Sixty
Ash
Her beautiful face was pale as she walked into the room. She looked at me with huge scared eyes. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.
“What’s wrong, Amber?” I rushed to her side.
“Oh, Ash, oh my God,” she sobbed as she fell into my arms.
“What is it, baby?” I stroked her silky hair.
“It’s…oh, God, Ash! It’s Mark.” Tears streamed down her face as I wrapped my arms around her.
“Mark what? I don’t understand, Amber.”
She wouldn’t answer me. Her sobbing grew louder and louder. I’d never seen her like this. She was completely inconsolable.
“What happened at therapy, Amber?” My voice turned stern and harsh. I couldn’t stand to see her cry and I wished she’d stop immediately.
Turning to me with her eyes red and swollen, she gasped for breath.
I handed her a glass of water from the table.
After she gulped it down, she tried swallowing several times. “Ash, it’s worse than I ever imagined. I can’t believe I repressed something that horrible.” She began trembling as she tried to blot her eyes with a tissue.
“What?” Panic was building inside of me now. Oh God, I hoped it wasn’t what I thought it was. Poor Amber. She’d been through so much.
She ran her hands through her long blonde hair. With her mascara smeared down her cheeks in muddy streams, my heart ached for her. “Mark.”
Just his name aroused disgust in me. That fucking asshole. “Mark, what, baby?” I rubbed her back.
“Melissa showed me, Ash.” She rose from the couch and walked over to the window. The cool late September winds were beginning to blow from the north.
As she stood in front of the window with her hand on the glass, she watched entranced as the red and orange leaves began to fall.
“Showed you what, Amber?”
She giggled still staring out the window. “I got to see my old room again, Ash! It was so pretty just like I remembered it. My soft pink sheets with white hearts on them. Did I ever tell you I had a canopy bed too?”
Her giggling gave me chills. She had just gone from being overwhelmed with grief to carefree laughter. This didn’t bode well. “No, Amber, you didn’t. I’m sure it was beautiful.” I leaned back on the couch watching her carefully.
Her voice reached an even higher pitch sounding more and more girlish. “Ash, my mommy took me to pick her out! She was so soft and furry. I used to cuddle her close to me at night.” She hugged herself spinning around.
Alarm thundered within me. Something was terribly wrong. “Amber, what did you pick out? What are you talking about?”
“My kitty, Cinnamon! I saw her today, Ash. She was all gray and soft. I loved her so much.” Her happy smile faded and her arms fell to her sides.
“I’m sure you did, baby. What happened to her?”
“She ran away.” Tears began to well in her eyes once again.
“I’m sorry, Amber. You said you saw her today. How did you see her? You were at Melissa’s office.” I thought maybe reminding her where she was would snap her out of this frightening state.
Sinking to the floor, she nodded. “I know, Ash. But I saw her. I held her in my arms again.” Her voice wavered between sounding normal and that scary little girl voice.
“Okay, Amber. I think I know what happened. Did Melissa hypnotize you?”
Her eyes widened as if I were crazy. “Hypnotize me? Are you kidding, Ash? Of course not. I would never let her….” Amber’s voice faded as her eyes went glassy. Pounding the floor with her fists, she screamed so loud I thought the windows would shatter. I jumped from the couch and rushed to her.
“What is it, baby?”
She tore at her hair with her hands. She raked her fingernails down her face before I could stop her. Long scratches marred her face. Trickles of blood dripped from her face.
“STOP IT!” I screamed holding her arms before she could further harm herself. Using all my strength, I pulled her to me as she attempted to break free.
“NO!” She screamed over and over again. “DON’T TOUCH ME!”
“Amber, I’m not trying to hurt you, baby. I love you.” I held her tightly and rocked her trying to soothe her.
“Don’t let him hurt me,” she pleaded.
I wanted to let her go so that I could tend to the wounds on her face, but I was afraid she’d scratch herself again.
After a few moments, her sobbing subsided and she went limp in my arms. Her eyes were still open, but she appeared to be calmer.
The room seemed smothering hot. I slipped my arms from her and quickly removed my shirt. As I held her next to my chest, she seemed comforted. I looked down into her face and saw the terrible scratches still oozing blood. “Amber, can I let you go for a minute? I need to clean your face. You have some nasty scratches.”
She remained silent. As I moved, her head lolled to one side. Her eyes remained glassy and unseeing. As disconcerting as the screaming was, this near comatose state was even more disturbing. Scooping her into my arms, I carried her upstairs to my bedroom. Lying her on the bed, I quickly located some first aid supplies.
After cleaning her wounds, I removed her clothes. Normally, that would have been an arousing experience for us both, but she just lay limp like a rag doll. I crawled into the bed with her. “Amber, please tell me what’s wrong. I can’t help you if you don’t talk.” I pressed my lips to her cheek.
Her eyes finally moved and she looked at me. “Oh, Ash, don’t you know?”
Yes, I did. I just had to know for sure.
“Mark. Oh God, Mark.”
“I know, baby.” I held her as close as I could.
She rolled over in the bed and faced me.
“When did it start?”
“The earliest I can recall was when I was seven.” Her voice was flat and monotone. “Melissa showed me. I was sitting in my bed late at night. I used to….” She broke off and put her arms over her head. “I used to pull all my covers over my head at night. I used to think if he couldn’t find me he wouldn’t hurt me.”
I felt sick. Amber had suffered so much. “What happened exactly, Amber?”
She sighed still clutching the covers tightly. “He would come into my room at night after everyone was asleep. His fingers-----” She choked up.
I stroked her cheek softly.
“All sticky from the Cheetos he constantly ate. He would put his fingers to my lips and tell me to be quiet. I can still taste those Cheetos on his fingers to this day. Maybe that’s why I never liked them.” She closed her eyes.
I laid there in silence. I didn’t know what to say.
“He said it was our special secret.” She bit her lip watching my face. “It went on and on. Melissa helped me remember it all. I almost wished she hadn’t. Now I have to live with the knowledge my brother assaulted me.” She grimaced.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I don’t know what to say. I could kill that motherfucker.” Rage began to boil inside me.
“It wouldn’t do any good, Ash. It would only hurt us even more. Now it all makes sense. Mark’s revelation at my dad’s house last year-he had just been waiting to assault me..”
“If he’d been hurting you, why would he have waited to….” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, “physically assault you?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe it was just all part of his sick fantasy.”
I swallowed hard trying to think of the right thing to say. “But Amber, you’re not a victim. You’re a survivor! Everything that’s happened to you has made you the strong woman that I love. You’ve been honest with yourself and that’s made you be honest with me. I couldn’t love you any more than I do at this moment. Veronica failed me because she couldn’t be honest with herself much less me. But you can. I believe in you, Amber. You can stand up for yourself. Turn this into something positive.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “You know, Ash, you’re right. I can’t let my brother win. He tried to control me my entire life. Hatred for Larry made me turn my back on my own father for 20 years. Little did I know it was my brother who tore me away from my family. I’m not going to let him steal one more second of my life!”
She was so beautiful, so strong I couldn’t have admired her more than at that moment.
“I’m going to find a way to make this a positive for me, Ash. So many women have been victimized in so many ways. It’s time for them and for me to stop feeling like a victim. I’m not a victim. I’m a survivor.”
I hugged her to me. I was so lucky that she was finally mine.