sometimes clumsy and clever but never shut up. Her life was a constant string of blunders and social fails, but her sense of humor made it easy to laugh at herself. She had a good heart and always apologized when she inadvertently upset someone else.
She didn’t like to wallow in sorrow, which was why she preferred her usually bubbly personality to her recent one. Her sense of humor might not cure cancer, but it often relieved a bit of the pain for her patients. Laughter was amazing medicine, and perhaps the one thing she hadn’t allowed herself to enjoy since her ordeal.
As she showered and dressed her mind drifted around thoughts of Jeremy. And Thursday night. Back and forth, back and forth.
She growled. Part of her was grateful for the blackout. Not knowing what happened to her was its own form of torture, but recalling the actual assault could be worse. Torn between wanting to know and wanting to hold onto her ignorance—and her remaining shred of sanity—she weighed her options.
She wanted to put the whole, gory fiasco behind her. Involving the police might only drag things out, though she should let them know a predator was in the area. Staggered by the thought, she stilled.
What if he was doing this to multiple women? She suddenly had a responsibility to notify the cops, regardless if it led to more embarrassment and a fruitless search with little evidence—she couldn’t stomach the idea of someone else suffering what she’d suffered.
Her shoulders slumped as a new weight bore down on her. There was a dark humiliation that came with rape. Despite being victimized, she couldn’t shake the nagging sense of guilt. It was wrong to feel responsible for someone else’s crime, but as irrational as the emotion was, it lingered.
This is probably why survivors seek therapy. I should probably look into that.
She wasn’t mentally prepared to go down that avenue, at least not yet. But once the idea of speaking to a professional crossed her mind the more inevitable the outcome seemed. Spending an hour in some cold office, gushing over a trauma she couldn’t remember and desperately wanted to forget… The idea held zero appeal. But the hope of getting over this and coming out normal? That was what she wanted most.
She was procrastinating. Not the healthiest choice, but the reality of the situation was daunting. She didn’t want to be a statistic or a victim. She wanted to be herself—a survivor. Whole. But the truth was someone did something to her that forever changed her and the old her, the fearless, worry-free girl she was a few days ago… She died the second someone stole something she couldn’t get back.
She needed to face this whether she wanted to or not. Denial might be the only defense mechanism she had at the moment, and even that was wearing thin.