An awkward silence fills Dr. Spiegel’s office as I sit across from her and wait for her to ask me questions. I’m starting to think she doesn’t deserve her degree or her paycheck for that matter. She really doesn’t work hard for it. I mean, I’m the one doing all the work here. She literally gets paid to sit there and listen. I guess it’s not a bad gig.

“How are you today?”

“Fine,” I mutter.

“You were very upset during our last visit,” she says, and I’m pretty sure my eyes bulge from their sockets.

“Yeah, admitting you were raped will do that to you,” I snap.

“What happened after you left here?”

Telling her Deuce took me to the shooting range and I fired a gun doesn’t seem like the right thing to say so I tell her another sad truth instead.

“My parents are dead.”

“I’m sorry,” she replies evenly.

I notice then her tone never changes. It’s like no matter what I say she doesn’t have a reaction and it makes me wonder if she’s heard worse troubles than mine.

“That must’ve been very shocking to learn,” she continues.

“I’m not sure if shock is what I’d call it,” I admit thoughtfully. “I’ve asked for my parents a lot since I’ve been rescued but every time I asked it was ignored. No one ever told me where they were or what happened to them and so I stopped asking. It’s almost like I knew in my heart I didn’t want to know the answer and I blocked it. I blocked them so I didn’t have to feel the pain of knowing they were gone.”

“How did you find out?”

“My brother told me on our birthday,” I tell her, lifting my eyes to meet her gaze. “Nice, right? The first birthday in twelve years and I find out the two people who gave me life had theirs taken from them because of me.”

“Because of you?”

“Yes, because I was stupid enough to get in that car with that evil man. If I hadn’t of followed him, if I hadn’t of believed there were only good people in the world then my parents wouldn’t have spent the rest of their years desperately searching for me. No one would know the name Yankovich. He wouldn’t have ruined so many lives.”

She stares at me some more before jotting something down and then she does that irritably annoying thing with her hands, crossing one over the other.

“What happened after you found out about your parents, how did you cope?”

“Cope? I don’t know how to cope.”

“Are you sure about that? Look at you, you’re still functioning. You’re here and able to tell me something very traumatic, I’d say you’re coping somehow. There is something that makes you safe, something that makes you keep pushing forward.”

I don’t have to think about my answer. I understand what she’s saying and I do have something that makes me safe. I have someone pushing me to move forward. Someone in my ear telling me to strike a match and make my life count for more than sadness.

“It’s him,” I whisper. “It’s Deuce.”

“Who is Deuce?”

Everything seems to be the perfect answer and not enough all the same.

“He’s the man who saved me, the man that’s been saving me ever since,” I say, lifting my gaze back to her. “After my brother told me the truth about our parents he was the first person I called, the only person I wanted. Lying to myself, I thought I needed drugs. I told myself I needed to be numb and was desperate to forget. But I didn’t need them. I needed him. I think my heart knew that and that’s why I called him.”

“How did Deuce help you get through your pain?”

“He showed me I didn’t need to be numb and made it okay to feel.”

Recalling those moments makes me remember how good Deuce felt and I long for more. Not because I’m an addict by default, but because I want to know how it feels to be with Deuce in all the ways that count. I want to know sex, I want to enjoy it, all of it, all of him. I want to rewrite another first time and I want him to be the man who I give myself to.

“He touched me and I wasn’t afraid,” I blurt.  “For the first time in my life I enjoyed being intimate with a man. I was comfortable and in the moment. I wasn’t fading away or using my body. I was just a woman. A woman who consensually got in bed with a man for no other reason other than she was attracted to him. It’s strange, because for my whole life sex has either been a violation or a crime.”

“Explain that.”

“When I was with Yankovich, he and those men raped me, they violated me. But when I was with Rush, he never tried to rape me. If I’m being honest, I was the one who initiated sex and I did so because I wanted to be useful, I wanted to be enough so that he wouldn’t send me back to that monster. I used my body, and in a way I feel like I committed a crime on myself.”

I pause, taking a deep breath I glance down at my hands. Surprised to find I’m not tugging on my sleeves, I continue.

“Deuce didn’t let me touch him. He didn’t want anything in return all he wanted was to give me that experience, and now all I want is to give him more. I want to give him all of me. The broken pieces and the ones he’s managed to glue back together. I want to feel but I want him to feel too. I want him to feel me, not necessarily Ally but Alexandria. I want to give him the woman I was meant to be and not the one I became.”

“What’s stopping you then?”

I didn’t know the answer to that.

If Deuce didn’t halt the breaks on things, I would have had sex with him, but he was adamant about making it about me. He says I need to be reintroduced to sex, but if he doesn’t make that move how will that happen?

“Ally?”

“If I initiate sex with Deuce does that mean I’m reverting back to my old ways?”

“You said in the past you initiated sex because you wanted to be useful, almost as if having sex was your job.”

“Yes,” I agree. “But that’s not how I feel with Deuce. I want to have sex with him because it’s him. I want him and I think he wants me too but is afraid he’s going to hurt me or do something to remind me of my past. I can’t guarantee my mind won’t betray me but I don’t want to live my life in limbo because of that either. More than anything I want to be normal. I want to be with a man. I’d like to have a relationship one day too. I want to be someone’s something and not because it will keep me alive but because they care for me. I want it all.”

My shoulders feel somewhat lighter as the confession leaves me and I draw out a breath as Dr. Spiegel surprises me with a smile.

A real fucking smile.

Who knew she had it in her?

Then as I ask myself that question, I realize she’s probably asking herself the same exact one, only she’s referring to me and that makes me smile too.

“Our time is up for today, but there is something I want to give you,” she says as she pulls a book from her drawer. She slides it across the desk and I reach for it. Flipping through the pages, I notice they’re all blank and lift my gaze back to her, silently questioning why she’s giving me a blank notebook.

“It’s a journal,” she explains. “I think you’re doing amazing, Ally, and this journal will only help your healing process. I want you to use it to write the things you are too afraid to say. I want you to fill those pages with the things you discover about yourself as well as when you come to another conclusion of what’s happened to you or if you conjure up a new dream for yourself, I want you to write it down.

I think I like that idea. I won’t have to worry so much about judgmental eyes or looks of pity—I can write without restraint, allowing the ink to bleed onto the pages and tell all my truths. When all the pages are full and there is nothing left to tell, I’ll bury the book.

“After you’ve filled those pages you might want to publish your story,” she adds and I instantly shake my head.

Why would I publish something so heinous? To make people aware of the ugliness I suffered, no thank you. All they have to do is turn on the news and see how ugly the world is. They don’t need my story, a story the world forgot long before the cops ever closed the case on it.

“Thank you,” I say, tapping the cover of the book. “But I think this will be just for me.”

Once everything is written and spoken, the nightmare can be what finally fades away.

Not me.

I’ll be the girl who moved on.

The girl who survived.

The girl who allowed herself to dream again.

The girl who let those new dreams define who she became.

I’ll be her.

I tuck the journal under my arm and rise from my seat. Feeling weightless, I say goodbye to Dr. Spiegel and schedule my next appointment. When I reach the waiting room, I smile brightly at the little girl sitting on her mama’s lap.

“Ally!” Skylar calls, scrambling off Celeste’s lap. As I kneel down, she runs toward me and I wrap her up in my arms.

The world may be ugly but there are hidden gems all around.

Some are right in front of us.

Others are in our arms.