“I asked him to,” she admits and her voice cracks. “I just don’t remember why or what happened.”
“We’ll have a doctor come,” I tell her, petting her hair and noting that it’s clean. It’s been washed recently.
“Did he touch you?” I ask her, needing to know what Marcus did. It’s the only thought that comes to mind as I stare at the mattress on the floor.
With her disheveled blonde hair a matted mess down her back, she stares down at herself as if seeing her appearance for the first time. She shakes her head and answers in a tight voice, “He didn’t.” She’s quick to add with a hint of desperation, “I want to see a doctor.” “I need to know that I’m better.”
“Better?”
Her dull eyes lift to meet mine and a chill threatens to linger on my skin, the room getting colder every second we stay here. “He said he’d help me get better if I helped him.”
“What did you have to do?” Seth asks, but I cut her off before she can reply.
“We need to get out of here. Come with us,” I urge her, feeling a need to get out as quickly as we can. The longer we stay here, the more we talk in Marcus’s territory, the more tangled this problem will get.
I usher her to the door, reaching out for her, but she’s quick to jump back, smacking her body against the cinder block wall although she doesn’t seem to notice. She yells in the way a child does when they’re scared and they need an excuse to keep them from having to walk down a dark hallway. “Wait.”
Tears leak from the corners of her eyes and their path leaves a clean line down her mucky skin. “Is Bethany okay?” Her voice cracks and her expression crumbles as she holds herself tighter, but her eyes plead with me, wanting to know that everything’s all right. “Tell me Bethany’s okay… please?”
Bethany
To know something is one thing. It’s a piece of a thought, a fact, a quote. It stays in your head and that’s all it will ever be. A nonphysical moment in your mind.
But to see it – or to see someone – to feel them, smell them, hear them call out your name… There is no replacement for what it does to you. How it changes you. It’s not a piece of knowledge. That’s life. Making new memories and sharing them with others. There is no way to feel more alive than to do just that.
Than to hold your crying sister, collapsed in your arms as tightly as you can hold her as she cries your name over and over again.
As I breathe in her hair, the faint smell of dirt clings to her, but so do childhood memories and a desperate need to hold on to her. To never let her go again. In any sense of the word.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmurs, her breath warm in the crook of my neck as I hug her tighter to me, shaking my head. As if there’s no room for apologies.
I don’t want to tell her I’d given up. I don’t want to tell her what’s happened. I want to go back. Back to the very beginning and fight for her and never stop. If only time and memories worked like that.
“Are you okay?” I barely speak the question before a rustling behind her, toward the doorway to the guest bedroom catches my attention.
Jase is hovering, watching us and I wish he’d come in closer to hear. Jenny needs all the help she can get.
Jase clears his throat and speaks before Jenny can. “The doctor is on his way. She’s having some minor–”
“I can’t remember,” my sister cuts Jase off. My gaze moves from his to hers although she won’t look me in the eyes.
“I know I left, I know where I was, but the days… I don’t remember, Bethy.” Her shoulders hunch as her breathing becomes chaotic. The damage has been done. Whatever that damage may be.
“Hey, hey.” Keeping my voice as soft and even as I can, I grip her hand and wait for her eyes to meet mine. “It’s okay.” The words are whispered, but they’re true.
“You’re here now. You’re safe.” Jase’s voice is stronger, more confident and I thank the Lord for that.
“You remember me, and that’s all that matters,” I say without thinking. Instantly, I regret it.
“Mom didn’t remember us.” Jenny’s words are lifeless on her tongue.
Digging my teeth into my lower lip, I watch Jase stalk to the corner of the room and take a seat on the edge of the guest bed. The room is still devoid of anything but simple furniture and curtains. It’s exactly the same as it was when I was first here, only weeks ago.
It’s only been short of a month, and yet so much has changed in the strongest of ways.